If we've learned anything from surveying managers and business owners over the past year, it's that qualified applicants are hard to find. For some, there were simply fewer people applying to their posted jobs and, for others, the quality of the resumes received was getting steadily worse. Many were experiencing both.

It may surprise you then that even in the current economy some organizations continue to receive quality applications on a regular basis and greatly exceed their recruitment goals. How do they accomplish this?

A New Way to Look at Recruitment

Above all, they treat recruitment like a marketing activity. They clearly understand that marketing yourself as an employer is no different than effectively presenting a product to a customer - both require you to understand and anticipate the needs of a target market, and cater to those needs in order to attract people’s attention and motivate them to “buy”.

What is most surprising is that for all of the effort that companies put into marketing products and attracting customers, many don't invest nearly as much into appealing to people who are just as important to success - future talent. What do most companies do to entice them? They write and post a standard job description, which is often not much more than a bland list of tasks and required qualifications, with no means of appealing to high-performers and motivating them to apply.

Of course marketing is not just about brochures or job descriptions, but about all of the actions that your company can take to develop attractive qualities. In the case of recruitment, it is the brand that you develop to entice those high-performing candidates to apply to posted positions and to recognize your company as the ideal employer.

The Top Employer Advantage

Take for example the members of the various “Top Employers” lists, who typically see a substantial increase in their perceived value as an employer after being profiled, and a huge increase in the number of candidates who apply to their postings. These are companies that understand the value of good press and how it can motivate people to apply (and tell their talented friends!).

Even though they come from entirely different industries, the Top 10 Best Employers in Canada have a few things in common: Their turnover rates are exceptionally small, and they are recruiting rapidly as their businesses expand. They hired a combined 3,145 people in the past year, according to Mediacorp.

- Financial Post, 2007

So, how do you most effectively market yourself as an employer, like companies in the Top Employer lists?

Understand Your Target Market

First, it's critical to understand the buying habits of your target market - high-performing employees. This includes knowing where to find them and why they ultimately decide to take one job over another.

Often the best sources for this information are your current employees, who for whatever reason were once compelled to apply to your company and to a specific job opening. Conducting interviews and surveys, particularly with those who are most successful, will give you considerable insights into how best to position yourself as an employer (tip: see if there are any differences between answers given by your top people and their less capable peers).

Some of the questions to ask include:

• How did you find your current job?
• Where are some of the best places to market job openings for this position?
• Where do the best people in this role gather? (e.g., trade shows, associations, websites, etc.)
• What publications do they read?
• What made this position more appealing than others that you were considering?
• How could we have better enticed you to apply?
• Why do you enjoy working here? (e.g., organizational culture, company size, coworkers, manager, benefits, training, opportunities, challenge, etc.

Set the Goal of Becoming a Top Employer

Next, you need to develop ways to establish your brand as a company who offers considerable advantages to highly successful employees. These can include general benefits that would appeal to a wide range of employees and more specific offerings that are more tailored to the individual.

The questions that you asked in the employee survey will help uncover some of the more specific benefits that you'll want to market to potential candidates. For example, while many people are attracted by flexible working hours, high-performing web designers at your company may be attracted by the chance to work with the latest technology. In that case, you should market the fact that your company “provides opportunities to work with the latest design technology.”

In fact, why not even go so far as to set the goal of being profiled on a prominent “Top Employers” list? The work that you do to make the list will certainly improve your employer appeal and the publicity alone will help increase the number of people who apply to your job openings (hopefully, you have a well-developed screening process in place).

Want to be a Top Employer? Here are some of the benefits you may want to consider, and some examples:

Physical Workplace

• On-site Facilities
• Modern Technology

Work Atmosphere

• Concierge
• Employee Social Clubs

Health, Financial, & Family

• Daycare
• Gym Membership
• Flexible Benefits

Vacation and Time Off

• Five Weeks Vacation
• Flexible Scheduling

Employee Communications

• Townhall Meetings
• Newsletters
• Employee Surveys

Performance Management

• Clear Role Objectives
• Rewards Tied to Performance

Training & Skills Development

• On-site Training
• Tuition Subsidies

Community Involvement

• Support for Charities
• Volunteer Programs

Develop Better “Brochures”

Of course, as with product marketing, understanding your customers and developing marketing strategy will only take you so far. The final piece of the puzzle includes developing the marketing materials that will communicate your employer brand and provide applicants with the means to apply.

Your primary weapon in this regard is the job advertisement that many companies design so poorly. You, however, can stand apart from the crowd by:

• Describing the benefits that were uncovered in your employee survey. In other words, explaining to candidates why they would want to apply for the role.
• Discussing job objectives, as opposed to listing tasks. This would be the difference between “conducting performance reviews” (task), and “helping people exceed expectations and reach their true potential through your expert advice and support” (objective) - which would you find most appealing?
• Resisting the urge to include required qualifications, unless they are critical to the role. For example, stating that candidates require five years of experience will disqualify high-potential people with four or less. Be prepared to hire on talent, intelligence, and motivation. Then provide training to make up for a lack of education or experience, if appropriate.
• Including an enticing case study so that candidates can envision what it would be like to work at your company. This could be in the form of an interview with an enthusiastic employee or a short “day in the life” of a high-performer.

You'll also want to consider reworking the career section of your website, so that visiting candidates are further excited by the thought of working with your company. The career section of HSBC’s website is a great example of how to appeal to a variety of potential candidates.

Microsoft goes one step further by providing profiles of real employees and their positive experience of working there. This is a company that understands that a website is the perfect soapbox for employee evangelists who will spread the word about why the company is such a great employer. Doing so also acts on the “psychology of trust” by providing applicants with first hand company information from people they feel are similar to themselves.

Finally, although unconventional (read: something you can do that many employers don’t), consider developing press releases and providing interviews to the media that speak to the work environment and benefits of being an employee at your company. High-performers will be interested in, and remember, articles that describe your unique approach to managing people or the exciting projects that your best people are involved in. Your goal should be to get potential employees thinking about how wonderful it would be to work for you.

If you are having trouble developing these materials, consider asking internal or third-party marketing experts to review your work and provide comments and suggestions on how to improve them.

Find the Right Place to Market the Opportunity

The final step is identifying the best places to market your company and the open position. Again, input from current employees will help generate a list of potential sources for future candidates. Also consider the following:

• Social networking sites (Wikipedia has an excellent list).
• Role-specific associations.
• Industry publications.
• Websites and blogs frequented by top people in the field.

Conclusion

Clearly, it does not have to be difficult to gather a large number of qualified job candidates. It is simply a matter of understanding what attracts people to your company and finding the best ways to market this advantage to potential applicants.

All the best,

Chad Hayward

Assessment Director
Hire Insight Group
www.hireinsightgroup.com