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The Transformative Power of Talent Brand

by LinkedIn Talent Solutions on Feb 19, 2013

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Good morning! I’m Steve Watt, and I’m on LinkedIn’s global marketing team. I’m very fortunate to be part of a global organization with people in more than 20 countries, working with with thousands of companies around the world. These companies range from small, local players all the way to some of the world’s largest multinationals, and they cover an incredible range of industries. While there are huge differences across this diverse range of organizations, there are also some things very much in common. One is the recognition of the tremendous, and increasing, importance of talent. Attracting top talent. Retaining top talent. Keeping top talent engaged in moving the business forward. Talent acquisition is a key driver of organizational success, and the visibility and strategic importance of this function is increasing every day.Another thing we see cutting across geography, industry, and organization size is the growing importance of employer brand. Brand has been on our industry’s radar and in our vocabulary for a long time now, but in recent years we’re really seeing it begin to rise to the forefront. Brand is powerful. Brand is game changing. Brand is what we’re here to focus on today.
As we see these logos appear on the screen, many of you are experiencing a strong emotional reaction to some or all of these brands. Not necessarily a positive reaction to all of them. Perhaps even a negative reaction to one or two of them, but that’s okay, it just probably means that you’re not in their target market. After all, there’s very little overlap between the target market for BMW and Harley-Davidson.
What does this power emotional reaction allow these brands to do? Take a look at some of their advertising.They aren’t talking about product specifications…They aren’t talking about features and benefits…They certainly aren’t talking about price… in fact all of these brands command a considerable premium in the marketplace.
What they’re really talking about is YOU. About how it feels to own and use these products. About how it feels to be affiliated with these brands.It’s about identity.They’ve put themselves in a whole different league. They’ve lifted themselves above the fray.
What if you could do that with your brand?Not your consumer brand… your employer brand.What if people, the right people, felt about working for your company the way they feel about these brands?What if you could build a community of fans who identify with your company. With what you stand for. With what sets you apart?What if you could tap into this community to hire the very best talent more quickly and less expensively?What if you didn’t have to compete nearly as much on compensation and other tangible factors because people truly crave the opportunity to be a part of your organization?What would that mean to your organization? What would it mean to your team? What would it mean to you?
Now hang on a minute you may say. These are multi-billion dollar global brands. My company is nothing like them. This isn’t a fair comparison.It’s true that they are multi-billion dollar global brands, but the beauty of employer brand is you don’t need everybody to know your name. Only the right people.We’re going to show you how you can tap into the power of brand to fundamentally improve your recruiting outcomes. To power your success now and for years to come.
The core message today is this:Brand is vital. Getting brand right fundamentally strengthens your ability to hire the best, quickly and cost effectively. It’s a true game changer. It’s a powerful, sustainable competitive advantage. Brand is for every organization. Every organization, regardless of size; regardless of industry; regardless of location, can and must harness the power of employer brand. This is absolutely NOT just for big companies; for rich companies; for sexy industries… this is for every organization. In fact, it’s particularly vital for smaller organizations who compete for talent against larger, better known companies.The time is now. Social media is leveling the playing field and enabling organizations to harness the power of brand like never before. No longer do you need a big advertising budget to get the word out. We are in a very different time now, and the opportunities are HUGE for those who understand them and act on them.We’re going to come back to this slide toward the end of this morning’s session and I want you to tell me if these three points have landed. These are the big takeaways today, and everything we are going to talk about ties back to these key points.
Let me be very clear. There is a strong business case here. There is a strong ROI story here. This is not “marketing for marketing’s sake” or any sort of vanity exercise.
Organizations with a strong employer brand have a cost per hire 50% lower than companies with a weak employer brand. Fifty percent. That’s huge! It makes sense too, doesn’t it? If the right talent sees your organization as a highly desirable place to be, you’re well on your way before you get started filling any individual role.And it’s not just on the acquisition side. It’s retention too. Companies with a strong employer brand have substantially higher retention rates. People want to be there. They are proud to be there. They are engaged. We’re going to talk a lot more about how this works as we move through today’s talk.
The importance of brand isn’t news to the vast majority of you. In fact, when we survey talent acquisition leaders around the world, the importance of brand is crystal clear. 83% tell us that brand has a significant impact on their ability to hire great talent. 83%.You know this is vital, and perhaps just as importantly, your competitors know it too.
This importance is reflected in spending. Even in a time of budget constraints, when many recruitment leaders are being challenged to do more with less, they certainly aren’t cutting spending in this area. More than half are increasing spend on brand, and most of the rest are at least maintaining spending levels.
Another way we see the vital role brand is playing in our world is in the answers talent acquisition leaders give to questions about priorities and threats. Whatever the question, the answer, time and time again, is employer brand.Top obstacles to attracting top talent…Areas that you are most concerned your competitors will build an advantage over you…Top long-term trends in our business…Again and again the answer is employer brand.
I’d like to stop for a moment and talk about an evolution in language that’s taking place today. It’s an evolution from “employer brand” which has been part of our vocabulary and thinking for quite a few years, to “talent brand”. Linguistically it’s a small change, but the forces behind it are huge. To many, employer brand suggests an older form of communication. A time in which the employer held the megaphone and broadcast a message into the marketplace. A message that people could accept, reject, or ignore, but the audience was largely in a passive role. Think old-school broadcast advertising.Of course all this is changing in an interconnected, social media world. Just as there is a conversation going on about the products or services your company provides; a conversation that your marketing team can engage in and hopefully sway in positive ways but can no longer control, the same is true for your talent brand. Your brand lives with the talent. Your employees, past and present; your customers; your candidates; everyone who comes into contact with your people now has a voice in defining the way your people and your culture are seen. You have an important role in this conversation, but yours isn’t the only voice. Your brand lives in the talent communities that you care about, and that’s why we at LinkedIn are increasingly speaking to talent brand rather than employer brand.
I don’t usually stand up in front of an audience and read slides, but I’m going to read this one because I think Julia Markish, the person ultimately charged with nurturing and strengthening LinkedIn’s talent brand, put it really clearly in a blog post shortly after joining our organization.READ SLIDE
We’re here today to talk about these vital changes that are taking place, and how to harness the power of brand to fundamentally improve your recruiting outcomes. Marketers, of course, have been thinking long and hard about brands for many decades, so another way of looking at it is what can we in the HR and talent acquisition world learn from marketers?
We’re going to look at the power of brands. What they are; where they came from; how they motivate behavior.We’re going to talk about how marketers think about branding, and how it ties into developing and nurturing your talent brand.Your consumer brand and your talent brand are two very different things, but the principles of brand development and stewardship are the same.As I said at the outset, we’re going to dig into how brand is vital for every organization, large or small, and talk about some examples of smaller, lesser known companies doing a great job.Then we’re going to talk about how to go to market with your powerful, authentic talent brand. How to amplify your voice in the conversation. How to engage with the talent you need to grow and thrive.Finally, we’re going to talk about measurement. How to measure your progress over time and vs. your talent competitors.Sound good? Okay… let’s quickly step back. Waaay back.
Brand started out as simple identification. How to know which cattle were mine and which were yours. Nothing more.Over time, brand took on much more importance with the dawn of the consumer packaged goods industry. Brand building was needed to enable products to compete on store shelves many miles from where they were produced. Brand infused messages of quality. Messages of differentiation. Packaging and advertising aligned to infuse meaning into products and to build demand.
Today, brand means a lot of things, but in really simple terms…Brand is identity.Brand is a quality promise.And brand is a decision making shortcut. In today’s world you cannot possibly conduct a reasoned comparison of all the products and services you encounter in your daily life. Can you imagine trying to compare the more than 100 types of shampoo you’ll find in any drug store? Or how about a solid feature and benefit analysis of the hundreds of models of cars offered for sale? You can’t. You use brand as a decision making shortcut. There are some brands you are drawn to and others that you avoid. It has to be that way.Each of these is true for talent brand as well. It’s the identity of your organization. It’s a promise you make to your people and your candidates. And don’t you want to get that decision making short-cut working for you? Don’t you want to become a true employer of choice? One that people, the right people, really want to work for? How powerful would that be?
Brand is also a power motivator.
I’m sure most of you remember the Pepsi Challenge? Am I dating myself here? This went on for years. Year after year, in city after city, Pepsi challenged cola drinkers to a bind taste test. Pepsi vs. Coke. And time and time again, Pepsi prevailed. Cola drinkers objectively preferred the taste of Pepsi to Coke.
But did that objective taste preference enable Pepsi to close ground on Coke? Nope. Not at all. As we all know, Coca-Cola is one of the world’s oldest and most cherished consumer brands. Millions of people have an extremely strong emotional attachment to Coke. It’s part of who they are. It’s part of their childhood memories. The green line, falling year after year, is all the other cola brands. They took a beating. Coke gained market share. Pepsi gained market share, but not at the expense of Coke. That’s the power of brands and how brand motivates behavior.
There’s an old joke… “how can you tell if someone is a marathon runner? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.” The point is that the pride that goes with that level of commitment and accomplishment tends to emerge in a lot of conversations. They want you to know because it means a lot to them. Harley Davidson owners are the same, aren’t they? You don’t just own a Harley, you are a Harley Man. It’s a big part of who you are. Even if the bike is home in the garage or put away for the winter they are going to make sure you know they are Harley owners.
It’s because people want to be a part of something that is bigger than them. Something from which they derive meaning, belonging, and purpose.
And what do we spend more time doing than anything else? Working. So… what does it MEAN to work for your organization? Not what does the company do or what is your role or responsibility. What does it MEAN? That’s a hard question to answer for a lot of people.
A lot of things are important, but a company can’t really BE about a lot of things. Your company can’t be about everything or it’s about nothing.You need to look down deep inside. Look at your top performers. Your A players. What drives them? What gets your best people fired up? Why do they work for you? They are top performers… they have choices. They choose to work for you… Why? What gets them jumping out of bed in the morning?
I guarantee you that what gets these guys jumping out of bed in the morning…
… is not the same as these guys…
… or these guys…
There’s a lot There’s a lot of questions on this slide, and it’s really just here to highlight the Talent Brand Playbook we’re going to distribute at the end of today’s session. It’s full of really tangible, actionable questions and tactics to help you get to the bottom of all this. The point is that your talent brand must be AUTHENTIC. It can’t be what you want your company to be about. It has to be true. It has to be real. It can’t be just a fresh coat of paint. It’s not a logo or a tagline. It’s the real deal. It’s the authentic story of what your organization stands for and what it means to be a part of it.
Brand marketers think a lot about brand attributes. A brand has to be relevant to the target audience or else they’ll never develop a connection.A brand has to be consistent over time. That doesn’t mean nothing can ever change or evolve, just that there has to be a consistent meaning in order to build trust. Authentic brands don’t swerve all over the place. They are true to themselves over time and this makes them a rock that people can depend on.A brand has to be credible. They must deliver on their promise. Mere words are not enough… the reality of the experience has to live up to the promise every time.A brand has to inspire. It has to connect on an emotional level. We saw that at the outset with brands like BMW, Starbucks, Harley-Davidson and Apple.And, of course, a brand has to be unique. It has to be differentiated in the marketplace. A “me-too” brand will seldom pass the test of time.
Every one of these brand attributes are true of your talent brand.You have to be relevant to your target market… to the right people… to the talent you need to engage.You have to be consistent. If you are forever reinventing yourself, you are very unlikely to resonate. Remember, this isn’t a slogan or a campaign, it’s the real experience, the real meaning, of working for your company.Your talent brand has to be credible. If you are not delivering on the promise, not walking the walk every day with your employees, that credibility gap is going to become a big problem.Your talent brand has to inspire. Inspire top talent to join. Inspire top talent to stay. Inspire top talent to achieve the best possible results every day.And your talent brand also has to be unique. Not unique in the sense of being the only company in the world to think the way you do or do what you do, but unique amongst the completive set you recruit against. You know who you are up against. You know who some of your best hires choose you over. You know where some of your people leave you to go. What is going to stand you apart from, and ultimately above, them?
Another consideration at the heart of consumer marketing is segmentation. Take BMW for example.BMW is “the ultimate driving machine”. Everything they stand for is about quality, German engineering, the driving experience. This is consistent over time and across every vehicle they make.But within that, they speak differently about different vehicles depending on the target market for each. The needs, wants, and motivators of a 20-something emerging professional are very different from those of a senior executive several decades older and at a very different place in their life. BMW speaks differently to each market segment, but always aligned with the core, overarching meaning of what BMW is and what it stands for.
This is also true of your talent brand. Within the overarching core of what it means to work for your organization, you are going to speak to your segments differently. You are going to speak differently to engineers, sales people, executives, and other functions, but always within the context of your authentic talent brand.
A great way to really look inside… really gain an understanding of the DNA of your organization, is to ask “Who are the heroes?” Years ago, when I was starting my career at Staples, we were rolling this company across North America, opening hundreds of new stores every year. It was a grind. It was an incredible challenge and sense of purpose, but it was physically and mentally difficult to sustain the degree of focus and pure effort needed. It was, at that time, what I’d call a warrior culture. Our heroes were those who never got tired; never got down; never stopped pushing. One night, 15 or more hours into another hectic day and just hours away from opening the doors on our newest store, the general manager who had been slugging as hard as everyone else on the team took a big red sticker off a pallet and put it on his chest. It said “Do Not Break Down” and it, of course, meant don’t unwrap and unload the merchandise on that pallet, but to us it meant we had to fight the urge to break down under stress and fatigue. We all laughed about it and it rejuvenated our exhausted minds and bodies and we pushed through the night to another amazing opening with hundreds of customers lining up for the Grand Opening.That was what it took to be successful at that company at that time, and understanding who our heroes were gave a clear look into our DNA.Years later I worked at a very different company, a company that invented, built, and marketed dozens of brands of toys. At Spin Master, our heroes were the most creative people. The people who imagined the next great product innovation. The brand identity that would capture the imagination of children and parents. The television commercial that would cut through the crazy clutter of Saturday morning TV and become a Must Have Toy for kids everywhere. Those were our heroes. Nobody cared how hard you worked in any traditional sense. It was all about creativity. All about invention. That was at the heart of our culture and that was at the core of our very authentic talent brand.
Who are the heroes in your organization? The heroes in this organization…
… are very different from the heroes in this organization…
… or this organization.
At the end of the day, you need your people to be engaged… always on… and that tends to come from a sense of pride. Pride in who you are, what you do, and what it means to be a part of your organization.
Do you remember this campaign? $150,000 for six months of living in a tropical paradise. Nice! It was a brilliant tourism marketing campaign, but the fact is, star performers love their jobs almost as much as the lucky winner of this search loved his. At LinkedIn, I’ve heard a lot of people stand up in front of a room and say, with absolute sincerity, that they have the best job in the world. I’ve said it myself, and I mean it. When you are the right person for the role, in a company that you love and respect, doing work that gives you meaning and pride, you feel like you have the best job in the world and it’s a wonderful feeling. I’m sure some of you feel that way too. It’s incredible. I wish everyone could feel that.Maybe they can. Maybe you can strive to have every one of your people feel that they have the best job in the world. When you dig down deep and really get to the heart of your organization’s DNA, and build up from there into a powerful, authentic talent brand that engages and inspires the exact right people, this powerful feeling becomes possible.
Sungevity does it through a deep sense of mission. Sungevity is a small company that’s bringing solar to the people. Affordable solar panels for residential roof-tops.
Everything they say and everything they do is aligned with this mission. They speak in terms of a clean energy crusade.
They aren’t talking about the money you can make selling their products, the office you’ll work in, the size of your team or any other such considerations. They are explicitly focused on this mission and they are issuing a rallying cry to others to join them. This crusade is not going to resonate with everyone. It’s not supposed to. It is, however, going to resonate extremely powerfully with a segment of the talent marketplace, and these are exactly the people Sungevity wants to attract. These are exactly the sort of people who will thrive in that environment.Sungevity is a great example of a powerful, authentic, mission-driven talent brand that is in perfect alignment with their consumer brand as well.
Do you think any kid has every said “when I grow up I want to work for a seafood processing company”? Probably not.
But do you think the opportunity for stable, year-round employment in some of the most beautiful places in the world might appeal to some folks?
If you work for Marine Harvest, this is your backyard. Vancouver Island, where they are located, truly is one of the most beautiful places in the world. Living here, raising a family here, is profoundly different from many other parts of North America. A completely different experience from living in a big city or even many smaller towns.
Would this life appeal to everybody? Of course not, but those who are drawn to such a life probably care deeply about environmental sustainability, and so does Marine Harvest.
They probably care deeply about their community, and so does Marine Harvest. The number of community organizations they are involved with goes on and on. What you see on the screen here is just the beginning.Again, a small company has leveraged the power of an authentic talent brand to become an in-demand employer for a particular segment of the work force… the exact right sort of people who are most likely to join, to thrive, and to remain committed for the long term.
So… what’s YOUR talent brand? Can you state it, simply and clearly? It’s a tough question for a lot of people, but it’s one that has to be answered in order to thrive in today’s increasingly competitive talent marketplace.
Alright… so we’ve covered a lot of ground to this point.Why your talent brand is vital.How to think about it, build it, and nurture it in an authentic way, regardless of your organization size; regardless of your industry; regardless of your location.Now let’s talk about going to market… leveraging your brand to engage the talent you need to attract in order to grow and to thrive.
First off, you need to live it every day through your employees. In a connected social media world, referrals are as essential as ever… perhaps even more so. If you aren’t living it every day with your employees then it’s not authentic.
You also have to live it in your community. What are you doing to reach beyond your walls and become a source of good in the community or communities in which you operate? This fuels pride,. This fuels engagement. This fuels word of mouth. This is more than your logo on little league baseball jerseys… this is real involvement.
Its amazing to think back just a few years to how different things were before Facebook. Before Twitter. Before YouTube…The opportunity to showcase your people and your culture have never been greater. The smallest company can open the blinds and let people see how amazing you are like never before. Build a presence. Add value. Connect and engage. Don’t just tweet some job descriptions or post some pics of your holiday party… really think about how you can leverage these incredible platforms to build a community and add real value to the lives of those you are connected to. This is powerful, exciting stuff.
And, of course, LinkedIn is an incredibly important platform where your authentic talent brand meets the talent you need to attract.We’re going to dig into LinkedIn here a bit and focus on four things:Why LinkedIn has become so important to your ability to attract talentHow to make your organization shine on LinkedInHow to make your people shine on LinkedIn. Like never before, you can harness the power of hundreds or thousands of brand ambassadors, spreading awareness of your authentic talent brand throughout the talent marketplace.And finally, how to make your career opportunities shine on LinkedIn.I’m very deliberately saying “your career opportunities” and not “your jobs” or “your open roles” here, and I’m going to address that more directly in a couple of minutes.
Why has LinkedIn become so essential in all this? Well firstly, because of size and reach.
From the first members in 2004 to over 200 million today, the growth has been exceptional, and the growth trajectory continues to increase.
The more people in the network and the faster it grows, the more people you can reach, engage, and ultimately recruit. The good news is, our network is growing at an INCREDIBLE rate.We’re growing by more than two new members per second. That’s well over a million new members every week. We are the world’s largest professional network, and increasingly the primary platform for professional branding and engagement.We have executives from all of the Fortune 500 companies represented in our membershipMore than 20,000 companies use our corporate talent solutions, including 87 of the Fortune 100 companies.
What are all these people doing on LinkedIn? They certainly aren’t all looking for work. In fact the great majority of them are happily employed.The value we deliver to our members is threefold: Identity: Maintaining their professional profile of record and networking with other professionalsInsights: Business and career insights to become better at what they do. LinkedIn is fast becoming a very powerful professional publishing platform with many of the world’s top business leaders and thinkers using LinkedIn to spread their insights to the public. Richard Branson has almost a million and a half followers, able to read his long-form posts and articles. Hundreds of other leaders in our Influencers program are fast developing substantial followings, and this is new functionality that just launched a few months ago.Everywhere: Working wherever you work. More than a quarter of our traffic is coming through mobile devices and that portion is growing fast. Professionals are using LinkedIn to fuel their success at the office, on the road, at home, and everywhere else they work.This is what keeps our members coming back every day.
LinkedIn, not surprisingly, has amazing data and tremendous access to a huge number of the world’s professionals. Each year, we ask a large sample of members from around the world to describe their current job search status. The results are pretty consistent over time, with 18 or 20% describing themselves as actively looking for a new job. Some of them are unemployed, of course, but this also includes underemployed or unhappily employed people who are actively looking to make a move.These are the people who visit job boards. They visit corporate career sites. These are the people with up to date resumes who are ready to apply. They are also a very small portion of the total talent pool.Leading talent acquisition teams are adamant about hiring the absolute best, not just the best available. It’s vital to move beyond active job seekers and engage the best people, especially those who are too busy being amazing in their current roles to even consider seeking out a new opportunity. You find these people on LinkedIn.
Okay… they’re on LinkedIn, but do they want to hear from recruiters? They do, if the opportunity is relevant.When we asked thousands of members “Does a recruiter approaching you unsolicited on LinkedIn bother you?”, the answer was overwhelmingly “no, it doesn’t bother me”, with a strong caveat for many, naturally, that the opportunity has to be relevant. After all, most of these folks aren’t looking for a job. They have a job. In many cases, they have a great job! But if approached about a compelling career opportunity, most are open to a conversation.
I can’t stress this enough:Career Opportunities NOT Job Descriptions.Expecting a passive candidate to act like an active candidate is NOT a recipe for success. They don’t need a job. They aren’t going to entertain a lateral move. They aren’t going to be inspired by your job description, heavy with bullet points listing qualifications. They don’t have a current resume, and if one of the first things you do is ask for one, you’re going to lose many of them.We’re going to come back to this point because it bears repeating, but please understand that passive talent recruiting is incredibly powerful, but it requires a different mindset and a different way way of doing things.
Okay, so we’ve covered the “Why LinkedIn?” part. Now let’s focus on how.How to make your company shine on LinkedIn. How to make your people shine on LinkedIn, and finally, how to make your career opportunities shine on LinkedIn.Every company gets a free company page on LinkedIn. There are millions of them today and that number is growing all the time. If someone hasn’t already done so, spend some time making it great. Shine a light on what a great company you are!Increasingly, LinkedIn is where people go to search for information on companies. Just like the way more and more product searches now originate on Amazon rather than a search engine, this evolution toward specialized search is playing out in other areas too. When you want information on professionals and the organizations they work for, LinkedIn is the starting point for more and more information seekers. Take advantage of this.
Just as individuals can send status updates, sharing content and raising their profile throughout their network on LinkedIn, so can companies. Company status updates go into the news feed of people who have opted to follow your company, and they provide an amazing opportunity to engage interested individuals in what’s going on with your organization. New product releases; milestones achieved; press coverage; and, of course, career opportunities.Companies are able to do something that individuals can’t, making these updates even more powerful: Targeted status updates. You can send different status updates to different groups of followers based on where they’re located, what industry they are in, their job function, and other differences. Its no surprise that engineers generally have different interests from sales people, for example, and this let’s you provide relevant information, and relevant career opportunities, to each group.
Also for free, you can build out a products and services page to highlight the key areas of your business. Individual products, product lines, services provided, specialties and so on. Personal recommendations provided by your customers add credibility and depth to this section, and help spread awareness of your organization across LinkedIn.
A career page is a paid solution on LinkedIn. Your career page is the hub of your talent brand. You are pulling people in from across the network to educate them about your organization, your culture, and your opportunities, and you are providing them a central place to learn more and ultimately reach out to apply.LinkedIn company pages are smart pages. They’re profile aware. You can provide different information to different visitors depending on where they’re located, their current job function, their level of seniority and other factors. Stop for a moment and think about that. The right information, tailored for each visitor. How amazing is that! Your career page is where you share deeper information on your organization and your career opportunities. You can embed videos. You can list open roles. You can include testimonials from employees, vouching for what a great place to work it is. Visitors can see your open opportunities, see what recruiter posted the role, see who they know in your organization that they can reach out to for additional insight, and ultimately, they can apply directly from your LinkedIn career page.
Okay, so now we’ve got your company looking great on LinkedIn. What’s next?Next is to harness the incredible power of social media to make every employee a talent brand ambassador. We all ask employees for referrals, don’t we? Referrals are likely the best source of hire for many of you, but are you maximizing the opportunity here?The number one activity on LinkedIn is viewing the profiles of people in your network. Your friends; your coworkers; your former coworkers; your customers, suppliers, and everyone else you have connected with. Every one of those profile views is an opportunity.Let’s imagine that you employ 50 engineers. Who do you think they are connected to on LinkedIn? Likely, many more engineers! Former classmates, former coworkers, and more. If every one of your engineers has a robust profile, showcasing not just their talents and experience but also the exciting work your company is engaged in, that’s thousands of positive impressions every month. Thousands of opportunities to attract attention to your company. Thousands of opportunities to cause other LinkedIn members to click through to your company page and your career page to learn more about what you do.Scale that thinking across your entire organization; sales people; marketing people; operations; your executives… the opportunity is HUGE. Today, every employee can be an ambassador for your organization like never before.
Here are some tips for cultivating brand ambassadors across your organization.Executive buy-in is crucial. You need to educate your executives and ensure their support or you are unlikely to make real inroads.Educating your employees about your talent brand, why it’s vital to your ongoing success, and where they come in.Encouraging employees to share authentic stories. You need to lead by example and provide leadership in how to do this effectively.Measurement. Think on how you will measure success. There are a lot of different metrics that come into play here.
Ensuring that you and your core team have great profiles is an important first step.You need to engage and inspire candidates, and set an example for others in your organization.A professional photo; a headline that goes beyond your title and speaks to your audience; an inspiring summary that will engage and excite a reader.Remember, your profile isn’t your resume. It’s your professional brand. It is a reader-focused look at who you are, what your organization does, and why the audience (in your case, potential candidates) should care. Keep brand in mind, and making a strong profile is easy.
Next, roll it out, in particular across your recruiting team, your hiring managers, and your executives. This can be as simple as a working lunch session or, depending on the scale of your organization, may require a more organized approach. They payoff is huge.Put yourself in the shoes of a passive candidate with a bit of interest in your company and opportunities you may offer. What does she do? One of the first things she’s likely to do is check out your company page and your career page for more info on the company itself.Pretty quickly she’s likely to take look at the profile of the recruiter for this role. Who is this person and what are they all about? She’s going to look for the company leadership. She’s going to try and figure out who the hiring manager is and take a look at him or her. Perhaps a sampling of other people at the company. What sort of people would she be working with? How engaged do they seem in what they are doing? Does this look like an environment she can get excited about?Those companies that get this part right; that get everyone or at a minimum their recruiters, hiring managers, and executives up to speed with robust, compelling profiles give themselves an immediate advantage in engaging top quality passive talent.
Alright… so now your company is shining on LinkedIn, and your employees are shining… Now let’s make your career opportunities shine.You’ll recall that earlier I said “career opportunities” and not “jobs” or “open roles”. Remember, we’re focused on attracting and engaging passive talent here, not just posting jobs for those who are actively looking.One way you can do that on LinkedIn is Jobs You May Be Interested In. Knowing as much as we do about each member; their location, industry, role, seniority and more, we are able to proactively put appropriate opportunities in front of users, right on their home page. This is great for members and great for recruiters. Catch their attention, engage them with a compelling opportunity at a company full of inspired people, and you are well on your way to attracting someone who would never have visited a job board.
We talked earlier about the fact that viewing profiles of first degree connections is the number one activity on LinkedIn, and how powerful it is when every employee builds out a compelling profile. You can take this to the next level by owning the advertising space on all of your employees profiles.Here we see Addison, an Account Executive at ACME Systems. She’s visiting the profile of one of her connections, Jim Young of xyzCo, and she can’t possibly miss seeing her own picture looking back at her, drawing her attention to a career opportunity at xyzCo. It’s little surprise that click through rates on these ads is 20 TIMES industry average click through rates. 20 TIMES! The combination of seeing your own picture, together with an opportunity matched to you based on your current role and location is a very powerful call to action.Again, catch their attention, engage them with a compelling opportunity at a company full of inspired people, and you are well on your way to attracting someone who would never have visited a job board.
What we’ve covered so far today is what it takes to be competitive in 2013 and beyond.Active candidate recruitment is no longer enough. A great corporate web site is not enough. Posting and tweeting jobs is not enough.A strong, authentic talent brand. Active internal engagement and engagement across social media and on LinkedIn in particular. A real understanding of how communicating with passive talent is very different from much of what we’ve all done in the past. This is what it takes to truly elevate talent acquisition to where it needs to be.
For those ready to really take it to the next level, LinkedIn offers an incredibly powerful corporate tool called “Recruiter”. With Recruiter, you’re going beyond attracting and enticing passive talent. You are actively sourcing and contacting the very best potential candidates. Many of you may already be using LinkedIn Advanced Search to seek out people, but Recruiter is an entirely separate and more powerful tool.I’d like to ask my colleague XXXXXXXXXXXXX to come up and give you a quick look at how it works.
I’d like to stress that this isn’t two separate topics this morning… brand and direct sourcing. When you get brand right, it powers everything you do, including direct sourcing. When you’ve built a strong, authentic talent brand, you up your game in every regard.More followers opting in to hear from your company. And our members tell us that 71% of people who follow a company express an interest in career opportunities at that organization.More views of your company and career pages, which of course means more eyes on your targeted opportunities and all the supporting information you use to entice and engage passive talent.More views of your employee profiles means more people seeing those robust, engaging profiles and those incredible 20-times-the-industry-average recruitment ads.And when you reach out to passive talent directly, your response rate is going to be better if you have worked to develop your brand amongst the talent constituencies most important to you.The end game of all this is a reduced time to fill, reduced cost per hire, and ultimately, improved quality of hire.
How do you measure success in all this?The fact is, most don’t because it’s always been difficult and expensive to quantify your progress.LinkedIn’s unprecedented data enables us to provide some measurement here. Let’s take a look at a quick video that explains it quicker and better than I can.
Pretty simple, isn’t it?Of those who are aware of your organization, what percentage have looked into your career opportunities? It nicely corrects for organization size by starting with total profile views and connections (obviously larger companies will have a larger base), then dials in to what portion of that base has expressed some kind of interest in working for you.It stands to reason that those organizations who have done a good job of cultivating a strong, authentic talent brand will encourage a greater percentage of that base to wonder if there might be an opportunity for right for them.
Take your talent brand index number and see how you stack up against your competitors. The most relevant comparisons are not necessarily with your business competitors, but with your talent competitors. Those organizations with which you compete for talent. We don’t share specific numbers for other organizations, but we share the results of your competitive set. In this example, you see that you are in the middle of the pack relative to your talent competitors, and you see who we have identified as your competitors based on talent flows in both directions, but we don’t tell you exactly who is who in the interest of privacy.
How do you compare across functions? You may have a strong brand in some talent pools and need a lot more work in others.
You can also look across geographic regions if you operate overseas. This can be extremely enlightening as these numbers may vary greatly.
Talent Brand Index isn’t your only measure of course, but it provides a quick and insightful read on where you are today and on the impact of your efforts as you strive for improvement.
Alright, let’s return to today’s big takeaways and see how we’ve done.Brand is vital. I really don’t think there’s much room for debate here. Talent acquisition leaders around the world know it, and increasingly, they are acting on it. They are cultivating and projecting a strong, authentic talent brand and they are reaping the rewards.Brand is for every organization. We’ve seen some examples of smaller, lesser-known organizations doing a great job. I’m sure all of you can think of other examples. Brand power recruiting regardless of size; industry; and regardless of location.The time is now. Social media is leveling the playing field and enabling organizations to harness the power of brand like never before. No longer do you need a big advertising budget to get the word out. We are in a very different time now, and the opportunities are HUGE for those who understand them and act on them.

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The Transformative Power of Talent Brand Presentation Transcript

Its about YOUAbout identityAbout how it makes you feelAbout emotional attachment
What would it mean?
The beauty of employer brand isyou don‟t need everybody to knowyour name. Only the right people.
The BIG Takeaways Employer brand is vital to improving recruiting outcomes Every company, regardless of industry, location, and size can harness the power of a strong employer brand Social Media is leveling the playing field like never before, enabling organizations to articulate their brand every day, in many ways
The Business Case
The ROI Story 50 % $ Savings in cost per hire is associated with a strong employer brand Companies with stronger employer brand have 28% lower turn-over rates than companies with weaker employer brandsSource: LinkedIn Survey, 2010, 2250 Responses.
Talent Leaders Know that Brand Matters 83 % Agree that employer brand has significant impact on ability to hire great talent
Employer Brand Investment is Rising 51% 40% 9% Spent Spent Spent More Same Less 91% of companies spent more or the same on employer brand in 2012 compared to 2011
Whatever the Question, the Answer is Employer BrandTop obstacles to Biggest concern is that Top long-lastingattracting the best talent competitors will… trends Utilizing social and professional 1 Competition 1 Invest in their employer brand 1 networks Build and nurture strong talent 2 Compensation 2 2 Upgrading employer branding pools or pipelines Lack of awareness or interest in Learn to use social networking Finding better ways to source 3 3 3 our employer brand and social media more effectively passive candidates 4 Location 4 Improve their candidate experience 4 Boosting referral programs Training recruiters and hiring 5 Recruiting team too small 5 Improve their referral program 5 managers Recruiting team doesnt have Further invest in their existing 6 6 6 Recruiting globally the right tools/systems recruiting tools Lack of awareness that were 7 7 Invest in new recruiting tools 7 Optimizing your career site hiring Inability to effectively use data Hire recruiters to strengthen Measuring quality of hire 8 8 8 to improve our approach their team more consistently Quality of talent currently at Negotiate better pricing with 9 9 9 Reducing spend on staffing firms our company vendors Improve ways to track quality Using CRM technology to 10 Company performance 10 10 of hire manage talent leads
Evolving Language: The Emergence of Talent BrandYour talent brand is thehighly social, totally publicversion of your employerbrand that incorporates whatyour talent – past, presentand potential - thinks, feelsand shares about yourcompany as a place to work.
Evolving Language: The Emergence of Talent Brand“ Until recently, employment branding referred to a company’s positioning and messaging about what it’s like to work there. But social media has changed this landscape. A company can no longer position, message and be done with it, because it’s no longer a one-way message. It isn’t even a two-way conversation. It’s an all-out marketplace of interactions, where recruiters, employees, customers and prospects are all listening to one other. The company no longer holds the megaphone; the company is one among many participants. The online social world has taken the brand from the “ hands of the Employer and put it in the hands of the Talent, both current and potential. Julia Markish Senior Manager, Global Talent Brand
Agenda 1 The Power of Brands 2 How Marketers Think About Branding 3 Your Talent Brand 4 Every Organization 5 Going to Market 6 Measurement
IdentityBrand is A Quality Promise A Decision Making Short-Cut
Brand is alsoa Powerful Motivator
Cola Market Share Other
What does it mean to work for your organization?
Sample survey questions for…Current employees Passive candidates  What are the most important values you  What are the most important values you look for in a job? look for in a job?  Where does XYZCo do a very good job of  When you think about companies that hire delivering on these values? people with your skillset, which companies come to mind?  Which important values do you feel XYZCo does not deliver on?  How familiar are you with XYZCo as a place to work?  What originally attracted you to join XYZCo?  How likely would you be to consider a job at XYZCo?  To what extent have your expectations been fulfilled? Where have they been exceeded?  What is your overall impression of XYZCo Where have they not been met? as a place to work?  If you wanted to convince a friend to work at  Based on your knowledge of the company, XYZCo, what story would you tell them? where does XYZCo do a very good job of delivering on these values?  How likely would you be to recommend XYZCo as an employer?  Based on your knowledge of the company, which important values do you feel XYZCo does not deliver on?
Consumer Brand Attributes
Talent Brand Attributes
BMW Segmentation 1 Series 3 Series 5 Series 7 Series 20‟s Professionals 30‟s Professionals 40‟s Professionals 50‟s Professionals Recent graduate Upwardly mobile Established career Executive career Single Single or married Married Married No children Likely no children Growing children Teen / grown childrenSocial / nightlife focus Active lifestyle Family-centric lifestyle Luxury lifestyle
Talent Segmentation Jr. Sr. Engineer Sales Executive Engineer Education? Education? Education? Education? Experience? Experience? Experience? Experience? Motivation? Motivation? Motivation? Motivation? Values? Values? Values? Values? Work Style? Work Style? Work Style? Work Style? Career ambition? Career ambition? Career ambition? Career ambition?Other considerations? Other considerations? Other considerations? Other considerations?
Who are the Heroes?
The most engaged employees aremotivated by a sense of pride They are proud to tell others where they work They care deeply about the future of the organization They are inspired by company leadership and by those they work with
clean energy crusade Save the world here addressing the environmental issues of our time
you could be part of this clean energy crusade passion addressing the environmental issues of our timecollaborative, unpretentious, and driven to achieve our mission.
stable year-round employment.located in some of the most beautiful places in the world
Sustainability
Giving Back to the Community
Projecting Your Talent Brand into the Talent MarketplaceLiving it Everyday with Your Employees
Projecting Your Talent Brand into the Talent MarketplaceIn Your Community
Projecting Your Talent Brand into the Talent MarketplaceSocial Media
Projecting Your Talent Brand into the Talent MarketplaceOn LinkedIn Why LinkedIn is vital Your Company on LinkedIn Your Employees on LinkedIn Your Career Opportunities on LinkedIn
Members Worldwide 200,000,000
LinkedIn: By the Numbers +2 100% 1 87%New Members Fortune 500 Fortune 100 Companies Per Second Companies Use our Recruiting Solutions 1 As of May 3, 2012
Identity Insights EverywhereConnect, find, and Be great at what Work wherever our be found you do members work
Engaging the BEST talent, not just active jobseekers Passive 60% Semi Active 10% Very Active Super Passive 8% 22% How would you classify your current job search status?
Passive Candidates Want to Hear from You “Do you mind being contacted by a recruiter on LinkedIn?” 100% Yes, unless I know them 90% 80% Not if the role 70% is relevant 60% “ Not at all, assuming that the inquiry is relevant to 50% my experience. This should be 40% viewed as a benefit of 30% LinkedIn, not a detriment.”   Not at all VP, Fortune 500 company 20% 10% 0% 13918 responsesSource: LinkedIn Poll, January 2011, 13918 responses
But… a whole different approach is needed Active candidates Passive candidates • Will apply to ATS • Do not have a current resume • Listen to opportunities • May listen to opportunities • Respond quickly • Do not respond to “apply now” • Seek information • Higher bar to respond
Your Company on LinkedIn
Your Company on LinkedIn
Your Company on LinkedIn
Your Company on LinkedIn
Every Employee is an Ambassador
Top Tips to Cultivate Brand Ambassadors  Ensure your executives are on board. Get C-suite support to drive widespread participation.  Educate employees on your brand. The more connected they are to the brand, the better the ambassadors they‟ll be.  Encourage share and tell. Share authentic stories, pictures and company events across a variety of media so your employees (and followers) can repost and drive viral discussion.  Monitor for success. Measure engagement and create action plans to build your foundation of engaged, enthusiastic brand ambassadors. 
Lead by Example The anatomy of a well-branded recruiting profile Descriptive headlineEngaging, friendly picture That goes beyond the titleWho wouldn„t want to workwith Stacy? OTHER FEATURES WE LIKELinksto branded destinations • Core skills, endorsed by her network • Volunteer experiences • Just enough on prior positions to build credibilityKiller summaryWritten in the firstperson, oozing with passion.
Roll it Out
Your Career Opportunities on LinkedIn Addison Augusto Account Executive, ACME systems San Francisco Bay Area | Software JOBS YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN Account Executive x xyzCo– San Francisco, CA JOBS YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN Account Executive x xyzCo – San Francisco, CA Sr. Account Executive x Amazon.com – San Francisco, CA Sr. Account Executive x Amazon.com – San Francisco, CA Sales Manager Sales Manager x x NetApp – San NetApp – San Jose, CA CA Jose, Feedback I See more » Feedback I See more »
Your Career Opportunities on LinkedIn Jim Young Account Executive, xyzCo San Francisco Bay Area | Software Current xyzCo, Account Excecutive Previous Acme System, Associate Account Executive Education San Jose University Addison Augusto Sr. Account Executive xyzCo– San Francisco, CA
Taking it to the next level Proactive Recruiting on LinkedIn
A strong talent brand enhances the impactof everything you do More followers = Reduced time to fill More views of your company page and career page = Reduced cost per hire = Improved quality of hire More views of your employee profiles Better InMail response
How do you measure success? Companies measure their employer Only 1 out of 3 brand in a quantifiable way74
Measure your Brand Strength 264,362 264,362 engaged 1,873,354 1,873,354 reached 14%
Your Talent Brand vs. Your Talent Competitors 18% 17% 4/6 Peers: 15% 14% Dynamic, Inc. 11% Golden Phase 9% six28 Enterprise Wavesynthe Commona Paularino Systems Employer of choice Weaker employer brand
Your Talent Brand Across Functions 23% 18% 18% 15% 13% 12% Engineering Operations Marketing Media & Sales Human Communication Resources Talent easiest to engage Talent more difficult to engage
Your Talent Brand Across Geographies 19% 15% 13% 12% 11% 11% United States Canada Argentina India France United Kingdom Talent easiest to engage Talent more difficult to engage
Back to the BIG Takeaways Talent brand is vital to improving recruiting outcomes Every company, regardless of industry, location, and size can harness the power of a strong talent brand Social Media is leveling the playing field like never before, enabling organizations to articulate their brand every day, in many ways

The Transformative Power of Talent Brand

by LinkedIn Talent Solutions on Feb 19, 2013

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The Transformative Power of Talent Brand Presentation Transcript