Category Archives: Branding

The Grass Isn’t Always Greener

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This is HR’s go-to advice for employees who put in their two-week notice, especially if that employee is heading to a competitor:

“Just remember! The grass isn’t always greener!” 

HR is mostly right. I’d say here’s the actual breakdown of ‘greenest’:

  • 50% is actually about the same shade of green. You’re moving to just move. You’ll find the job, the people, the money, everything is almost the same. The only change is the name and maybe the location by a bit.
  • 30% is going to be a nice shade of light brown, meaning the grass isn’t green at all, it’s dead! HR wants to believe this number is higher but it’s not, but it’s high enough to give some folks some pause before making such a big decision.
  • 10% is way greener! Like green M&M green. Dream job green! Everything is better and you’re so happy you made the move. You found your dream job!
  • 10% isn’t grass at all. Someone replaced the grass with some other material, like in Phoenix where grass can’t grow so they pave the front yard and paint it green, or just put in rock and cactus. This is completely something you didn’t expect. You were hoping for a better job, and you got something that isn’t better but not worse, it’s not even the job you expected, so you can’t really compare.

So, you have about a 10% chance of getting what you think you’re getting. Not good odds, but like I said, most employees way overthink their odds on this and probably believe they have a 70-90% of bettering themselves when they move. Most will just stay the same or get slightly worse.

Why do we believe moving is better?

1. You’re being sold. Sold by a recruiter and a hiring manager that you’ll be moving from a trailer park to Disney World. You really, really want to believe that’s true, so you buy!

2. You over-value that what we don’t know, over what we already have. This happens in so many areas of our life. Relationships. Jobs. Table at a restaurant.

3. You over-value what others have, over what you have. Think about this for a minute. You’re so eager to get out of this job, yet others are so eager to get this job. What does that say? You’re brilliant and everyone else is an idiot? Probably not. The truth is usually somewhere in the middle.

Everyone keeps telling me all these ‘new’ young workers just want to jump from job to job. They don’t have loyalty, etc. The reality is much less about their desire to move, and more about them being more naive to the realities of changing jobs.  We all loved changing jobs until it backfires and you leave something good, for something crappy.

Once that happens, you’re less likely to change jobs the rest of your career, even if you’re in a bad job! Don’t underestimate what you currently have. It’s probably way better than you’re making it out to be, and the new gig isn’t as good as it sounds. That’s not sexy, that’s just reality.

 

T3 – @Ratedly

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This week on T3 I review the anonymous employee review monitoring mobile app Ratedly. Ratedly is the brainchild of the godfather of recruiting thought leadership, Joel Cheesman.  When I entered this game eight years ago there were like four people in the world that talked about the Recruiting Industry and Joel was one of those folks, so he knows the industry very well.

Ratedly was built for HR leaders to be able to monitor employee review sites. When we hear that, most of us will only think of Glassdoor, but there are literally dozens of sites with employee reviews and new ones popping up weekly. Indeed now rivals Glassdoor with the number of reviews they have, and niche sites like InHerSight, AARP, and other local sites are collecting millions of employer reviews. Heck, it even monitors Twitter for notifications about your organization.

The problem will all of this is it becomes too time-consuming to monitor all of these sites and respond in a fashion that is representative of your employment brand. On top of being able to monitor, these sites run 24/7/365, and most of our HR and TA teams don’t! Yet, our executives want these reviews, especially the negative ones, responded to immediately!

Ratedly was built on a native mobile platform, meaning it’s built to be used on smartphones and tablets. It was done this way because of the expectation that whomever in your organization was responsible for this, more than likely, they would want 24/7 access to these reviews the moment they came in, with the ability to share with others in the organization, and be able to respond in real-time.

5 Things I like about Ratedly:

1. The UX is designed to be similar to a news feed you’ll find on many other apps, so the feel is very familiar and easy to use. Ratedly allows you to scroll through your employer reviews all in one spot, at the same time.

2. Bookmarking. On the Ratedly app you can easily bookmark reviews to go back to later and find them quickly. On each review, you will also have access to read the full review, see job title, location, star rating, etc.

3. Share feature. Ratedly easily allows you to share reviews from the app with hiring managers, executives, etc. Some organizations have the leader responsible respond, some have one department like TA respond, regardless of your process, Ratedly allows you to share with whoever you want, immediately.

4. Ratedly puts the monitoring of all of these review sites in one simple easy to use app. No longer does your employment branding team need to check into all of these sites on a daily basis. Or, like most organizations, you’re lucky to check in once or twice per month, and see some bad review that’s been sitting there for weeks!

5. It’s really inexpensive for the service that it offers! $149 per month, is peanuts for when it comes to protecting your employment brand. Most organizations have so much invested in their brand, and Ratedly becomes an inexpensive way to ensure that investment doesn’t blow up overnight!

Ratedly seems to be a technology that larger to enterprise level organizations would definitely have an interest in. If I was running employment branding for a multi-national I would definitely have it in my tool chest. The price point, though, really allows SMBs to come and play as well, especially those smaller startups who are in highly competitive environments and their brand is everything to getting talent. Well worth taking a look!

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – send me a note.

5 Instagram Filters That Will Make HR Better at Recruiting!

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You know it’s true—you’re a great HR Pro, but you don’t really like to recruit. That’s okay, because you’re good at a million other things your company values.

But here’s the thing: A recent Deloitte report outlined the need for HR Pros to grow their skills beyond what our functional area is traditionally known for. CEOs and division heads are expecting different things from HR, and one of those areas of need is… you guessed it… Talent Acquisition/Recruiting.

(Cue the lighting, adjust the crop and apply the filter—BAM. Insta-recruiter. There’s nothing that an Instagram filter can’t transform!)

The Fistful of Talent crew is back with the following webinar, “Instagramming HR: 5 Filters HR Pros Can Use To Transform Into Better Recruiters“ (sponsored by the good folks at Jobvite). Join Dawn Burke and Kris Dunn on June 29th at 2pm EST, and they’ll hit you with the following goodies:

–A review of why leaders report the need for HR re-skilling and why recruiting rises to the top of the list for HR pros and generalists at all levels.

–Data on how talent acquisition is a key component to achieving results in the modern workforce—including areas that HR Pros love to talk about (employee engagement, retention, etc).

–A breakdown of how recruiting has become more challenging in the last 5-10 years, and why the methods HR Pros have traditionally used to recruit aren’t as effective today.

–5 key strategies that HR Pros can embrace to modernize their approach to recruiting, get better results for their organizations and be viewed as high potential by the leaders they serve. We’ll go over those strategies and tell you how to get started with each of them.

The HR Pros at FOT know you work hard and are good at what you do. You don’t have to love recruiting as an HR Pro; you just have to be good enough at it to ensure it doesn’t hurt your career. With a little editing and the perfect lighting (Nashville, amIright?) you can bring out your inner recruiter in no time.

Click here to join us for “Instagramming HR: 5 Filters HR Pros Can Use To Transform Into Better Recruiters“ on June 29th at 2pm EST, and we’ll show how to ramp up your recruiting game without giving up the things you love to do as an HR Pro!!

REGISTER TODAY!

Would You Be Willing To Pay For Interview Feedback?

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I get my ideas in the shower. I have a busy life, so it seems like my down time is that solid 5 to 10 minutes I get in the shower. I usually shower twice a day—once first thing in the morning, then before I go to bed. That’s 10 to 20 minutes daily to think and clean. I like going to bed clean. I like waking up with a shower. You’re welcome. You now know my daily cleaning habits. Thanks for stopping by today!

I’m not sure why ideas come to me. My wife says I’m not completely “right.” I get weird things that come into my head, at weird times. This morning I decided to stop fighting the candidate experience freaks (those people that think candidate experience actually matters, which it doesn’t) and finally help them solve their problem. You won, freaks. But I damn well better get a lifetime achievement award at the next Candidate Experience Awards!

Here’s your solution: Charge candidates a fee to get feedback on their interviews.

<Drops mic, walks off stage, give me my award.>

Yeah, that’s what I just said. Let me give you the details; apparently, a couple of you just spit out your coffee.

Candidates want great feedback on their interviews, desperately. When someone really wants something, that certain thing becomes very valuable. HR shops in organizations have the ability to deliver this very valuable thing, but they don’t have the resources to do it well. By well, I mean really well: making that feedback personable, meaningful, and developmental.

Are you willing to spend 15 minutes debriefing a candidate after an interview… a candidate you don’t want? Of course not. What if that candidate paid you $10 for that feedback? That’s $40 per hour you could make just debriefing candidates. Couldn’t you go out and hire a sharp HR pro for like $30 per hour to do this job?

Yeah, that’s why I deserve awards. My ideas are groundbreaking. It’s a big burden to carry around.

Think of this like an airline. Airlines figured out that certain people are willing to pay an extra $25 to get on the plane first, or to be first in line. This is all you’re doing. You’re not taking advantage of anyone; you’re just offering a first-class candidate experience for those willing to pay for it. For those unwilling to pay for first class, they’ll get your coach experience. They’ll get a form letter that says thanks, no thanks, here’s a 10% off coupon on your next use of our service, or whatever you do to make that candidate experience seem special.

A first-class candidate experience for $10. Do you think candidates would pay for that? You’re damn straight they would! Big companies would actually have to establish departments for this! Goldman Sachs, give me a call, I’ll come set this up for you! GM, Ford and Chrysler, I’m like an hour away, let’s talk, I can come down any day next week.

It’s easy to dismiss a crazy idea that some guy came up with in the shower—until your competition starts doing it, it becomes the industry norm, or Jobvite orHireVue or Chequed builds the app and starts selling this a service. My Poppi (that’s what I called my Grandfather) always use to say, “Tim, it only costs a little more to go first class.” People like first-class treatment. People want first-class treatment. People will pay for first class treatment.

Would you pay for great interview feedback, so great it could be considered personal development? How much?

The Secrets Behind How Google, Amazon and Facebook Hire The Best People!

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This was a headline the other day in an article over at Qz.com by Sarah Cooper. Now, Quartz does legitimate articles so it might have been hard for some to figure out if this was actually supposed to satire or if Sarah was actually trying to help you out. I have a feeling it was a little of both! I know it was getting shared a ton, and not for its humorous qualities!

Here is what Sarah said were the big secrets of Google, Amazon, and Facebook in hiring the best people:

  1. Begin phone screens 15 minutes early, 15 minutes late, or not at all

  2. Make the interview schedule as confusing and unpredictable as possible

  3. Make sure something goes wrong during the presentation

  4. During the interview, make a ton of incorrect assumptions

  5. Ask the candidate to solve your own, specific problems

  6. Have the interview frequently move between different rooms

  7. Ask the same questions over and over and over again

  8. Conduct dual interviews with a good cop / bad cop vibe

  9. Ask a question, then start typing very loudly

  10. Three months later, call and offer the candidate a job she didn’t apply for

After each point she gave an explanation on ‘why’ should do this and what it helps point out to you about a candidate. This is why so many folks read this as a real article, and since so many Talent Pros and Leaders are starving to find out what Google, Amazon, and Facebook does, they want to believe this is true! It’s not.

What is the ‘Real’ secret to how Google, Amazon, and Facebook hire the best people?

Because They’re Freaking Google, Amazon, and Facebook! 

They don’t do anything special. They post a job. A million people apply and they wade through the masses to find great talent. Sounds tough, huh?

Apple announced the other day they’re going to be hiring some new developers in Florida. It hit the national news. Every local paper picked it up. It was on every local news and radio station. It was the talk of the town!

A local software company, who was headquartered in Florida for the last twenty years, had all of its employees in Florida, is looking for the exact same developers. They’ve been struggling to find them, and no news agency or radio show could care! They’re not Apple! Who cares.

It’s probably just because Apple has such a great ’employment’ brand….Yeah, I’m sure that’s it.

Do you want to know a real secret? 

Don’t try to be Google, Amazon, or Facebook when it comes to hiring. You’ll just look silly. You’re not them. They have brand recognition you can’t even fathom. What they do in hiring has absolutely no correlation to 99% of the companies in the world. Be you. Find a path that works for you. Strive to get others in your market, your industry to want to follow you. That’s doable.

Don’t Apply to College if You’re White, Middle Class and Male

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I heard a female comedian the other day say one of the truest things I’ve ever heard:

Look, if you’re a white dude, and you’re failing in America, you’re really a failure! You’re like the definition of failure! You can’t be a white dude and complain about how hard life is. If you’re a white guy and you’re failing at life, you’re basically saying, “I can’t find a way to be successful in a society that was built for me.” That’s America.

Which is probably why Trump is trying to make it white great again!

What this comedian was saying is no one wants to hear white dudes whine about stuff. “Oh, it’s so hard to find a job.” “Oh, I can’t afford a house in the richest part of town.” “Oh, I’m not going to be able to retire until I’m 62.” In comparison to real people problems in the world, it all sounds stupid.

Did you hear the whole Kelly and Michael drama that blew up this past week? All said and done, Kelly comes out and says, “My Dad, who drove a bus for thirty years, thinks we’re all crazy!” Privilege, at any level, isn’t supposed to whine about shit.

So, all that being said, here’s my privilege whine:

College Acceptance and Tuition Payment is completely broken! 

My middle son is about to make his college choice. He’s got some great schools that have accepted him. He has some great ones that did not. His dream school was Duke. He also really liked Northwestern, Dartmouth, and UCLA. He has a 4.05 GPA on a 4.0 scale (honors classes give you additional GPA) and a 31 on his ACT (97th percentile of all kids taking this test).  He had the grades and test scores to get into all of those schools.

What he didn’t have was something else.

What is the something else?

He didn’t come for a poor family. He didn’t come from a rich family. He wasn’t a minority. He doesn’t have some supernatural skill, like shooting a basketball. He isn’t in a wheelchair. He isn’t from another country.

He’s just this normal Midwestern kid from a middle-class family who is a super involved student-athlete, student government officer, award-winning chamber choir member, teaches swimming lessons to children, etc., etc., etc.

Basically, he falls into this no-man’s land of what colleges and universities don’t want these days. Male and White.

Can I keep whining? Whatever, it’s my blog – buckle up! 

What is the other something else, from a financial perspective?

He got into Boston College, another dream school for him, and one that wanted him to come and continue his swim career at the Division 1 level. BC also costs $68,000 per year.

Colleges and U.S. Federal Government hate kids who come from families that do the right thing.  What’s the “right thing”?  He comes from a family that pays their mortgage, saved some money for his tuition and put money away for retirement.

Apparently, all those ‘positive’ things, like being financially responsible, are not liked by colleges and the federal government. Colleges and the U.S. Government would have preferred that I didn’t work, let my house go into foreclosure and was in debt up to my eyeballs. If that was the case, both the college and U.S. Federal Government would reward my bad decision making and pay for my son to go to school, fully!

Because he comes from a family that made good decisions, Boston College, and the Federal Government thought it was a good idea for him to pay $68,000 per year to attend their fine university.

My wife and I have spent our son’s entire lives saving for them for college. We sacraficed to basically give them a fund that would pay two full years of tuition and living at a normal state four-year college. The other two years are on their own. We feel they need to shoulder some of that cost to appreciate what it is they’re investing in.

I get it. No one wants to hear about how the middle-class kid can’t go to the super high-end school of his dreams because he can’t afford it.

I’m struggling with this. I’m no different than any other parent who tells their kid when they were little, work your butt off and one day you can go to Harvard! When I should have said, work your butt off, I’ll make awful financial decisions, and then you’ll be able to go to Harvard.

Here’s what I know, and it’s a hard pill to swallow, if my son did exactly what he did (grades, involvement, etc.) and he was Hispanic (or Black, or American Indian, or from a poor country) and I had no money, he would be getting ready to enroll into Duke. But he’s not.

What did he do wrong? He was born into a white family that worked their ass off to give him every advantage in life.

White privilege is a privilege until it’s not. Until a kid’s dream is broken for something he can’t wrap his brain around. Believe me, I understand this goes both ways. I understand there are black kids who don’t even get an interview for a job because some white kid’s Dad already got them the job ‘behind the scenes’. That isn’t right either! In my mind, I don’t see the difference between these two examples.

Rant over. Colleges are going the route of corporate America. White guys are bad, everyone else is desirable, do whatever it takes, at any cost, to make sure this happens. Well, unless, your old, corporate America doesn’t like older people either, no matter what color or gender you are – but that’s a rant for a different day!

Hit him in the comments and tell me how out of touch I am, then remember this is all about a 17-year-old boy with a dream. A dream he worked his ass off to achieve.

T3 – Pimp My Job Descriptions

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I think there is one thing we all still agree on, most job descriptions flat out suck! This leads to a conversation around job descriptions versus job postings. HR pros will say job descriptions are boring because a job description is a legal document. That can be debated, but it’s why most job descriptions are boring and awful and don’t work in attracting candidates!

This is how most technology is developed. Something sucks and a technologist believes they can build a better mouse trap.

Right now most boring job descriptions are ‘jazzed’ up by outside marketing and design firms that charge you a ton and basically give you either a branded template that looks the same for all job descriptions. This is similar to dropping a SmartCar engine into a Porsche. It looks great, but its still crap on the inside!

The other thing they do is basically take your job description and totally build a microsite for that position. It looks like it’s own mini-website. This is ideal but usually very expensive. Many of the new Recruitment Marketing technologies are now doing this for a fraction of the cost.

Then along comes two new technologies that basically take your boring, stale job descriptions and make them exciting and fresh for a really low cost!

These two companies are GoSizzle.io and ViziRecruiter. I’m not writing them up separately because they virtually do the exact same thing for the a very similar price. You send them your lame job description and they give you back a landing page that is fully branded, interactive and professionally designed. For pennies on the dollar that you would spend working with a big design firm to do the exact same thing.

Both have similar metrics to show that their visual stimulating microsites will drive up to 40% more traffic to your postings.  These technologies also use machine learning to recommend to you better wording for higher SEO and higher levels of engagement from job seekers.

After uploading your job description you basically get back a hyperlink URL that you can use to socially recruit on Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, etc. For those organizations that do a lot of outbound recruiting this can be highly valuable.

If you’re mainly a post and pray shop (which most organizations are) I think this technology won’t necessarily do a lot for you. The one weakness both systems have is that while these microsites drive candidates back to your ATS process, they really do nothing for anyone who is visiting your career site and searching your jobs, or for candidates finding your job on Indeed or a job board.

This ATS integration is critical, and both are working on finding ways to make this happen. I expect some of their larger customers will help get this done soon. I’m somewhat surprised that ATSs haven’t picked up on this technology already and integrated it into their own systems. That would be ideal!

Check out both GoSizzle.io and ViziRecruiter. What they do for your job descriptions is 1000% better than what you have right now, and well worth a look, especially for the price!

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – send me a note.

Rerun – HR’s Guide to White People

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It’s Spring Break in Michigan, so I’m going to step away from the daily grind and throw some Reruns at you! You guys remember Rerun, from What’s Happening? (look it up, kids!) So, enjoy the Reruns, they’re some of my favorites!

Originally ran December 2011 – People find this funny, it still gets high traffic. I’m able to write a guide about white people. If I did the exact same thing but did a guide (for humor purposes) about Black people, or Gay people, or Asian people, I would be labeled a racist. That was my point when I wrote this in 2011, not many people got that.

I had a conversation this past week with an author looking for a quote from me on some diversity topics, and since I’m in HR, well, of course, I’m finely suited to talk diversity.  Here’s what I found funny, though, about the whole experience – I found myself thinking less about coming up with some profound wisdom to share with the masses and more about making sure I don’t come across like some Grand Master of the KKK.  This is when it hit me – HR doesn’t get White People!  You know – guys like me – white – male – 40ish; I’m like a Purple Squirrel in HR!  I mean in HR we are all about diversity. Diversity is what we do, so we live it, we hire it, we are IT!

But, I get it.  I’m fine walking this lonely road within HR and being a white male.  It’s what HR is all about, right?  Diversity!  And what says Diversity more than a white male 40ish short dude, in HR – I know crazy right!?  It’s like your mom in IT pumping out JAVA code – it just doesn’t fit.  So, as usual, I’m here to help – so I give to you this holiday season my first gift:

HR’s Guide To White People:

1. Passive-Aggressive:  It’s critical that you understand that white people are passive-aggressive.  We like to get our way, but we don’t want to get our hands dirty.  We aren’t going to get up-all-in-your face, we will subtly torture you until you do it our way.

2. Throwing Ourselves On The Sword:  White people like to feel bad, we love tragedy – but in a good way – well the best way you can take a tragedy!  It makes us feel good inside knowing it’s going to be bad, and might get worse.  It allows us to complain and have lower expectations.

3. We Want To Be Hip:  White people desperately want to be hip, but we can’t figure out that whole – Nigga v. Nigger thing – so we give up – see points 1 and 2 above.  We listen to hip-hop and rap, but only by ourselves, and we label it “urban” on our iPod lists so not to offend.

4. We like to buy really expensive cheap crap if it helps animals or kids: Stop it, don’t judge – but I would definitely step over 3 homeless people to get a new pair of Tom’s! But not four homeless people, I have emotional limits and short legs. Your welcome poor kid who just got a new pair of shoes – that makes me feel so good inside!

5.  Snow Sports: White people like snow sports. You don’t have to be real athletic, and you need a bunch of money to do it – so it fits us pretty well.  Stop having conventions in warm places – how about a freaking convention in Breckenridge or Vail every once in a while, you racist convention planners!

6. Management: White people don’t really like management – don’t get me wrong – we want to be management, just so we are clear.  We just don’t want somebody managing us.

7. Leadership: Yes, this is different than management. Let’s face it, white people love to cheer-lead and nothing says cheerleader, motivation and Tony Robbins like Leadership!  Give me a 6 set series of DVD’s and a book on tape and get out of my way!

8. Diversity: See no. 3, somehow we think that supporting diversity will get us a best friend who is black, Hispanic or Asian – thus make us so much more hipper than those white people who are too scared to speak to non-white people.

9. Awareness: White people love to be Aware!  Aware of your feelings, aware of the situation in north Africa, aware of just about anything – it makes us feel important.

10. Being An Expert on YOUR culture: Since white people aren’t completely thrilled about their own culture, we love being an expert about YOUR culture.  We will travel to your country, we will learn your language, we will take on your religion. It helps cleanse our soul for past digressions.

Bonus Guide to White People likes: Coffee, Organic Food, Gifted Children, Hating Their Parents, Wine, Microbrews, Farmer’s Markets, 80s Nights and Mos Def.

Use these insights wisely to create an environment your white people will feel comfortable and welcomed in.  Now I’m off to listen to PBS and drink an $8 bottle of water.

 

The Employment Branding Arms Race!

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Here’s why HR and Talent Acquisition is NOT like Marketing.

This is marketing –

Nike, Addidas, Under Armour, etc. all fight for market share.  Nike signs Lebron, KD and Kobi. Under Armour signs Steph Curry. Addidas gets D Rose and Wiggins. All of the shoe companies are trying to sign the top sports talent to shoe deals, so you’ll go out and drop $200 a pair for your kid to run around and act like they’re the next Steph Curry.

The ‘brand’ of the shoe you kid is wearing, that you are wearing, matters. It matters to them, it matters to you.  I know it matters because the shoe game is a $63 billion industry. Billion!  You care about what you put on your feet. Your kids really care! Accept my 12-year old who didn’t know who Kevin Durant was when I bought him a pair of KD’s earlier this year. See if he get’s another pair!

The shoe companies spend billions of dollars to create a brand that you want to be a part of, so, you’ll spend even more billions to buy their shoes made by 12-year-olds in China.

This is HR and Talent Acquisition –

We are spending more and more of our organization’s resources to create employment brands.  We are doing this because we need to let ‘talent’ know we are the best option for them to come and work. If we don’t play the game, other employers will beat us to the best talent.  Employment branding then becomes a strategic imperative to our organizations.

The one major difference is, we are only selling an idea.  The shoe companies are selling a product (and an idea that you’re cool if you wear our product!). We, HR and TA, are not selling a product that makes our organizations money. You have an actual marketing department that is doing that. So, in effect, you are creating something, that really has no value in the broader picture of your organization.

That probably doesn’t feel good, right there, for those who are spending most of their life working on and worrying about their organization’s “employment brand”.  You want to argue with me on this. I get it.

The reality is, there are only a handful of true employment brands that anyone really cares about or understands. You can name them off the top of your head: Apple. Facebook. Microsoft. GE (and only because they’re dropping millions right now on this). Enterprise Rent-A-Car (I would argue is the first and best at actually doing this organically, by hiring former NCAA athletes that didn’t go pro). Give me other national employment brands?

The reality is people have no idea what it’s like to work at GM. Or Oracle. Or Walmart. Or IBM. Or FedEx. Or PepsiCo.

We know of them because of their ‘brand’, not their employment brand. Pepsi could spend zero dollars on employment branding, and people would still have a positive connotation of their employment brand because they love their product brand. Conversely, WalMart could spend a billion dollars on employment branding, be a thousand times better to work for than Pepsi, and people wouldn’t buy it. Actually, they probably would, we’re all suckers for believing what the TV tells us.

So, this arms race of employment branding all seems a bit silly.

If every organization is out their ‘building’ their employment brand, the noise gets raised up all at the same time. The only ones who truly have an advantage are the ones who were out first, before the noise got so loud or the ones with the most money who can buy bigger speakers!

The noise is already deafening, and candidates have already stopped listening.

So, what can you do, if you’re one of those employers who is a good company, but people really have no idea who you are and what you do, and what kind of work environment you have? How do you break through the noise?

I believe you need to define what audience you really need to attract and you need to go after them with a sniper rifle. Not louder. Not with a shotgun. Not bigger. Not more money. Get very narrow, and pick off individuals you truly want.

You don’t need to make your message bigger and louder, you need to sneak around the crowd and pull people out of the fray. Put a hood over their head. Throw them into the van and take them back to headquarters. Well, so to speak.

In an arms race where you can’t afford nukes, you need to take the opposite approach and lay down your weapons. Many times the silent protest will get you what you’re looking for.

2 Minutes with Tim! SHRM-SCP or HRCI-SPHR?

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Hey! guys, I’m trying a new platform out this week called Anchor.FM which allows me to post audio right on my blog, and if you have the Anchor App which you can download for free from the App Store for iPhone, you can easily respond back.

Here’s how it works – I have 2 minutes to tell you anything I want. You have one minute to tell me I’m full of hot air! It’s really that easy. Check it out! Either way, you can listen by just pushing the play button below.

This week, I decided to discuss if you should get your SHRM-SCP or HRCI-SPHR. I was asked this question this week via private message and thought others would love to join the conversation.

Let me know what you think about the audio post in the comments!  Anchor is made for people like me – a face made for radio!

I love the idea and think it could be a great way to post every once in a while, or a regular Thursday edition, who knows!