Why Your Recruitment Efforts Are Damaging Your Brand And What You Can Do To Correct It
A company’s brand and recruitment efforts are intrinsically linked to one another. Recruitment campaigns are effectively marketing campaigns aimed at potential employees. This audience represents a valuable stakeholder who will develop strong impressions of your company’s brand during the recruitment process. In some cases the candidate is an existing or future customer of your company’s products and services, which means they can have strong influence through word-of-mouth. Making sure that your recruitment efforts create positive experiences with job candidates is part of a healthy recruitment strategy and company brand.
TECHNOLOGY CREATES BRAND TRANSPARENCY
Technology has created an increased awareness among candidates about an employer’s brand. This has made hiring a tough job for recruiters. Employee reviews on Glassdoor, Indeed and Google give candidates insight on employee brand experiences both positive and negative. Social networking platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook give candidates a chance to reach out to someone in their network to trade opinions on a current or past employer. This increased transparency has given companies all the reason to create positive experiences with candidates during recruitment efforts.
YOUR COMPANY’S BRAND IS EVIDENT DURING EVERY PHASE OF RECRUITMENT
Branding is your identity and it is evident at every phase of recruitment. Branding promotes recognition and distinguishes you. It is present in your recruitment ad, your email communications, your website, your LinkedIn profile, the signage in front of your building when the candidate arrives for their first interview – it is married to your recruitment process. This makes your recruitment a major touchpoint of your brand. This means you must manage the process carefully in order to protect your brand’s reputation.
SHORING UP YOUR RECRUITMENT PROCESS AND PROTECTING YOUR BRAND
The following are ways that your company’s recruitment efforts may be damaging your company’s brand and what you should be doing to correct it:
1. Your Job Application Process is not Mobile Friendly
According to a study on Glassdoor, 89% of job seekers say their mobile device is an important tool for job searching and 45% use it to search for jobs at least once a day.
Some companies are still hanging on to outdated recruitment systems that require a traditional device like a laptop to access. Companies without mobile friendly systems run the risk of damaging their company’s brand. Not only does the lack of user-friendliness frustrate applicants during a major moment of interaction with a company’s brand, it also creates a major obstacle in recruitment efforts, as nearly half of potential applicants are not being addressed with their chosen form of
technology.
Solution
Adopt a mobile-enabled application system
The key to creating positive first impressions with your brand, as well as hiring the right talent, means utilizing technology that not only increases the potential applicants but also reduces frustration among applicants. Frustration should never be an emotion that anyone experiences with your brand. Therefore you must have an application system in place that is mobile friendly. Furthermore, the impression that you will be giving off once you adopt mobile standards in your application system is that you understand your potential employees by addressing their technological needs. This is a win for your brand.
2. Lengthy Job Applications
According to CareerBuilder, 60 percent of job seekers quit in the middle of filling out online job applications because of their length or complexity.
Application fatigue among applicants is a very real problem that some recruiters are creating for their company’s recruitment brand. Some firms have created such lengthy application processes, which cause applicants to throw in the towel long before completing the application. When a company chooses lengthy processes over short and easy processes, it’s creating frustration with users while reducing the number of qualified applicants.
Solution
Shorten Your Application to just a few clicks
Instead of having applicants visit your website and create a lengthy profile in your system, send them to a landing page that is designed to be just a few clicks for the applicant. Many popular job posting sites (e.g. Indeed.com) offer a shortened application form, where the applicant is only required to upload their resume with a few pertinent details. These forms can often be set up to handshake with your applicant tracking system. If you must rigorously vet applicants due to regulations in your industry, try adding these requirements in an additional step. Streamlined and shortened applications will boost your brand appeal with applicants.
3. Black Hole Applicant Tracking Systems
Over 98% of Fortune 500 Companies Use Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)
One of the goals of an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is to automate some of the repetitive tasks associated with recruitment. A filter can be added to an ATS to separate out resumes that are not relevant for the position being filled. Although this can have time saving benefits, some drawbacks from these systems can be damaging to your brand. Because tracking systems only look for resumes that meet the exact requirements of the position, borderline candidates or those switching careers or those that didn’t write their resume exactly like the job description will be at a disadvantage. The resumes that you are left with will be from a very limited job seeker audience. This often is a causation of a black hole application system. Qualified candidates are not being identified in the process. Having a system that is so automated that is overlooks quality candidates can be most damaging to your brand and recruitment efforts as perfectly good resumes of candidates are rejected for unnecessary reasons.
Solution
Have a human read and review the resumes of all applicants
The key to creating a healthy brand for your company through a major brand touch-point, your recruiting efforts, means not automating tasks so much so that you develop a reputation as a black hole application system company. Instead employ people to read and review resumes which will add a very important personal and human element to your process that allows you to see candidate potential beyond what an automated system can detect. Don’t develop a reputation as a place where candidates’ resumes go to die! Place the human element back into your human resource department.
Conclusion
A company’s brand and recruitment efforts are married to one another. Making sure that your recruitment efforts create positive experiences with job candidates is part of a healthy recruitment strategy and company brand. Companies that don’t move with the times by not having social media strategies in place or mobile friendly recruitment systems run the risk of losing out on quality candidates. Those that rely too heavily on technology, such as Applicant Tracking Systems, also run the risk of losing candidates by creating a black hole in their recruitment processes. Additionally, companies with long application processes can create application fatigue and abandonment.
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This article is an excerpt taken from the eBook: Why Your Recruitment Efforts Are Damaging Your Brand And What You Can Do To Correct It. Make sure to download your FREE copy today.
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Levon Guiragossian is principal marketing consultant and founder of The Holy Grail of Marketing, a consulting firm specializing in helping recruitment agencies and human resource department with their branding needs.
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