The Importance of Branding when Hiring

By: Vicki Bohlsen, President

With vaccines and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) in the mix after a long and stressful year, a lot of organizations are finding that they are looking at hiring! This includes us; we have positions open. 

Let’s be frank. Hiring is time-consuming but having hiring and onboarding processes in place makes it so much easier when you’re ready to pull the trigger. 

I recently became aware that many agencies use poaching as a hiring tactic.

After researching this, I found that poaching is a reasonably acceptable – and oftentimes suggested – practice of finding good talent.

I get what all the pro-poachers are saying, I really do. But I have never felt comfortable contacting people from what I perceive to be a colleague or partner. This may make me appear provincial, but I’d rather it be a reminder to be on our game so that when we are hiring, we are prepared to get good-fit applicants. 

Here are three important questions to ask yourself to be ready to hire:

1.     Is your positioning buttoned up? Positioning is what makes you unique and differentiates your organization from perceived competitors. Good positioning decreases your list of competitors significantly because of your uniqueness.

2.     Does your organization have a mission and vision? The vision is where the organization wants to be in the future; the mission envelopes what the organization needs to do now to achieve the vision. 

3.     Have you identified all of your organization’s target audiences and how, when and where to communicate with them? It is important to have included future employees in your target audiences so that you are preparing them to apply for your open positions.

For instance, Bohlsen Group is a unified marketing agency that works with organizations that use business as a force for good. We are differentiated because of the term we’ve coined, “unified marketing,” as well as because of the types of partners we choose to work with. 

As for communicating with future employees:

• We created and manage a robust internship program that we take and implement seriously. This program is a “feeder” for future employees.

• We are aware of what matters to future employees, and we’ve created a workplace culture that we think will draw people to our company.

• Our mission and vision automatically draw good-fit employees to our organization because of the uniqueness of the partners we work with.

• We integrate employee branding into our marketing efforts so future employees can get an inside look at the work we do and what it’s like doing the work with us.

When we are ready to hire, I want to make sure the good fits will find us because they’ll know we’re hiring. And even if they come to us from a partnering or competing business, it will be because they are looking for a change.