Its a Candidate Driven Market and Talent has won !

Talent Branding is a long term game .  Talent Branding is a specialised & complex role that cuts across 4 verticals - HR, Recruitment, Internal Communications, Marketing. Having delivered in this role both at IBM and WNS . I did a quick audit for Startups , while the Founders have got Funding and attention across Startup community , Product Startups needs to have visibility amongst the Right Talent Pool ( Engineering, Product, Business Development) which currently seems to be a gap area that needs to be filled in.  Talent Branding Score and Index seems to be low  , need to build it up to stand out from competition in the market . Careers Website doesnt exist. Where does the entire traffic get directed ? On Linkedin Career page visibility for People/ Culture is almost zilch. Culture needs to be highlighted through Digital ( owned media, paid media, earned media) . Need to find out if ATS ( Applicant Tracking System is in place, what kind of analytics, process, systems exist wrt HR/ HRTech to make People / Recruitment related business decisions and investments. What is the offer to acceptance ratio currently at Entry level, Lateral level and Leadership roles ? How soon Founders aspire to win award - Great Place to Work  ? Gone are the days when you post a job and expect talent to apply. Its candidate driven market and Talent needs to be wooed.    Employees are the Best Brand Ambassadors and Adovcates. That needs to be leveraged to optimum to attract future talent. 

Please write an email with your queries to  ruchibhatia23@gmail.com 

 

Employer Branding is the right choice to attract quality Top Talent, Social Hiring and achieve Business Goals

Image source: iStock.com

Employer Branding has gained prominence in last 4-5 years. Companies are realising that it is not enough to continue with old recruitment and hiring practices , if they were to hire best talent from the market . 

Each hire in a critical role is an investment for the organization.  Companies want to make sure that there are fewer hiring mistakes and they hire the right candidates which fit the culture of the organization and is a super star employee.  The buzzword for 2018 is Candidate Experience. Candidate experience is as important as Employee Experience. Many a times , passive candidates don’t apply to opportunities because of the time consuming application process. Linkedin offers an easy apply button and many companies Recruitment systems i.e. ATS ( Applicant Tracking Systems ) are integrated with LinkedIn. What it means for candidates is the ease of applying to companies with the click of a mouse, they can submit their cv in companies database. Linkedin easy apply is just one example of providing a seamless experience to potential candidates at the time of hiring. 

Employer branding is the process of promoting a company, or an organization, as the employer of choice to a desired target group, one which a company needs and wants to recruit and retain . 

Recruiters need to think and act like marketers to attract the best candidates. 

With the rise of different digital platforms , it is becoming increasingly difficult to choose how to advertise or market your jobs to potential candidates . Gone are the days , when candidates would apply to jobs without researching the company. Candidates research their potential employer on Glassdoor , read reviews, see ratings of Top Management as much as companies try to find about candidates.  Candidates want to know what it feels to work for your organization. What is the culture, what are the career and advancement opportunities, what kind of  learning does your company provide, what are the rewards for performers ,  what are the benefits and perks for working with your organization. In short, candidates assess their potential employers before applying for the jobs. Thats where lies the importance of employer branding. 

Companies rely on different source mix for diversity in hiring - example Career Sites , Employee Referrals, Job Boards, Social Media, sometimes external Recruitment agencies and Vendors. All these are potential options to reinforce your Branded messaging which is consistent as well as Authentic.

Employees stories make a really good option to indulge in Corporate Storytelling and showcase culture of your organisation. Stories of the employees when narrated in first person are much more appealing to external candidates than formal Corporate Brand message. 

Employees are adopting social media platforms , hence the Corporate Brand gets humanised. 

Effective employer branding is the combination of market research, advisory services, communications and marketing to achieve both a credible and desirable brand position. 

Finally, through talent acquisition and retention, the end purpose of employer branding is to stimulate business growth and achieve strategic business goals.

The art and science of Recruitment

Indeed Report on The Art and Science of Recruitment 

P.S - I am Ruchi, Founder of HRGurukul. And I help businesses achieve profits and productivity gains by being a Trusted Business Advisor and integrating People, Process, Technology. 

I offer training workshop "People to Profits " for  managers and employees of Startups and SMEs . In case , you would like a 30 min free consultation call, please do not hesitate to contact me. 

My coordinates - 

Email ruchibhatia23@gmail.com

Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruchibhatia23/ 

What is your strategy for Candidate Attraction and Hiring Talent ?

I met a Startup CEO few months ago and she agreed that most pressing challenge for her startup at high growth phase is finding and hiring the right people. Rightly so. 

People can make or break an organization. 

Then she asked - What do you do in Employer Branding ? 

Employer Branding is distinct from Recruitment Marketing. More often than not we use both these terms inter exchangeably. 

Employer Branding can’t be one person responsibility in an organization. So no one person owns Employer Brand. Employer Brand is how employer & employees communicate your Employer Value Proposition to the prospective candidates. 

The Employer Value Proposition (EVP) is the core of your employer brand that defines its positioning and strategic direction. An effective Employer Value Proposition should reflect the external demands, your competition, the internal reality and the strategic context of your company - Universum 

Employer Branding involves aspect of HR & Marketing and Communications  . Culture which is the key and binds different themes all together. 

Recruitment Marketing is all about candidate attraction and making your employer look good on social media . Now can you make your employer look good on glass door if managers treat your employees poorly ? Od course , No ! Thats where employer branding comes in . 

Employer Branding is about authentic storytelling. There could be as many platforms which employer can choose to leverage to indulge in storytelling. 

When employers go and do campus hiring, that’s when they are doing storytelling to tell stories about their brand and why a IIM Candidate should join their organisation compared to its competitor. 

Hiring for culture fit is of paramount importance because hiring for culture fit is a trend. Hiring for culture add is yet to be taken off, though some large and progressive companies who believe in value of diversity hire for culture add as well . 

Do you have a distinct EVP which separates you from rest of competition ? 

Are your hiring managers aligned to EVP ? 

EVP is like product which recruiters and hiring managers sell to prospective candidates . 

Is your hiring process free of conscious biases ? 

Is your hiring process timely ? 

Is offer to onboard ratio high ? 

What about Cost per hire ? Is it too high ? 

If not , then you might need to hire the services of Employer Branding Consultant to look at Hiring processes effectively , get the audit done, Coach your  recruitment teams and come up with better hiring strategies . 

if you are in charge of HR , Marketing, CEO of a Startup or SME, Should you need to get on a 30 min free Consultation call , please feel free to drop in a  mail to ruchibhatia23@gmail.com  or contact on twitter https://twitter.com/EmpBrandIndia.

My LinkedIn Profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruchibhatia23/

Look at the services offered by HRGurukul 

Employer Branding is a strategic role in Organisations

Employer Branding is a complex and hybrid role that cuts across HR, Marketing and Recruitment. That is why there are very few Employer Branding Consultants in India. 

Planning, developing and implementing Employer Branding strategy is not an easy task. This article has  defined 5 steps to follow when implementing Employer Branding strategy. 

You want to develop a Great Employer Brand for your company ? 
It begins with Employee Experience. If you do not provide good employee experience, you will have trouble retaining the talent that your recruitment team spend great efforts to hire from the Market. As Tony Heish CEO , Zappos says - Your culture is your Brand. 

However, At operational level, from Branding and Marketing perspective, there are several key tasks that Employer Branding role consist of but not limited to - 


1. Careers Website Redesign. Make sure your career website is easy to navigate, provide crucial information on the jobs and roles that you hire for your company, outlines career development model at your company,  inspiring career success stories of few employees in key roles, benefits and rewards for employees and awards that your company has won. Candidate experience starts with your website and application process to apply for jobs should not take more than few clicks.

2. Photo shoot of  employees to highlight Engaged  Employees as Brand Ambassadors 

3.   Facebook, Twitter , Linkedin - Own the Digital Assets , Populate Tw, Li, FB pages with interesting and relevant content for Job seekers. 

4.  Collaboration with Marketing is crucial since you would work closely with Marketing team to ensure Recruitment Marketing content is in alignment with Company's Branding Guidelines.

5. Content Marketing - Curation of Branded Content and Publishing on Social Media channels.
6. Content Creation  - There could be several themes such as Employees Stories , Day in the Life stories, Leader Inerviews, Leader blogs , Career stories , Women Leader, Diversity & inclusion stories

7. Branding campaigns - LifeatX , ProudofX, WomenatatX

8. Twitterchats with Company Leaders ( CEO , CHRO, Business Leaders, Recruitment Leaders)
9. Storytelling content , event pics, newsletter pics, employee engagement pics  

10 . Creation of EVP - Employer Value Proposition starts with Researching Employee Experience. EVP consists of 5 main blocks . And EVP for each organization is unique and differentiates the employer from the competition. 

11.  You would need Hootsuite License for Social Media Management and Social Analytics reports 

12. Glassdoor campaign to highlight  reviews by engaged empployees 

13 . Get  Recruiters buy in  for Social Media hiring and assign targets 


14. Linkedin training for recruiters on Social Sourcing and LinkedIn Recruitment 

15. Collaborate with Diversity and HR team for developing Women  community to  Build Women Talent Pipeline 

16. Set up Company  Careers Blog and share inspiring stories from Employees Engaged at workplace . 

17. Develop Branding Microsite on Job Boards - Naukri, Monster, IIMJobs. 

18. Working with Procurement teams to empanel vendors for Photoshoot, Video production for Recruitment purposes. 

19. Develop Candidate Persona and incorporate in Recruitment Marketing messaging to appeal and influence your target audience. You can now map journey of candidate right from the first touch point when he views the piece of recruitment content to the point where he decides to apply for your job and ultimately to final stage of hiring i.e. Selection and Onboarding. 

20 Define the channels and candidate touch points with a focus on Candidate experience 

If you need help of a Employer Branding consultant to reduce Cost of Hiring and Attract best talent from Market, please feel free to drop an email ruchibhatia23@gmail.com or call Ruchi Bhatia 9911112396. 

Ruchi Bhatia is a SHRM recognised Top 10 HR Expert  . In her last role, she worked as Employer Branding Leader with IBM. 

Why The Best Candidates Care About The Company's Culture

Why The Best Candidates Care About The Company's Culture

So why is the company’s culture so important while hiring employees? 

Because quality employment not only affects financial results (retention rates, higher productivity), it formulates the aroma of how your service or product is created and delivered.

The company’s culture expresses the organization's expectations, values and beliefs, and the way the organization interacts with both its employees and with people in the communities in which they operate.

You can get the high quality, cost-effective HR services and solutions from Sharp Group HRD Services that can enable you to be conspicuous of your Senior Leadership Team and Board of Directors as they look for bottom-line results. 

According to the research done by Personnel Psychology, the best performers are 400 percent more productive than average performers. If your company wants to recruit and hire the best Candidate, understand what they want and what they need most from their employers. Fortunately, the answer is not just a generous payment.

Understanding what kind of company culture do you prefer the best, you can find out which elements of your culture are the most important for highlighting and promoting. 

The company’s culture is very important for employees with high requirements because they know that many employers can meet their remuneration requirements, but only those with an attractive work environment and focus on employees will be at the top of the list.

Here are 5 features that the best talent in the company’s culture is looking for:

Corporate culture focuses on both HR and business leaders, especially for organizations fighting for the highest or rare talent.

Autonomy

First of all, leading talent does not want or does not need micro-management in the workplace. The researchers explain the best performers are motivated, they can make their own decisions and initiate new tasks and challenges by themselves. For this reason, they prefer an autonomous work culture in which they have the freedom and versatility to complete their work at their own choice. While average performers may exploit these privileges, the best talents use them strategically and efficiently to get a better job.

Possibilities of growth

The best performers have an innate desire to learn and develop, which means they want career opportunities. In the Hewitt Associates Talent Pulse study from 2007; one of the best-performing students explained: "I'm a success-oriented person and I have to feel like I'm getting better, moving up and developing. As a result, they choose employers offering training programs and career opportunities that help them grow professionally and personally.

Transparency

The best performers are very goal-oriented; they drive in a direction that leads them to the future they want. As a result, people with high scores want their employers to be transparent so that they can make informed decisions about their careers, according to Talent Management. 

They want to work for an employer who tells employees how the company works and where the company is going. They also expect their employer to provide information on eligibility and promotion schedule, bonuses and increases. Therefore, they are looking for honest and open employers.

A good company culture is a mechanism for the raising of people in a competitive job market

Feedback

Because they are always looking for ways to improve, the best Candidates expect information from their manager. The Harvard Business Review report shows that 50 percent of high-score people say they expect to sit with managers monthly, but only 53 percent report that their managers provide them with the opinions they need. When the best performers do not receive constructive criticism, they become less motivated and devoted to the organization. Offering accurate feedback can make the greatest talents a challenge and grow, and consequently - happy and committed.

Challenges

Nobody likes hard work more than the best performers. As the company Competitive Streak explains, leading talents are constantly looking for ways to push the limits of their experiences and skills, especially at work. And according to Talent Management, a likes-quality person likes to undertake projects at work that require critical and creative thinking. Therefore, the best talents prefer the company’s culture in which employees are expected to work hard and develop on a daily basis. They want to be in the winning team, where their team members challenge them and teach them new things. When the best professionals are in an intellectually stimulating work environment, they do the best they can and experience optimal work performance.

The most qualified and talented Candidates for work will not be satisfied with any work, because they do not have to. The best Candidates have a choice, so they will thoroughly consider their career opportunities before applying to your positions. If you want to attract the best talent, think about how your company provides an environment that supports triggers and encourages high results to reach a new level of excellence. 

Then share these facts on your career site and during interviews - especially when hiring the best employees. When you explain how your company’s culture meets their needs, the best talents will accept and accept your offer.

5 ways you can strengthen the company's culture

Good company culture can be a mechanism for attracting the right people and keeping employees even in a competitive labor market.

One of the most visible, but often overlooked ways to strengthen the company’s culture is to invite employees to talk. In this sense, efforts to strengthen culture become obvious, but they also become integrative and two-way, not just top-down, which is usually more attractive to employees and effective in the long run.

The company’s culture is focused on both HR and business leaders, especially for organizations applying for the highest or rare talent

These five ways HR can strengthen the company’s culture to attract talent:

1. STRENGTHEN your current culture: 

Find and solve corporate culture problems that are important to current employees. Motivated employees are the best brand ambassadors.

2. Be consistent: 

Develop a language that consistently represents the workplace's environment and is consistently used in recruitment initiatives and materials.

3. Be suitable: 

Find out which channels your potential employees are using to find a job and be located in these locations, providing easily accessible information and resources.

4. Be mobile: 

Here the word "mobility" is from the point of view of technology. Organizations whose communication skills have the ability to adapt to mobile devices have an advantage over those who do not.

5. Be honest: 

Candidates have access to more "internal" information than ever before and are often well prepared with questions and insight. Potential employees greatly appreciate the honesty of the "reality" of the workplace, thanks to which they can make an informed decision.

5 ways you can support a strong corporate culture

The purpose of including employees in the discussion on corporate culture is to determine what is most important for the majority of employees and specific segments of the workforce. The cultural positioning of the organization must take into account diversity in the workplace.

Here are five ways in which leaders and HR specialists can support a strong corporate culture.

1. Provide opportunities for professional development and training.
2. Create and cultivate an innovation-friendly culture in which employees feel that their ideas will be heard and will work.
3. Make sure your company offers an attractive, competitive salary and other benefits.
4. Provide a friendly work environment and tools that will help employees to do their job effectively.
5. Offer a wide range of recognition, rewards and career opportunities.

A good culture addresses and enhances the experience of employees in the workplace in a way that creates a motivated workforce that is well prepared to achieve both strategic corporate goals and personal career goals. Good culture also informs the wider community about the way it will work together and what you can expect from the organization to provide community support.

Why you should have a Specified company culture?

“A company’s culture can embrace everything from working and working hours, work-life balance, team-oriented approach to decision-making, and what physical space is in a company,” Says Paul McDonald, executive director of Robert Half at Menlo Park, California. 

An attractive office environment, for example, suggests that the company cares about its employees and wants them to be comfortable and well-equipped.

"Good HR activists and business leaders should sit down and discuss the company's culture,"

If they are not yet, they should start doing this. They should make the company’s culture a priority because it makes their company a welcome place to work. It increases productivity, recruitment and maintenance efforts.

Note to the Employer:

Moreover, employing talents that are not consistent with the culture of your company causes personal conflicts within the employee that will undoubtedly affect their work and the people they work with.

It is your responsibility as an employer to ensure your employee's success and to make sure that their values and work ethic are in line with your culture before expanding the offer, is the first thing you can do for them and for the rest of the staff.

Conclusion:

The best Candidates have a choice, so they will carefully consider their career options before applying to your positions. If you want to attract the best talent, think about how your company provides an environment that supports triggers and encourages high results to reach a new level of excellence. 

Consider whether a prospective employee can visit the office or meet with current employees to find out if they fit your company's culture. These simple ideas can be key distinguishing features for a highly sought after Candidate making a career decision. In addition, says McDonald, it should be remembered that people want to be employed where they like to work and even give back to the surrounding community. Philanthropic aspirations, such as volunteering in the local soup kitchen, are part of a socially responsible company.

Moreover, Sharp HRD Service deliver high quality, cost-effective HR services, and solutions after going through your company’s business model and your department policies.

Discussion with JobViddy CEO on Employer Branding, Talent Acquisition, Candidate Experience

Recruitment is Adapting to the Social Environment

There’s no doubt about it – social is the talk of the town. Almost every business, industry, and company is trying to tap into the opportunities that the explosion in social media provides. And almost all the leaders across IBM are telling their teams to get on the social media train.

Leveraging social media has become imperative for companies to engage with customers, employees and business partners. Marketing & Communications department has been the first to jump on the bandwagon to engage in two-way communication models to reach out to customers and increase sales. In the age of information overload, attention becomes the currency and branding acquires center stage.

Can HR remain impervious to this excellent opportunity?

Definitely not. After all, HR is all about people – attracting, engaging and retaining talent. And with social being one of the fastest and most dynamic ways to connect and interact with the workforce today, we see the rise of HR job roles that has components of social elements embedded to it.

Recruitment is taking the lead in harnessing the power of social media to attract and engage prospective candidates. With the responsibility of telling the outside world about the strengths of our culture, employer brand, and getting a targeted set of qualified talent interested in working for us – IBM has fully embraced the concept of Social Recruiting.

What is Social Recruiting and why is it relevant to IBM?

Social recruiting revolutionizes the recruitment experience for both candidates and hiring managers. IBM has transformed  its social media strategies to make recruiting processes more transparent and to tap into and engage with the talent pools.

In the process, we talk about how to enhance the IBM employer brand on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. - to advertise jobs, showcase our company culture and provide a glimpse to candidates about the working environment, growth, learning, career and development opportunities.

But social recruiting is so much more than that. It’s also about tracking and analyzing all the available data to know where the hard-to-find qualified talent is hiding, what he/she is doing, what he/she is up to; monitoring workforce trends to know how our candidates are moving and what would make them interested in us. It’s about allowing our candidates access not just to our brand, but to our recruiters as well; it’s making our recruitment process more real-time and transparent so they know what to expect from us.

In other words, social recruiting is about connecting with our market in a dynamic and relevant manner that will make the best candidates want us even before we need them; getting the word out about the brand and our opportunities; and gathering all the data back in and putting it together to make the best, most informed decision to keep our pipeline, and our company, growing.

How does IBM do Social Recruiting?

IBM’s online recruiting has come a long way from the days of posting job ads and praying the right candidate will see it and think it’s interesting. In the recent months, we have moved from the static online advertising to an integrated and social form of interacting with our mostly passive market. Our transformation capitalizes on the strength and reach of social networks that are necessary to attract a talented and diverse workforce.

Using the five key dimensions of social recruiting, we have deployed a recruitment strategy which provides integration, optimization, interaction and collaboration.

1. Career Destination Sites – Establish our online presence through sites that not only talk about IBM’s employer brand, and keep our market informed of the latest news and interesting stories about the company and the industry, but also post career opportunities and our ability to make it easy for them to apply using their ready online profiles.
2. Community Management – Build relationships with our target talent pool, and keep them interested and connected with our brand via engaging them in live and active conversations.
3. Advertising – Actively drive and advertise our jobs to the market for active jobseekers because, after all, if we do a great job with our brand building, we will turn them into active and eager candidates.
4. Sourcing Talent – Create tools that allow us to reach our target market, including passive job seekers, and to generate leads of qualified talent
5. Referrals – Turn employees and applicants into referrers using social media tools. One example of this is the use of the widely successful social referral tool, a tool that allows us to harness the power of our strong workforce to talk about our brand through social channels, and expand our network.

In order to stay up to speed, we are quickly adapting all these dimensions to a mobile environment.

With all the analytics available across these five dimensions, we are finding out that there is so much more to be done, and so much more to learn. The whole social landscape is just so dynamic and is continuously evolving. But as we continue to explore and analyze the ever changing dynamics of social media, and as we move forward with the integration of tools provided by Kenexa, and we can only expect better things to come.

Authored by: Ruchi Bhatia and Cheryl Ann