Employer Branding


September 10
Hero employer-blogging-for-humans-quick-tips-for-effective-relatable-blog-posts

Find Your Voice

Cultivating a unique voice is essential for effective blogging. If your company has well-established branding, this will be a matter of translating that identity into a voice compatible with blogging. If your business is still establishing its image, your blog is a great place to evolve your brand and define your company culture. Use your blog to explore how you would like to be perceived, be it traditional and time-tested or innovative and cutting-edge, executive-chic or, as we at Jobcast prefer, business casual. Just be sure that the voice you choose is true to your company’s core values and becomes consistent from post to post.

Think of your blog as a brand ambassador

A successful brand ambassador portrays the company that they represent with positivity and enthusiasm, but even more importantly, they are relatable and trustworthy. Your blog is a way to make your company human. Yes, it is important to highlight strengths, but occasional posts showing weakness will keep your blog from seeming too corporate and unrelatable. Consider blogging about something new that your company is attempting to implement, something you don’t have all the answers for, as this encourages input from your readers, creating dialogue.

Foster audience participation

Your blog can be a vital part of your company’s visibility if you cultivate an active readership. Effective blogging inspires readers to comment, like, tweet and pin! Use great photos, link to some handpicked posts or online resources, use polls, catchy titles and humor. This kind of blogging encourages readers to share your posts with their colleagues and friends. And remember, in order to share a blog post on Pinterest, it must have an image. The image will be what inspires other pinners to click or skip, so make it count.

Also, write content that elicits response. Try writing posts that are open-ended, ask questions, and allow for debate. Appearing knowledgeable is important, but you must leave room for input, differing opinions and conversation. Dialogue not monologue!

Think outside of your industry

Of course it’s important to stay up to date on what other websites and blogs in your field are doing, but if you want to set your company apart, you’ll need to seek inspiration from outside your community. Think of some of your favorite tech blogs, design blogs, even food blogs. There is no reason that aspects you love about them can’t be applied to your employer blog.  Personally, I love how Food52 fosters audience participation through the “Community Picks” section of their website.

Keep it short and sweet

No one has time to read a novel when surfing the net. Your blog post is not a comprehensive article in Inc. Magazine (a fantastic resource for employer bloggers, by the way). It must be short and punchy in order to hold a reader’s attention. Blog posts work best when they provide information in a way that is quick, enjoyable and easy to read. If a reader wants more details, they can reference the handpicked links you’ve provided, or even better, email you directly.

Get social

Promote your blog through social networking. Okay, so this one is glaringly obvious, but so often overlooked. When you put up a new post, make sure you promote it through Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, or other social networks that suit your needs. Use captivating images wherever possible. Urge employees to like, promote and link to the company blog. Asking your staff for content ideas and feedback is a great way to encourage employee involvement. For more ideas about getting your employees onboard with social networking, see this article on BusinessWeek.com

Don’t fear New Media

A fantastic way to meet your goals and appeal to those within your talent communities is by showcasing company culture on your blog and what better way to do that than through video. You don’t have to be too technologically savvy to or spend a lot of cash to make a short video that gives prospective employees a taste of what working for your company is like. By making your companies values visible, you’ll attract readership from those with similar ideals. For more specific advice on recruitment-oriented video read Ryan’s awesome post here. Blog with purpose

To keep tabs on the effectiveness of your blogging you need some trackable goals. If recruitment is a major focus, then a relevant goal would be to increase the number of likes or comments from desirable candidates. In essence, use your blog to grow your talent communities. Then, track sharing and comment sourcing so you can verify the results. This will let you monitor which blog posts appeal to the select audience you are looking to cultivate and help you tailor your posts to encourage sharing. Chances are they have equally desirable peers you want to reach so that when you next embed a job opening into your blog (oh, and did I mention our new job widget?), it will be seen by all the right people.

Links we Love

Check out these links for even more, possibly better, tips and some very useful apps. Happy blogging! Drop us a line and let us know how it goes.

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August 22
Hero introducing-job-widget-an-embeddable-widget-for-your-company-website

A couple of months ago, we introduced Job Sync, an incredibly easy way to automatically synchronize your jobs between your existing career site and your Facebook Page. But what about those of you that don't have a career page on your corporate website? We've found that many of you are using Jobcast as your exclusive ATS, and as a result, you want a way to embed jobs on your company website. In other words, you want to use Jobcast to manage all of your recruitment efforts.

Introducing the Job Widget

Our Job Widget is easy to set up: just copy and paste one line of code and a career site will appear instantly. Your visitors will be able to search jobs and apply to them directly from inside of your website.  And for those clients who have upgraded their account to a Premium plan, you will be able to brand your career site just as easily as branding your 'Careers' tab on your Facebook Page. How to get started....

1) Retrieve the Job Widget code from the Jobcast app on Facebook. This code can be found under Customize -- Pages -- Job Widget:

2) Copy and paste the Job Widget code into any web page (or pages) where you want your jobs to appear. Here is how that would look if you're using WordPress:

3) Your jobs will instantly appear on your website:

If you upgrade to Premium, you can strengthen your brand by customizing the Job Widget just like you can for your Facebook Page:

We hope that our Job Widget will make it extremely easy for you to embed your jobs on your company website and provide an excellent job application experience for your candidates.

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July 22
Jobcast Careers

With today's technology, companies of all sizes can take advantage of video to showcase the unique culture within their organization. Be real, be honest, and focus on presenting your company in an authentic way to potential applicants. Star employees are on the hunt for more than just a J.O.B and want to work for an organization whose values and mission are in line with their worldview.  Great organizations are built when like-minded people come together to work on projects they believe in. What does your organization stand for and how can you present that in a recruitment video?

 Ideas for producing your recruitment video

Allow candidates into your world and give them a true feel for who they'll be working with, what the company's vision is and why it's important. Try incorporating some of these ideas into your video footage:

  • Add an introduction from the CEO or founder

  • Conduct interviews with existing employees

  • Provide tours of the office

  • Show staff interacting at a company event

  • Highlight benefits and perks that make your company unique

Need a little inspiration?

In a recent blog post, Jennifer King, HR Analyst at Software Advice provides some great examples of excellent recruitment videos by Zendesk, Rackspace and HubSpot which are embedded below. You can find her full article here.

Example Recruitment Videos

Zendesk

This is Zendesk

Rackspace

Your Career at Rackspace

HubSpot

Inside HubSpot

Have you seen any recruiting videos that deserve honorable mention? If so, please share them with us in the comments! P.S. With Jobcast Premium, you can build your own employer branded Facebook Career Page complete with graphics, embedded YouTube video and a list of your latest jobs. To get started, install Jobcast on your Facebook Page.

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June 21
Jobcast Careers

Google and Microsoft do it, Disney dapples in it, even HSBC and Deloitte have joined the bandwagon. All of these companies are harnessing the power of video and social media to connect with potential candidates. Most communications professionals will tell you that video marketing is the wave of the future (and even the present) as more and more people are accessing video through social media outlets, including YouTube as well as corporate websites and news multimedia channels. Some quick stats and facts:

  • 35 hours of video footage is uploaded to YouTube every minute.

  • Over 13 million hours of footage was uploaded in 2010

  • More video is uploaded every 60 days than the three major US television networks produced in 60 years

  • 94 of AdAge magazine’s top 100 advertisers have run campaigns on YouTube

  • Over 5 million people have found and subscribed to a friend’s channel using YouTube’s friend-finding tools.

  • Over 2 billion videos are viewed every day

If you are currently recruiting or just looking for ways to help establish your company as a great place to work, why wouldn’t you broadcast your employer message through a medium with this kind of reach? As the economy gains momentum and the skills shortage again rears its ugly head, having a strong company brand reputation, particularly amongst YouTube’s base age demographic of 18-54, will help your recruitment efforts and overall market positioning. Some great examples of recruitment videos include: Google, Disney, Telus and Deloitte. Recruitment videos are about sharing the experience, speaking with employees and supporting your existing brand message. Job seekers are increasingly conducting extensive research on companies before applying for roles and while your corporate website, Facebook and Twitter pages offer some insight, it is the personal touch of a recruitment video that can tip the scale, particularly for younger workers. Online video is not confined to YouTube alone. There are many other uses for recruitment videos, whether they are uploaded to your company website or on targeted job board or news website, shared on various social media, including Facebook and Twitter, or even played in the office reception area or career fair. While videos should be professional and communicate a consistent brand message, they need not be expensive. The best videos highlight employees of different ages and departments, explaining why they enjoy working for the company. Think video recruiting might be right for your organization? Here’s a checklist to get you started.

  • Assess your objective and key message(s)

  • Determine your budget

  • Hire a video production company (this need not be expensive, but companies have the right equipment to help ensure a strong finished product)

  • Gather key employee spokespersons to participate

  • Follow through with an integrated marketing campaign including online, social media and email communications as well as possibly traditional print, out-of-home and broadcast messages

  • Have fun and showcase why your company is a great place to work!

Have a great recruitment video to share? Post the link below and we’ll share them on our social media pages.

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