What’s So Great About Working for Your Company?

I’ve heard this lament several times from various business owners this year:  “Where are the people who need jobs?  Aren’t we still in a recession?  When I post a position, I usually don’t get any qualified applicants.  What’s going on?”

It’s quite simple, really.  If your organization is not publicly held, and you’ve been too busy to get the word out via traditional channels (e.g., your website, press releases, local and national feature story placement, etc. – and your job postings) and social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, et al) about the great things happening in your organization, such as:

  • Year-over-year sales and net profit growth (you don’t need to tip your whole hand of data, just the percent increase);
  • The 60 people you hired in 2012 (and the 60 positions you need to fill in 2013);
  • Your shared work environment with white-board and chalkboard walls, encouraging collaboration and creativity;
  • The flexibility you offer employees in terms of schedule and/or remote work (as long as it meets your business needs);
  • Your cool cafe’ with multiple-choice Keurig cups;
  • And anything else that you know makes your best employees happy and keeps them working for you, year after year;

Then no news, in this case, is neutral-to-bad news.  If you’re not appearing in a prospective candidate’s Google search results, it telegraphs that your company is not known, and probably not worthwhile as the next critical career move.  And if the best qualified candidate is currently working for an organization that’s not as great as yours, they have no way of knowing if even applying for your open and critically needed position is worth the risk of the devil of the organization they know at least offers them continued cash flow.

Weak or nonexistent organizational branding makes recruitment – and recruitment branding – a Sisyphean effort, at best. Imagine reaching out to candidates who had never heard of  your organization.  In that particular situation, it would take me at least 25 minutes to tell the organization’s story – time that should have been better spent screening the candidate.

Getting the word out about how great it is to work for your company is low-to-no-cost, and it’s not complicated.  Small things like:

  • Updated LinkedIn profiles of executives and hiring managers, with great headshots capturing their personalities and energy;
    • Posting company updates at least once a week on what’s going right in your organization;
  • Claiming / Creating your organization’s LinkedIn Company Page, and posting at least one update on company good news weekly on it, if not more often;
  • Creating your company’s Facebook page, and doing the same;
  • Creating your company’s Twitter account, and doing the same;
  • Taking advantage of the best-places-to-work surveys / competition, like the Business Review’s Annual Best Places to Work;
  • Participating in / sponsoring your local chamber’s events and trade shows;
  • Home-grown testimonial videos of your employees telling the world from the heart why they like working for your company;
  • Etc.

With this type of good news searchable by Google, you’ll see your company’s reputational as well as your qualified candidate application performance start to climb.

Tell us what’s so great about working for your company:  inquiring, qualified candidates want to know.