Our people are by far our most valued asset. We have the best team! Culture, after all, is our favorite and most overused buzz word, and we even wrote a blog about how to create a great one. But it’s true. A company will struggle to find success without good people behind the work. So what do you need to do? Get awesome people.
In a time when hiring and retaining top talent is a struggle, it’s important to talk about how you market your brand to potential staff, instead of to your potential customers. If you can’t attract great talent, you’re probably going to struggle to attract good business, too.
Who are you?
The most important foundational element and the place you absolutely need to start is your brand. Who are you? What do you stand for? What is your vision, what is your core focus, and what are your core values? Yes, we did just throw a hole bunch of Entrepreneurial Operating Systems® (EOS®) at you. If you don’t know what that is, read about it here.
You need to know who you are at your core and make sure you’re hiring people that exhibit those same core values. Otherwise, those people won’t last. This does make the hiring process much longer, which we hate, but having the right people on your team is so important. The extra time is SO worth it!
Once you know your brand, you have to infuse it into all of the other elements listed below.
Audience
Determine who your target audience is. Someone looking for a third shift manufacturing position is very different from someone looking for a medical device sales position. Learn about your target audience(s), what motivates them and where they get their information. Then take all that awesome info and build unique audience personas for them.
Content is King
Content, like this blog, is a driver for getting in front of your audience with the messaging you want them to hear. Remember step one? This is where your brand comes in. The tone and voice that defines your brand should be present in all of your content. That is, after all, a prospect’s first impression of you, what you stand for, and what it would be like to work for you.
Social Media
If your audience is on social media, you should be, too. If you just read that sentence and said to yourself, “I don’t think they really use social media,” you’re wrong. Social media is and will continue to be the premiere platform for sharing your company culture and connecting with potential candidates. The best part is that social isn’t just one way communication. It gives people the chance to actually interact with you and the brand. If you’re not sure exactly how to do this, check us out on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. You should be able to get a pretty good sense of who we are.
Create Valuable Connections
We all know the saying, “it’s not what you know, but who you know,” but sadly it’s true, especially here in West Michigan. Community engagement and being involved with local organizations is SO important when it comes to building your network. Once you build that network, it’ll refer great candidates and send amazing people your way. It also shows that your company and brand is highly involved and cares about the community they’re a part of. Come on. Who wouldn’t want to work for a company like that?
We could go on and on with additional strategies, but we wanted to keep this short. If you need some advice on how to position your brand to recruit top talent, contact us. We would love to chat!
