Are recruiters the new marketers?

I’ve spent the past few days In San Francisco, attending Talent Connect, an annual conference organised by LinkedIn for the Human Resources industry. Although I’m not a recruiter, and don’t work in a HR capacity, I have recently had experience with LinkedIn Recruiter product, at CXC Global. I am also very interested in a very niche part of marketing, not many are aware of, or doing something about. Browsing through the agenda, I discovered an interesting theme, I have never seen before in an HR conference. Not that I’ve been to many, but the one I’ve attended or been aware off, may have had a mention of that subject, but nothing like Talent Connect.

That theme was Employer Branding. The presence of Social Media, seem to have seeped beyond some crazy gurus and ninjas, and have reached the Corporate HR in a big way… Yes, LinkedIn has always been a recruiter’s heaven, but that was a given.. People in a recruiting capacity telling (isolated) stories about posting a job on Twitter, getting a response, and hiring someone in 45 minutes, are always good talking point.. See Nando Rodriguez‘ example:

Nando in his unique and flamboyant way, gave an entertaining presentation telling his story: how he has started as a blogger, has been found by Ogilvy & Mather and been recruited for his current position, working as the head of Employment Branding worldwide. To my surprise, I’ve met so many other people with a similar title…   Although the title of his presentation may have been slightly misleading (it’s not as easy as it may sound), the process is easy to follow:

Step one – Visually Broadcast your Talent Brand

Step two – Be Social

Step Three – Add a Call To Action

Step Four – Like/Post/Share like a Superhero

Step Five – Leverage your influencers.

I don’t want to go into each and every step, but the point I’m making – these steps don’t sound to me like a recruiter’s typical job, do they? They really sounds like Marketing Speak to me!

That presentation wasn’t a standalone. As I mentioned before – it was a theme. Presentation after presentation, I’ve listened to executives from Adobe, Lululemon, Facebook, Epic Games, Autodesk (best known for their architectural software, AutoCAD), PwC, PepsiCo, and others sharing their wins and lessons. I had lunch with Employer Branding execs from Kohl’s and KMPG, to the U.S Army!

Social Media seem to have become an integral tool in the HR executive toolkit. Not always funded and properly resourced at first, but it seem that more and more companies now realise that HR and Marketing need to collaborate and create a brand which not only attracts customers, but also the current and next generation of employees. As one of the speakers asked: “what’s the point of attracting lots of clients, if you don’t have, and can’t get the people to provide the service?”

Those talks gave me a unique perspective on the value of Employer Branding:

Building your employer brand through experiential marketing, and

Establishing a social culture for talent branding

I’ve been a Social Business advocate for quite some time, preaching (to everyone who was interested to hear) that Social Media doesn’t belong to one department or another. Exactly one year ago, October 18th 2013, I wrote about the Death of the Social Media Manager. I believe every word I wrote back then, still applies today, and Talent Connect Conference really amplified it for me.

I accept that not every company can employe a full time resource(s) to handle Employer Branding. I do believe though, that every company should expand the role of their HR function, to include employer branding in their arsenal. And to get the best result, make sure that HR and Marketing collaborate and work together, to achieve best results…

One of the major obstacles many corporate recruiters face, is the lack of support (money, people) they get, to create and implement Employer Branding strategies and campaigns. It’s very difficult to get support, for any new initiative. Tim Johnson, Director of Recruiting, Epic Games,  suggests creating something tangible, like a short video, and show it to the executive in it’s early stages, raw format. That first initiative’s purpose is to get support, and get permission to invest more resources. Others opted to create low budget, almost amateur videos to show authenticity of the people working for the company. Not recruiters or marketers, but employees from various functions…Tim had a great advice for those who are trying to elevate their company’s employer branding:

To get sign-off, DO first, and ask for permission later…

Edelman’s Trust Barometer was obviously mentioned, proving that people will trust messages from company’s staff TWICE AS MUCH as they’d trust the CEO or marketing messages… This is great news for the low-budget recruiter /marketer,  as there’s no need to create award-winning campaigns to get traction. You only have to have some creative brainstorming session with your peers, and go and try something!

One of the best tactics, heard from most speakers and Employer Branding advocates in the conference, is to get your employees to their stories to build your brand. Encouraging employees to publish private stories, will help build the company’s story. This is a simple, yet amazingly effective tactic, which is very easy to implement…

I’d love to hear stories from your experience, as a recruiter or a marketer, and how Employer Branding is implemented in your company….