Brett Minchington argues that employers should see themselves as brands when hiring. The chief executive of Employer Brand International, a research and advisory firm, shares tips with recruiters ahead of a planned visit to Hult International Business School in Dubai this month.
Q Why compare employers to brands?
Brand management can be traced back to the early 1920s, from when Procter & Gamble said "we need a different strategy for each of our products." Traditionally, they put all the products under one banner. What happens in organisations [today], whether it makes sense or not, you tend to have a market that has corporate branding and consumer branding initiatives. Human resources is responsible for employer branding initiatives.
Where should employers start their search to find the right talent for their company?
They need to identify what their distinctive assets are as an employer. What are people identifying the organisation for? When we look at Google, they're renowned for employee benefits and their physical working environment. If we look at an unknown brand, they need to identify what their distinctive assets are; that's usually done internally with employees and externally [by] communicating with their target audience.
How do employers do this internally?
Look at your existing workforce. Where have they come from? Strategically, they're saying "where do we need to find engineers from?" They need to do some market research to understand, one, where those types of roles are in different parts of the world, or locally,and, two, what are those people looking for in an employment experience?
What should human resources focus their interview on, once they have shortlisted a candidate?
If a company has a good sourcing strategy, they know the quality of people coming in for interviews. The whole interview is really about understanding cultural fit for the process. Some companies do quirky things. For me, I think you do have a minimum of two interviews for anything above a middle-management role. If it's a high-volume or retail role, group interviews are good. Some [candidates] have been through six to eight rounds over six months, and … that strategy doesn't work.
Some people come across as great candidates during interviews but flop on the job. How do recruiters avoid this scenario?
The candidates have to be able to provide feedback [to indicate] if the role fits. [Recruiters] make decisions quickly on how they feel; have a structured process around the performance of this new hire, and that is probably going to provide some good indication.
Any tips on cutting costs for finding talent?
Companies have to get more connected. Some companies are very good at that. They get 60 to 70 per cent of their hires through referrals. The amount of money they're saving through that process [is considerable]; that requires a strategy.
* Neil Parmar
