Women & Leadership Australia eNewsletter

May 2010

Becoming an Employer of Choice: Marketing your attractiveness

It’s one thing to build a great place for potential employees to work. But if you fail to communicate that message clearly and singularly to the marketplace, you’re underselling yourself.

The key to Employer of Choice branding is in developing a strong message that reflects the ideas and values of the entire organisation and its preferred recruitment candidates, and then consistently communicating that message throughout all channels – internally and externally (Robert Half, 2007).

Finding ways of getting the good word out there need not cost a cent. In fact, some of the best avenues available are totally free. You can utilise your own communication channels – the ones you’ve already invested in.

With changing employee demographics, younger job seekers are becoming a lot more pro-active in how they investigate potential places of employment. In fact, it’s becoming increasingly the case that Gen Y people effectively profile and interview the organisation as much as the reverse is true.

Research shows that the following communication channels are increasingly scrutinised by potential employees, so make the most of them:

• Your web presence: Ensure your ‘About us’ section contains a comprehensive overview of the benefits – both tangible and intangible – to potential employees.
• Publicise successes: Everyone loves a good news story. Use your PR and comms departments to put out the good word on everything from the benefits of team-building exercises to innovative wellbeing policies.
• Your annual report: Many organisations fail to see this as anything more than a statutory obligation to report on P/L margins and so forth. Don’t just report the business bottom line; use the annual report as an opportunity to engage all stakeholders, particularly the employee base.
• Job ads: Never lose sight of the fact that for most potential employees, this will be their first impression of your organisation. Sounding professional and established is easy: letting people know that your workplace is a great place to work involves a little creativity.

Case study: Hiring for culture fit

• Company: Seek Limited (www.seek.com.au)
• Business model: Seek Limited is an Australian employment website
• Founding principle: Commitment to hiring employees according to culture fit

As a market leader in online job advertisements, Seek has a distinct culture and strongly believes in ‘hire for attitude, train for skill’.

They have built in an intensive hiring process to ensure that the right people are hired and that they fit into the culture.

During the hiring process, the potential recruit can expect to go through between 5-6 interviews, psychometric testing and behavioural interviewing.

Seek is a team-based culture, so as the potential recruit goes through those processes, interviews are held with employees ranging from the hiring manager to a direct report to a peer. This also ensures that everyone is involved in the hiring process.

The result: a cultural fit between Seek and the new recruit that allows the new employee to feel comfortable in the business straight away.

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