Is Employment Branding Relevant in the Era of Web 2.0?

Web user-generated content has changed the world of employment branding. People are saying things about our organizations for millions of Internet surfers to see, which can undermine a finely-crafted “formal” employment brand.

But before we throw up our hands and wave goodbye to our past and future branding efforts, consider this: how credible are these online strangers to potential candidates? Here at the Roundtable, we’ve done a lot of research about what information sources people trust when learning about employment at another organization. Not surprisingly, current and former employees, friends and family, and the organization Web site top the list of the most credible sources. Potential candidates are always looking for the source that can give the most genuine information.

With that in mind, user-generated content hasn’t made formal employment branding less relevant. Rather, it has changed the way we should go about it, primarily:

• Be Genuine: Make sure your formal employment brand (as seen on your employment Web site) is genuine. If potential candidates don’t see you admit to any weaknesses, your credibility drops in favor of more “truthful” online comments.
• Formalize Your Brand: If you haven’t developed a formal employment brand, do so. Web users are creating an ad-hoc version of your brand as we speak, when many of your potential candidates would rather hear it from you.
• Create Your Own Presence: A good way to counter less credible comments is by creating an official blog or social networking group where you can deliver your brand messages. Giving Web goers an official destination to find out more about your organization satiates their desire for more information and gives you a channel to dispel any negative comments online.
• Equip Your Employees: Make sure your referral program encourages employees to advocate your employment brand to friends and family (Roundtable members only)
• Focus Monitoring Efforts: You can’t fight them all. Focus your monitoring efforts on sites where your current and former employees can talk about you en masse, only visiting other sites to spot notable trends.

Creative Way of Deferring Hires from Law Firms

Similar to many of us, business for most law firms is down, with a 2% drop in employment between August 08 and August 09. Less work for the firms translate into fewer (if any) positions to offer new law school grads, leaving many firms trying to figure out what to do with the grads they would like to hire but can’t. Many of us know this well as we’re turning away quality graduate and MBA hires because there are no positions available. And like us, law firms spend a considerable amount of time and money attracting these candidates—they often have an extensive interview process and bring them in as interns. With no positions to offer them upon graduation, time and money spent is as just as good down the drain.

While some firms are rescinding job offers entirely, others are turning to a more creative solution—paid nonprofit internships. Firms are paying new associates a yearly stipend to work with a nonprofit for a year. The firms benefit by keeping desired associates at a reduced cost while boasting their charitable contributions and associates gain valuable experience in the process. Nonprofits are jumping at the opportunity to participate, particularly at a time when many can’t afford to hire the legal help that they need.

If you are missing out on quality candidates, explore possible paid options in the nonprofit sector to develop hires or suggest to candidates what types of specific volunteer opportunities would bolster their resume for future jobs at your organization or in your field. While paid nonprofit internships might not work for all organizations trying to hold onto college grads they can’t hire at the moment, the example set by law firms does show us that there are other options besides just rescinding offers.

Diversity Recruiting--Don't Start with Sourcing

The subject of diversity recruiting (however “diversity” is defined) is coming up more often in my conversations with recruiting executives. The timing appears to be right: there is greater choice in the labor market, a larger variety of individuals coming through educational institutions, and less requisitions overworking the Recruiting team. It’s a pretty common conclusion—build diversity representation now to get on our way to becoming a “great place to work” for diversity hires.

The hard part about diversity recruiting, though, is that it’s not completely within the control of Recruiting. To encourage diverse people to join, you have to provide evidence that they will feel comfortable within your organization. In other words, senior executives need to support diversity initiatives to promote a welcoming environment for diverse hires. Similarly, to make sure your diversity recruiting isn’t just re-recruiting for those diverse hires who have left, you need to engage and retain diverse hires. In other words, HR needs to support diversity engagement and retention efforts to ensure Recruiting’s work is not undone.

In short, diversity recruiting is just one part of a “virtuous cycle” of diversity within your organization. Don’t kick off your diversity recruiting initiative by identifying the best sourcing channels or recruiter targets. This narrow approach will turn the diversity cycle into a vicious one—diverse candidates won’t accept offers as frequently, and those that accept offers will have a high likelihood of leaving. Start it instead with some good conversations with senior executives and HR.

Three Reasons Hiring Won’t Pick Up Anytime Soon

Most economists expect GDP numbers, due out next week; to report the economy grew in third quarter of this year. Despite the forecasted growth in the overall economy and improved profit outlooks, many organizations are holding off on hiring. Why hold off on hiring if the economy is recovering?

Several reasons are contributing to lower hiring expectations:

• A lot of companies, and economist for that matter, have doubts that the recent upturn is sustainable. Analysts suspect the growth in third quarter may be a response to companies restocking from super low inventories and government stimulus spending, rather than a signal that the recession is actually over. Continued economic uncertainty is driving many businesses to proceed with caution while they wait to see how economic recovery pans out.
• Having gone through huge staff reductions, organizations have learned to do more with less—in the second quarter of this year, productivity (output per hour of work) actually grew at an annual rate of 6.6%. Out of necessity organizations have become more efficient in their use of labor, making it possible for them to put off hiring for longer.
• In the US, there are quiet a few large legislation pieces that could significantly impact costs. The potential impact of things like health care reform, environmental regulations, and a tax credit for hiring could have big impacts on business strategies and costs. For example, if the government doesn’t act fast on making a decision about the hiring tax incentives, organizations may hold out to hire waiting unnecessarily for these benefits. Many organizations are waiting to see how regulatory legislation may impact their business before they add large numbers of workers to their payrolls.

For these, and many other reasons, hiring will probably remain low until the economy really starts to pick up again. Recruiters and job seekers will have to continue operating in a weak labor market and deal with all the opportunities and challenges it presents.

Rural Job Portals in India

Rural India has recently experienced a huge growth in online job portals: Monster India announced a partnership with ITC (tobacco and consumer goods company) to launch rozgarduniya.com (employment world in Hindu), and several other sites, including chaakri.in and villagenaukri.com have recently launched as well. In many cases, these sites go beyond serving as job boards by offering training and skills assessment to rural job candidates in an effort to fill jobs in urban India with lower cost labor and alleviating rural unemployment.

The jury is still out on how successful these sites will be moving forward, but if the investment is any indicator, these sites may be very successful in relocating Indian labor from the countryside to the cities.

adidas' New, Interactive Careers Web Site

adidas recently introduced their new careers Web site, one of the more refreshing ones I've seen that tacks on interactive and engaging components to typically "flat" career sites.

When you first arrive on their site, star athletes welcome you to their Careers home page via automatically streaming videos. Notice that each of their different brands showcases a different athlete. Then, click deeper into one of the business groups within these brands, and a real employee talks to you about their day-to-day work and experiences—all tailored for that particular business within a specific adidas brand.

If I were one of adidas’s candidates, my impression would be:
1. Hey, it looks like adidas cares about me as a job candidate by creating this cool Web site—I like that.
2. I guess I'll spend a bit more time playing around on the site to learn more about what they do and what life is like as an adidas employee.
3. Do my skill sets match one of these described by the employees? Let me check out what positions and open jobs are available.

Many job candidates’ first impression or interaction with your organization is on your careers Web site, so make sure your site is compelling, engaging, and informative—all ingredients of a positive candidate experience. To target more specific candidates types, consider creating a micro-site (members only).

Looking Ahead- New Skills Sets and New Jobs Post Recession

The U.S. has lost 7.2 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007—and the economy needs to add at least 100,000 jobs per month just to keep up with labor market growth. So, for unemployment to drop (or at least stop rising), we obviously need more jobs to be created—which seems likely as the economy starts to recover.

The question is, where are the new jobs going to come from and what types of jobs are there going to be? There is bad news and good news.

The bad news is that many jobs that have been lost in the downturn have been lost for good—for example, some of the jobs in real estate and finance. And, the people who used to hold these jobs will have to look elsewhere for work.

But the first piece of good news is that the demand-supply misalignment could present opportunities for you to fill hard-to-fill positions with job seekers from other job sectors. Take a close look at some of your critical positions. Are they closely related to job sectors that have been hard hit by the recession? If so, consider how you could cost-effectively train or up skill workers from these fading sectors to meet the skill sets requirements of your critical positions.

The second piece of good news is that certain sectors of the economy are going to experience more job growth than others. For instance, the economic stimulus package has added more green jobs and hiring in these areas will pick up over the next several years. Are any of these sectors areas you hire from? If so, start planning your recruiting strategies now to make sure you aren’t caught in a talent shortage in the future once hiring picks up again.

The economy has presented new, different opportunities for us, and it’s important to evaluate how you can adapt to these changes, rather than continue business as usual.

Bookmark These Employment Web Sites

Your employment Web site is being visited now more than ever. Consider taking a look at the following progressive features that may not have made headlines, but can help improve a candidate’s experience on your site and personalize your employment brand:

• Themed employee profiles—Employee profiles are great for sharing your EVP, but few people want to watch or read all of them. Novo Nordisk does a good job of categorizing the themes presented in its extensive list of employee profiles, allowing users to quickly find information on topics of interest to them.
• Employee personality traits—How can your site quickly convey your employment brand? A: Through an interactive exercise that concisely describes “what’s interesting” about your employees. Clicking on the personality traits on T-Mobile’s homepage is entertaining and leaves a memorable impression of its employees (refresh the page to find new employees).
• “How we do it”—Day-in-the-life videos are becoming commonplace. Electronic Arts gives potential candidates a sense of the day-to-day work with narratives that describe how typical projects get done. Nothing flashy, but useful to someone outside the organization looking in.