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Leveraging Your Product Brand to Improve Recruiting
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Whether you realize it or not, every firm has two brands: a product brand and an employment brand. And, of the two brands, quite often the stronger one of the two is the product brand. Rather than bemoaning that fact, the key lesson to be learned by recruiting managers is that if you can successfully piggyback on potential applicants’ current knowledge and trust in your product brand, you can, in turn, dramatically bolster your employment brand and your recruitment results.
Every firm has an employment brand because current and former employees, the media, bloggers, and others are constantly commenting on and spreading stories about what it’s like to work at “your” firm. And, with the growth of the Internet, finding either positive or negative information about what it’s like to work at any firm is becoming ridiculously easy. Obviously, you can’t avoid having an employment brand, but you can certainly take steps to sculpt or strengthen your brand image as an employer.
It’s important to note that just as strong product brands have a powerful impact on sales, strong employment branding may be the most powerful strategic tool available to recruiting managers. Employment brands dramatically impact both the quality and the volume of the applicants that your firm receives. If that power can be bolstered by linking an employment brand with your firm’s already strong product brand, you can dramatically reduce most recruiting and retention problems.
Many firms are well-known for their products and that product “reputation” is known as your product brand. Firms like Google, GE, and Microsoft all have product brands valued at over $50 billion apiece. Some firms have great product brands like Post-its notes (3M), Smucker’s, Pledge (S.C. Johnson), and Clorox. Unfortunately, few individuals automatically make the connection that if these firms make such great products these companies are also probably excellent places to work!
Let’s take a firm like Smucker’s. Almost everyone knows and even likes their products and their advertising, but how many people think of Smucker’s as an employer? Now you might be thinking to yourself, “I don’t have any skills or interest in crushing fruit, so why should I consider a jam manufacturer as an employer?” But obviously, a large firm like Smucker’s also needs thousands of professionals in finance, HR, marketing, supply chain, etc. And, in addition, you and most of Smucker’s customers probably have no clue that they are headquartered on Strawberry Lane in Orrville, Ohio (if they did, many would consider it a desirable place to live and work?).
What this example illustrates is that a firm like Smucker’s has successfully built a strong product brand, but it has failed at doing an equally good job at building its image as a place that most Americans would consider as their next employer. If Smucker’s (or your firm) could successfully link having a great product with being an excellent place to work, it (and your firm) could easily and inexpensively improve recruiting results.
There are many ways to link a strong product brand with a firm’s employment brand image, including:
If you’re not a retail operation, consider including a small employment branding/recruiting brochure in your product packaging, since these customers are A+ potential recruits because they already love your product. Or highlight what makes you a great employer somewhere in the product instruction materials. If you keep a mailing list of your customers (or send out billing statements), consider sending your best customers a subtle recruiting message inferring that if they love the product so much, they, like others before them, would probably love working there. As part of your message to customers, also make sure that they are also aware that you hire people in areas not directly related to the well-known product itself, like finance, HR, marketing, etc.
I was in Seattle the other day, and I noticed an example of where a retail firm did an excellent job of spreading its employment brand to its customers. The firm, Seattle’s Best Coffee, which has a strong local product brand, effectively used an in-store sign (next to the cash register) to encourage applicants, while at the same time reminding everyone who read it precisely how the company is different from its better-known mega coffee chain competitor. The powerful point-of-purchase employment-branding card included:
At Seattle’s Best Coffee, you can make a difference in someone’s day and in your career!
We are world known for our personable outstanding guest service!
Our guests are not “just another person in line”! We want to get to know each guest by name!
We are looking for great people who are energetic, self-motivated, engaging, have the look of the leader, and enjoy working with coffee and connecting with people!
We are looking for team members who can live our values and share our vision as well!
Do the right thing
Have fun
Take ownership
Deliver the Best
The foundation element of linking product branding and employment branding is that every executive already knows the incredible power and economic value that their product brand has. Rather than having to start from scratch, recruiting just has to convince executives that their firm’s employment brand would also increase significantly in value if it was linked with the firm’s product brand. You might even be able to show your executives that having a great employment brand will actually strengthen their product brand because many individuals naturally equate a firm being an excellent place to work with the idea that well treated workers produce excellent products. Makes sense, doesn’t it?