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Most activities in a modern-day recruiting function are operational or tactical in nature, meaning
that they are focused on filling talent needs in the near term. One of the major exceptions to that
rule is employer branding, a strategic practice that involves managing the perception of the
organization among targeted talent populations to attract top talent and foster engagement of
existing top talent. Branding works by understanding what attributes top talent truly desire in an
employer and communicating stories and information that virally spreads, demonstrating how
the organization realistically delivers those attributes.
Firms that engage employment branding well create a velvet rope behind which top talent lines
up for an opportunity to be considered for employment/affiliation with the organization. The
very best firms approach employer branding as a science, using extensive metrics to understand
candidate perception and to target brand management efforts to reposition the organization
according to what is required to attract top talent versus how those in HR or leadership desire the
organization to be portrayed. The efforts are always focused on key attributes ² aka brand
pillars ² and rely on portraying the organization in the best ³true´ light, meaning that all
branding points can be backed up with examples of programs that deliver the brand
systematically.
Both of the organizations highlighted this year do a great job at looking at employer branding as
much more than advertising and recruiting collateral development.
As a global leader in accounting and advisory services, Ernst & Young has a long history of
excelling in many aspects of talent management. Its efforts with regard to employer branding are
no exception. E&Y¶s brand focuses on telling a robust story about how it helps professionals
³Achieve Potential ² Make a Difference.´It has been early adopters of using emerging
communication and engagement platforms and continues to experiment as new ways of sharing
its story emerge. Some key elements of its program include:
±Ernst & Young¶s brand focuses on establishing an industry-
leading perception around four brand pillars that all relate to the opportunity for an
individual applicant or employee to achieve their maximum potential. Its brand pillars
include: opportunity, learning & development, an inclusive and flexible environment, and
making a difference in the community. Brand messaging on these pillars is embedded in
every candidate-facing communication. =
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² Ernst & Young consistently ranks in numerous Best
Place to Work award rankings including: Universum¶s #1 IDEAL Employer of U.S.
undergraduates by business and accounting students; #3 on c Best Places
to Launch a Career; Top 3 in c Top Places to Intern; Top 10 in
Magazine¶s Best Companies for Working Moms; and Top 3 in DiversityInc¶s
Top 50 Companies for Diversity. Ernst & Young is the only big four professional
services firm to be ranked on
Magazine¶s prestigious ³Best Companies to Work
For´ list for 11 years in a row.
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= ² Using a customer service type model, Ernst & Young
identifies or ³maps´ every critical interaction point with potential applicants and
candidates to determine what activities and communications are needed to communicate
the brand.
² Even though it operates in a conservative industry, Ernst &
Young has chosen to use the latest communication platforms to engage its large multi-
generational audience. It uses video, micro-blogging, blogging, and Facebook to ensure
that it communicates using channels the talent desires to use versus what might be easiest
to support. With more than 35,000 Facebook fans in 2009, E&Y launched Connect2U, a
Facebook application that includes an interactive events calendar and empowers students
to connect directly with recruiters and vital career information.
² Advanced employer brand messaging customizes the message
so that it best fits the targeted audience. By moving beyond traditional advertising
channels, E&Y reaches out to students (a significant portion of its target population) in
ways that are uniquely meaningful to students. This mass-personalized messaging
approach includes the development of a Pandora Streaming Radio Channel that plays
songs selected by the 2009 Sumer Intern Class. In addition, it also provides personalized
channels for potential experienced hires. For example, it launched the EY Experience, an
innovative online tool to communicate E&Y¶s culture and opportunities to potential
candidates long out of college. This tool delivers dynamic, personalized content to
experienced professionals based on users¶ responses to profile questions.
² Its innovative Flexspace provides a virtual
reality tour of employees¶ workspaces in order to communicate how work and personal
responsibilities can work together. A supplementary printed brochure helps point students
towards that online tool.
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² Its branding efforts focus not just on external
populations, but also on existing employees as well. Reminding current employees about
their ³brand experience´ can increase employee referrals, as well as help spread a
credible message via social networks. Its internal branding efforts help employees
understand how their work, energy, and enthusiasm contributes to the success they have
with clients, the environment in which they work, and how together they can make a
difference in the world.
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UnitedHealth Group is known to many in the United States, as it is one of the largest health
insurers and health system operators. Thanks to its employer brand management efforts that
focus on telling the story of there being ³Something Greater at Work Here,´ UnitedHealth is also
well regarded as an employer. Some key employer branding program elements include:
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² UHG conducted a series of focus groups and one-on-one
interviews with employees, recruiters, and senior leadership to discover the most salient
employer brand attributes among 75,000 employees dispersed across a multitude of
individually branded facilities. This information, when categorized, help senior
leadership better understand which brand pillars represent their strengths.
² It launched a new career site dedicated to painting a clear
picture of the culture, diversity, career progression, and corporate social responsibility
efforts of the company. It also embedded brand positioning statements in all print
collateral including business development tools.
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² UnitedHealth launched a brand campaign around ³There¶s
Something Greater at Work Here.´ They used a variety of media including Town Hall
meetings, teaser emails, infomercials, and the company intranet to articulate the new
brand positioning internally.
² The branding effort demonstrated significant measurable results including a
46% increase in the number of candidates who were knowledgeable about UnitedHealth
Group¶s mission and values, and a 36% increase in the number of candidates who
perceived UnitedHealth Group as an employer of choice.
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Most corporate careers sites are boring, serving up little more than generic content that can be
found on nearly every other talent competitor¶s site and offering no interaction of value except
for an incredibly painful online application. Great corporate career sites break the mold and
focus on both engaging and servicing prospective talent. The very best take advantage of
streaming video, social media, mobile accessibility, online assessment, metrics for continuous
improvement, compelling and fun features, and personalized messaging based on the interests of
the visiting candidate.
#$%
DaVita is the largest provider of outpatient and inpatient dialysis treatment to patients suffering
from end-stage renal disease or chronic kidney failure. Recruiting medical specialists to staff
more than 1,400 outpatient facilities and 700+ inpatient facilities is no easy task, and DaVita has
rose to the challenge with a level of strategic aggressiveness few can match. Key highlights of its
ongoing best-in-class career website include:
& ² The benchmarking team audited half of the Fortune 500
career portals in order to learn best practices. It identified 12 features that DaVita should
implement in 2009, including making application navigation buttons more intuitive,
rewording headers to provide clearer directions, and simplifying its ³source of hire´
tracking.
& ² Because pictures are more powerful than words as selling tools, DaVita
started the DaVita YouTube.com channel, with 30+ videos. It later expanded its own
portals video offering to highlight its seven most popular positions.
² DaVita created branded social media networks and integrated
pointers to them throughout the site. There are prominent links on every page to allow
candidates to interact using their chosen platform(s). It uses crosslinks, contests, and job
updates to drive candidates to their careers portal from these networks.
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² It came to the realization that all firms eventually will come to:
accessing to the Internet via a mobile device is quickly becoming ubiquitous for
professionals. Recognizing the incredible growth rate of smart phone usage among its
target population, it retooled its site to be mobile friendly. Smart phone browsers are
automatically directed to pages with easier navigation, quick access to company news,
and options to subscribe to mobile updates.
² It added some features to its site including printable coloring book pages
to help teammates and patients explain dialysis to children, while at the same time
hopefully planting seeds for future healthcare careers.
² Improvements in technology now make it increasingly possible to
conduct some candidate assessments online. As a result, DaVita integrated its standard
DDI assessments into its online application process.
² It used Google Analytics to extensively monitor visitor
trends. However, it didn¶t just use metrics to report trends; instead, it used the analytics to
adjust how DaVita organizes and presents information, so that it actually garners more
attention.
& ² It added rotating branding messages to each page¶s navigation bar.
This helped to strengthen the DaVita brand image by highlighting its employer-of-choice
awards and other recognition. As part of this effort it created a corporate awards page.
' & ² it ³screens-in´ higher quality candidates by presenting realistic
job previews. It also upgraded its Community & Culture page to better show the DaVita
VILLAGE (worksite).
_ &
² It did the work to modernize the career site internally,
spending just $60,000 for upgrades and ongoing maintenance. Results included
significant growth in hiring while reducing job board expenses by 85%. Part of this
budget is now used for targeted search engine marketing.
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This well-known financial software provider, under the leadership of Michael McNeal, has been
a long-time innovator in all aspects of recruitment. This year Intuit trashed the traditional career
site architecture, opting instead to create a rich user experience that demonstrates to prospective
talent that Intuit does a lot more than make tax software. While not accessible to mobile
browsers (mobile visitors are served up more traditional content), the site provide an interesting
experience worth checking out. Key features include:
_ & ² The new site, launched in mid-2009, is built entirely in Flash. The highly
interactive portal opens with Melanie, a real Intuit receptionist who welcomes and
instructs visitors to explore three interactive ³rooms´ labeled Innovate, Connect, and
Grow. In the innovate room visitors can discover several ways that Intuit employees let
their creativity run wild, such as Idea Jams, Design for Delight methodology, and ³follow
me homes.´ The connect room lets visitors connect with social networks, and the grow
room tells them about growth and learning opportunities at Intuit.
² Intuit is currently developing an additional interactive channel
called ³Main Street´ that will let visitors explore the multitude of products and services
that can help Intuit customers manage their financial lives.
² It implemented Google Analytics to enable robust tracking and better
reporting capabilities.
_ ² the cost to rebuild the site was steep, $250,000, but the results are promising.
Over the last half of 2009 it averaged 26,000 unique visitors per month and over 10,000
applicants selected the website as its source of hire.
In recent years prospective top talent has got much better at filtering out attempts to market to
them, and much better at engaging in efforts to communicate with them. As social networking
continues to evolve and more recruiting organizations master the art of servicing talent in
interactive and innovative ways the importance of the employment branding will skyrocket. If
you think your organization is among the best, put your assumptions to the test and apply for
consideration next year!
In the next installment of this series, I¶ll take a look at college recruiting, retention, and the use
of technology.
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E&Y also won the award for the best employer brand, demonstrating once again that
organizations with a strong heritage and conservative business standards can excel at innovation
when the business demands it.
Highlights of its approach to employment branding include:
Its brand is based on three pillars: inclusiveness, flexibility, and continuous
learning/development.
There are monthly e-mail opt-in news blasts.
Its extensive Facebook profile, group, and messaging allow students to dialogue with one
another and current E&Y employees about careers in professional services.
The Facebook profile is refreshed weekly with new content.
There is extensive leveraging of the business press and PR to position E&Y as a
progressive employer capable of launching a phenomenal career.
It built a culture campaign featuring stories of E&Y employees that replaced stale
corporate policies. The stories were chosen to emphasize the ³people first´ culture
elements once defined by policies.
E&Y participates in corporate recognition contests like
magazine¶s ³100 Best
Companies to Work For´ ranking, in which E&Y is the only ³Big Four´ company and
one of a tiny handful of companies overall to be ranked consecutively for 10 years.
Notice its recruiting stats regarding boomerangs: 24% of all managers and senior
managers; 40% return within one year and 29% within 1-3 years. Plus 27% of
professional hires come from employee referrals.
Its world-class alumni program features a dedicated website, monthly newsletter, and a
series of national, regional, and local events.