How exactly do Top Employers deploy their powers of seduction? Career sites, social networks, internal recruitment…? Since recruiting is one of the top priorities of Top Employers, they use a varied range of tactics to first inform, then convince, and finally secure “top talent”. It is essential for them to get a jump on their potential rivals by inventing the most effective forms of message content. Here is the proof….
Although the aim of this article is to present the different action plans and tools that Top Employers use as part of their employer brand strategies, it is important to stress that what separates all of these companies is their common concern of maintaining a strong human dimension throughout the recruiting process. In addition, the action plans they deploy are designed to ensure genuine alignment between the true nature of the jobs/careers on offer and the perception that the candidates have of them.
1. The starting point is the company’s career site!
The first contact between a potential applicant and any company usually takes place on the company’s career site. Therefore, it’s natural for Top Employers to make doubly sure that this platform presents a broad range of winning features: an attractive message, an overview of jobs and career paths, easy access to application forms and even job-coaching tips. With their career site, some companies go beyond the simple aim of staff recruitment. They are also seeking to target profiles as precisely as possible. In a sense, they have already begun the job interview.
Top Employers are developing examples of best practice, like the Société Générale, which offers a “Coaching room” containing a range of advice aimed at optimizing the job search. Career sites seek as far as possible to offer applicants a personalized approach by putting them in touch with the company’s ambassadors. This sort of local contact is increasingly popular with prospective applicants.
2. Social networks… an absolute must-use!
The running of a career site also necessitates the use of social networks. They help not only to give greater visibility to an employer brand but also to foster closer links. ING Bank France is a good illustration of this. Their HR Twitter feed attempts to give some insight into life inside the company and its in-house culture. It highlights certain events, such as the Quality of Life at Work Month, or recruiting initiatives like their recruitment day for disabled people. According to Elise Tricon Yvray, their HR Development Manager, “our strategy and our determination to ensure openness need to be relayed by a number of tools which allow us to personalize online exchanges”. She then quotes an interesting figure: for each job offer posted on its social network platforms, ING Bank France receives anywhere from 100 to 600 applications per month. It’s true that the applicants are not always that well-qualified, but their applications all add to the company’s job market potential.
The social networks can also have a positive impact inside a company itself. Siemens, for example, has set up a Facebook group specifically for newly recruited staff members. Its aim? To provide newcomers with a toolbox to help them find their bearings during their first few months in the company and find answers to their practical, everyday questions.
3. Power to the company’s ambassadors
When speaking about issues of an employer’s brand and openness, what could be more effective than statements from current staff members expressed in words or pictures? This is the strategy employed by BNP Paribas with their innovative Pinterest pages, BNP Paris Careers on Pinterest. Staff members post photos showing the jobs they do and their working environment. In a sense, they give a pictorial description of their working day and their personal vision of the company. What better way for job applicants to decide whether the work context and atmosphere are likely to suit them? In this Pinterview, we can see some highly original sequences, such as this photo-novel showing how jobs in the banking trade have evolved over the past 150 years.
4. Internal recruitement
Seduction strategies do not exclusively target outside applicants. The Orange Group, for example, are invested in making full use of their in-house potential via their 2.0 tool “Mon itinéraire” (= “My career path”), a sort of digital board game designed to help staff members make choices and decisions about their professional itinerary. “Whenever an employee wishes to go higher in the company, this device enables him to see the different ways of getting there. Orange’s aim is to encourage staff members to take an active interest in the jobs of the future and to optimize their career possibilities”.
The same dynamic is being used at Pepsico with their « Pepsipoly » program, designed to coach and develop existing talent and to convince staff members of the opportunities for in-house promotion, while also offering support solutions to help interested talent secure their desired posts. It’s interesting to note that 40% of Top Employers make use of games to promote internal mobility. Another example is the RATP. While not providing any specific tools, but with the same concern for ensuring staff satisfaction, the group devotes 7% of its annual payroll to vocational training. The aim is exactly the same: to help optimize the most rewarding career paths in order to ensure long-term retention of in-house talent.
5. The Rolls-Royce of all action-plans: Business Games
In order to secure top talent, especially among young graduates, Top Employers readily resort to the use of “serious games” or “business games”. This innovative variation on basic sourcing techniques is expensive, but it offers a dual advantage: it highlights the employer brand, while also helping to identify outstanding profiles. “With business games, our concern is not just to hire good candidates; we’re out to attract the very best”. BNP Paribas, the Société Générale, the SNCF… all of them are now committed to organizing business games. A heavy financial investment is required, but ultimately, this strategy is a highly effective means of being seen by job applicants as an attractive employer.
6. Without forgetting the Top Employers certification
According to a recent MRW survey, over 69% of applicants say that they find a job offer more attractive if the company has been awarded a Top Employers certification. There are several different reasons for this: according to the applicants, these companies offer better leadership, more promising career prospects, satisfactory pay policies, and an excellent company culture.
For more information please contact us at marketing@top-employers.com or via twitter @TopEmployer
