Talent Talk: What Is Your Hiring Brand?

Your branding as an employer is especially important for attracting and retaining top performers. We continue to be in an extremely tight labor market in the United States, and companies need to utilize every available tool in recruiting.

Branding includes marketing items, such as logos and messaging, but is increasingly being expanded to include a company’s culture and values. It is becoming more important to your customers, as well, but here we are focusing on the importance to your employees and recruiting efforts.

Studies show that as many as three-quarters of job seekers will consider an employer’s brand before applying to a position, and this includes job seekers who are unemployed, underemployed, or unhappy in their current job. For positions we are working on, I would put that number close to 100%, as we are attempting to recruit people who are currently employed, mostly happy in their job, and fairly compensated.

In the world of plastics manufacturing, we are running this already difficult race into a strong headwind. Images of single-use plastics in landfills and waterways come to the mind for some outside the industry.

You want people to know that your company is a great place to work. Most companies have positive things that they offer, which they may not even realize or take for granted. When we work with a new client, one of the first tasks we perform is to help them develop what we call their employer value proposition.

That value proposition is what a prospective employee might find enticing in joining a new organization. While it might include things like salary and benefits, we are also looking for advancement potential, interesting work, a manager who is well recognized in the industry and will be a great mentor, flexible working arrangements, opportunities to give back to the community, and more.

Next week we will continue this discussion with some specific recommendations on how to identify your company’s value proposition, how to improve it, and how to communicate it.

About the author

Paul Sturgeon is CEO of KLA Industries, a national search firm specializing in plastics, packaging, and polymer technology. If you have a topic you would like to see discussed, a company that is growing, or other ideas for this blog, e-mail Sturgeon at [email protected].