Job Brands

Although most Recruiting budgets are staying flat or decreasing in 2010, employment branding remains a priority at many organizations. In fact, about half of Recruiting executives anticipate increased budget for this activity.

Within your discussion of employee surveys, taglines, segment-specific messages, vendor selection, branding with social media, and the list goes on, there is one thing not to forget: job brands.

Most organizations undervalue job branding, but in doing so, they miss opportunities to improve new hire performance. Candidate awareness of the job brand (just awareness, not the quality of the job itself!) can increase his or her performance as a new hire by more than 10%. Compare this to the awareness of the organization brand, which can increase new hire performance by only about half as much. Basically, the more information candidates know about your jobs, the more informed decisions they can make about whether they would fit the role and enjoy the job.

Candidates learn about the job brand in job postings, the employment Web site, and conversations with individual recruiters or hiring managers. The job brand encompasses things like:

• Day-to-day experiences
• Type of person needed
• What is expected of a person in this role
• Type of work the person will be doing
• Skills and experiences needed

Note the last bullet: the job brand is not just the skills and qualifications of the person needed for the job. In fact, describing the day-to-day experiences and type of person needed drives new hire performance much more than listing required skills. Job postings should include more than the standard list of qualifications and responsibilities, and they should be written and presented in a way that is clear to someone outside of the organization.

Consider including some of the following in job postings or other places where candidates interact with your job brands:

• Stories of why new hires chose the job and organization
• Features of different types of employees in the job
• Profiles of typical supervisors and leadership
• An actual employee’s promotion timeline or include a sample training schedule
• Sample projects or project timelines
• Interests outside of work that employees in the job pursue

RR members, use the Job Posting Clarity Checklist to audit and improve job postings, then follow how new hire performance improves with the Recruiting Effectiveness Dashboard.

Recruiter Capabilities: Why Now?

As many of you know, we are neck-deep in researching solutions to a primary challenge for many Recruiting organizations this year: improving recruiter capabilities. What’s driving this challenge? Here’s what we’ve heard from Recruiting executives at various organizations, many of which are from Forbes’ Global 2000 list:

• Major changes to Recruiting structures and processes are leaving organizations in need of different recruiting team capabilities than those in place


• With many Recruiting teams smaller now, the expectations of each team member have increased or changed


• Business changes require a Recruiting organization that is consultative, rather than one that takes (potentially wrong) orders from individual hiring managers


• Innovations in social media have presented an opportunity to dramatically improve sourcing capabilities

Talking to almost any Recruiting organization makes it clear that recruiting systems and structures are intertwined with recruiter capabilities (which include their skills and behaviors). Recruiters can’t perform at their best without supportive structures, processes, and technology. Can the two issues—support and recruiter capabilities—be parsed out? We have done so through extensive surveying of Recruiting organizations. As you can see in the graph, systems and structures impact quality of hire by only 22%, but recruiter capabilities and management account for 78% of the impact on quality of hire.

What does this mean? Recruiters still need support to use their capabilities to their fullest, but if you can increase your recruiters’ raw ability to demonstrate key skills needed in your function in 2010, the returns on quality will be realized.

The Best Recruiters May Not Be "Relationship Builders"

Most Recruiting executives would agree, Recruiting draws many parallels with Sales. One of the most difficult challenges in the Sales world is increasing the effectiveness of salespeople. A high-performing salesperson can bring in revenue at levels of magnitude greater than the average salesperson, particularly when selling complex products.

Here in Recruiting, we want to increase effectiveness of our people, too. So, let’s learn from our counterparts in Sales.

The Integrated Sales Executive Council (iSEC) came out with a groundbreaking recommendation last year: Hire and mold salespeople to be “Challengers” rather than “Relationship-Builders.” A “Challenger” is 5 times more likely to be a high-performer than a “Relationship-Builder.”

What is the difference? Take a look at the five profiles together:

• The Hard Worker—always willing to go the extra mile. He is self motivated and does not give up easily. He seeks out feedback and tries to identify opportunities for improvement.


• The Challenger—the debater on the team. He has a deep understanding of the customer’s business and isn’t afraid to share his views, even if they are different. He is assertive in dealing with internal and external stakeholders, tending to push people out of their comfort zone.


• The Relationship Builder—focused on serving the customer. He is adept at building and nurturing customer relationships by being highly accessible to customers and responsive to their specific needs.


• The Lone Wolf—self-confident, follows his own instincts instead of the rules.


• The Problem Solver—detail oriented, reliable, and naturally drawn to solving client issues. He excels at handling the post-sale service issues that can harm a client relationship.

The link to Recruiting is apparent. Beyond pleasing hiring managers and taking orders, recruiters should challenge them; recruiters should have the knowledge and confidence to push back on hiring managers’ viewpoints and persuade them to take a different perspective. Beyond providing good candidate care and keeping candidates warm, recruiters should have a deep knowledge of candidates’ employment preferences and perceptions of the organization to challenge and change their opinion to accept an offer.

The result: Hiring managers willingly seeking advice from Recruiting, and top talent that accept your employment offers. The vast majority of Recruiting organizations aren’t there yet, but maybe adding “challenging” to your Recruiting vocabulary is a good start.