(March 15, 2001) Developing an Employment brand involves making a multi year commitment. Brand development involves the repetition and fine tuning of the same message over time. Think of "Be All That You Can Be", the Army's Employment Branding message, as the epitome of a 20th Century campaign. The hook phrase was repeated in all sorts of communications media over the course of 20 years. Consistency, Targeting and Repetition are the necessary baseline. The difference between the Army's monolithic campaign and effective contemporary campaigns is that today's market environment requires tailoring of the message and value proposition at the department level.
Consumers have high expectations for personalized service and are willing to walk - or even surf the web - to get it. Attracting and retaining Potential Candidates is critical. The best approach to defeating the daily assault of new challenges is to embrace marketing's oldest golden rule - the customer is always right and applying it to Potential Employees.
With this in mind, candidates must always be at the center of all of your employment marketing decisions, their influence radiating out to every point of contact you have with them. It's up to you to know their behaviors and preferences and tailor your employment marketing strategies to cater to their needs. Companies who recognize this and build their strategies around retaining and deepening their relationships with their potential employees are the ones who will succeed.
(Excerpt from the 2001 Electronic Recruiting Index)
- John Sumser © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved.