Employment branding 1 – show respect

At its core building an employment brand is about ‘respect’.

Respect for your career website visitors; respect for job seekers’ attention, time and intelligence; respect for potential staff who took the trouble to review your jobs, read about your company and give you the utmost honour by contemplating you as an employer. Respect for the fact that job seekers have other employment and career options.

Instead, companies regularly abused the ‘trust’ of the very people they need to win over.

For instance, take the example of career sections on corporate websites. Littered with outdated information, old job advertisements, long forms to fill, little or no feedback …… the crimes are many. It damages the brand. It is far better not to have a career website than have one whose sole achievement is frustrating job seekers. And yet, hundreds upon hundreds of websites remains neglected, often harming the employer brand in the process.

Check out PortCareers, a recruitment portal run by Port of Brisbane. They got it right.  How they tell their story reflects a deep understanding and respect for their target audience.  When a company treats job seekers with respect, they ended up being the main benefactor. It a perennial puzzle that so little attention and resources is invested into the tools and channels used to connect with job seekers.

Safe to say that how you view, reach out and interact with job seekers will be vastly different if built on the foundation of ‘respect’.  Start the journey by improving your career website, today.