Talking Talent

If your company is finding it hard to attract the best and brightest talent, then look to Google as a guide.

Google has built an employment brand (not to mention its product brand) in just a few years, almost entirely through viral marketing.  The company has been named Fortune’s top company to work for in America and the result is more than 3,000 applications a day from people wanting to work from them.

HR management guru, Dr John Sullivan, explains employment branding as a “viral-based perception management program designed to attract top-quality applicants is based on the premise that the organization is well-managed in the eyes of the target candidate population.”

It has many critical elements, only one of which pertains to getting the message out through awards programs, editorial content in target publications, presentations at conferences, and through viral marketing driven via the employee referral program. It is not the same as recruitment marketing, although recruitment marketing should be aligned with the employment branding effort.”

IBM, GE, Disney, Southwest Airlines and HP have adopted similar viral marketing efforts.  How do they do this?  “Their managers are sought-after speakers, their management practices are written up in business and professional journals, and they all have at least one best-selling book written about their management practices,” says Dr Sullivan. (See Dr Sullivan’s list of the many benefits of employment-branding).

While most corporate recruiting managers spend less than 5 per cent of their budgets on employment branding, the companies who adopt a long-term strategic strategies don’t have a problem attracting the right people – they have the enviable ‘sorting challenge’ of deciding which talent to choose.