Employee Recruitment Marketing – Is the Applicants Experience Supported or Disconnected?

 

Recruitment image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Employee recruitment marketing using current employees in providers and vendors comes and goes as a marketing recruitment tool. Carefully selected happy and long-term employees tout the culture, work environment, co-workers, etc., and why they have been there so long. It’s not uncommon to see comments about the mission-driven company and how everyone is treated with dignity and respect.

I know because I have created and executed in partnership with HR these types of campaigns. Not only do they attract qualified candidates, but it provides employees the opportunity to be an active brand ambassador of the provider or vendor. 

Then comes the job candidate’s experience, which may or may not reflect the marketing and brand claims. Best place to work awards, top company to work for, and other awards have people scratching their heads wondering what happened.

How you treat the job candidate is as important as what you say in the company materials you send them or state in your recruitment efforts. What you don’t do and say is as important in defining your workplace brand and culture as what you say.

The HR brand experience often does not meet the candidates’ expectations based on the communication of the next steps.

Future image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

The optics of following through on doing what you said you would is everything. What the candidate experiences from the interaction with the provider and vendor tells them more about the culture and work environment than you may care to admit.

Don’t tell the candidate what the next steps they can expect to take, then go silent with crickets chirping in response to their questions.

Don’t hide; follow through on your commitments.

While LinkedIn is a valuable tool, one common mistake after the second interview is that someone anonymously reviews the candidate’s profile but is left with someone from so and so the company viewed your profile.   Then suddenly, its crickets are chirping for the candidate.

Optics are everything.

Optics image by Jason Gillman for Pixabay

What message does the send to the candidate? That the company is secretive and looks behind employees’ backs? Is the brand message now that the company can’t be trusted? Could it even be that honesty and openness are corporate buzzwords only? Does the job candidate now experience incongruity between the optics of what takes place versus the workplace awards, brand materials, and the professed commitment to the treatment of employees?

We all know it’s a tough job market to find those candidates that will even apply for the position. When someone applies, whether it’s on their own or were approached by a corporate recruiter in HR on LinkedIn, don’t start something you may have no intention of completing.

The moral of the story becomes unless your commitment to the position candidate is executed in line with your employee marketing recruitment messages, think twice about what you’re doing to the company’s brand reputation.

Michael is a healthcare business, marketing, communications strategist, and thought leader. As an internationally followed healthcare strategy blogger, his blog, Healthcare Business & Marketing Matters, is read in 52 countries and ranked No. 3 on 100 Top Healthcare Marketing Blogs & Websites to follow by Feedspot.com. Michael is a Life Fellow American College of Healthcare Executives.  For inquiries regarding strategic consulting engagements, you can email me at michael@themichaeljgroup.com. 

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The opinions expressed are my own.