Give and Get Employer Branding summary

You may be thinking, “Wait a minute...you want me to purposely attract fewer candidates?” Yes. But, keep in mind, we want to improve your recruitment and hiring process by attracting fewer unwanted candidates and stronger, more passionate ones overall.

This is what the Give and Get approach is all about: bringing you candidates that are eager to work for your company specifically. These are potential hires that are less likely to contribute to workforce turnover numbers and more likely to be loyal, hardworking superstars. 

If you’re familiar with the story of Luke Skywalker, then you’re familiar with the Hero’s Journey. 

Back in the 1970s, George Lucas was struggling to complete his screenplay for Star Wars. Eventually, he passed it along to his friend and writer, Joseph Campbell, who helped punch up the story so that it followed a formula he’d been theorizing about: the Hero’s Journey.

You’re probably not a trained storyteller, are you? So how are you supposed to come up with engaging stories that will capture your audience’s attention?

Well, if you have a workforce of people who are succeeding at their job, then you have stories right under your nose, just waiting to be told. All you have to do is reach out and ask the right questions.

How big is your organization? Do you have offices in multiple locations? If so, you need to consider these geographic differences while identifying your personas. If you treat your US audience the same as your UK audience, you’re not going to get the best results.

When it comes time to activate your new employer brand, you should work up separate plans for each of your audiences. These plans should be tailored to touch on the desires and challenges that you’ve come to understand from talking to people in each of your departments and locations.

Let’s talk about materials. What are the tools that will get your employer brand off the ground?

You want to make your brand as simple and straightforward as possible. To do that, have a cheatsheet and employer brand guidebook ready for senior executives – and a toolkit for anyone else who may be a possible brand ambassador.

You want a good example of delight? How about sending candidates a video of Usain Bolt wishing you luck, the day before your interview? This is something that Virgin Media started doing, and it’s precisely the kind of extra effort that led to the company revitalizing its employer brand.

While some aspects of the candidate experience can be hard to measure and keep track of, it’s not impossible to highlight the ways in which the Give and Get approach can improve your business.