At the Campus Recruiting Forum in LA, Sabine Gillert of TMP Worldwide led a great workshop on employment branding. At one point, she divided the attendees (made up of campus recruiters from about 20 companies as well as some college careers office staff) into two groups of about 15 people each. She asked one group to brainstorm out their impressions of Chevron as an employer while the other group did the same for Qualcomm. (The Chevron group included a couple of recruiters from Qualcomm and vice versa.)
The groups quickly put together a good list that included things such as "good benefits package", "secure employment", "innovative", "attempting to position itself as 'green'", "cool technology", and so on. The two lists were shared and the recruiters from those two companies verified that the lists were quite accurate. They included the key elements that those two companies were trying to convey with their branding as well as a few things they hope that prospective candidates will ignore.
But what struck me most was this: nothing on either list could convey in the slightest way what it would feel like to work in one of those companies. Are all employers with good benefits, some bureaucracy, a nice logo and a healthy balance sheet the same? To a very large extent, in the eyes of a candidate (especially a young candidate), the answer is YES! Here was a group of people in their twenties, thirties, forties and up who work in recruiting (as well as some in campus career services who have a long familiarity with these companies) who knew next to nothing about what it would feel like to work in either of these major corporations.
Why? Simple: because we don't know these companies' stories. Only stories can give us the feeling of working with innovative people or under tight timelines. And only stories can convey the most important elements that attract us to an organization: the comraderie, the companionship, the sense of belonging, the feeling of working with like-minded peers. And the only truly believable stories are the ones we get directly from the people they belong to; told by the current employees in an authentic way.
Without these stories (about everything from the company softball team to the feeling of completing a great project to the charitable community work to the inspiring company founder...) employers can only appeal to the candidates' intellect, if that. By ignoring the importance of the gut feelings that are stimulated by true stories, employers are recruiting with at least one hand tied behind their back. Possibly both. Without stories, all employers are the same.
At the Campus Recruiting Forum in Vancouver a couple weeks ago, we held a panel discussion with a dozen university and colleges students from a variety of programs. Nobody could fail to notice the sea change that has place in the students’ career outlook. Of course, I wasn’t terribly surprised, but it is remarkable nonetheless how quickly the hunted have become the hunters. I think that perhaps a few employers in the room were pleased to see students getting a little “taste of reality”, but most were sympathetic.
On the bright side, several employers commented during discussions that the students they were meeting at career fairs and other events appeared to be better prepared to meet with them and ask good questions. On the other side, however, some commented that students are approaching them with that “I’ll take any job you’ve got attitude”. While students are wise to be flexible, there is perhaps nothing less appealing than a candidate that values their abilities so little. What most employers hear when students say that is “I don’t know anything about you, but I’d like a job with you to hold me over until I can find a good one!”
I am struck by two thoughts related to this change in the campus recruiting environment.
The first is that for many employers the search for great candidates is still a challenge. This is especially true in the consistently competitive markets such as health care, municipal government, or policing. But even for organizations in less competitive industries, finding the right candidates — with the right fit — still takes hard work. It also takes resources for travel, sponsorships, special events and so on. But most employers have slashed budgets for these — which means recruiters are having to make up for this with more leg work. I suspect that most will be pretty worn out in short order.
My other thought is about the students. First of all, the job market on campus is not nearly as bad as they may think. Despite the huge layoffs across the country, many employers are filling gaps with less expensive new hires from campus; others are increasing their hiring because they believe the talent they are looking for is more easily available now. My fear — and we’ve seen this in past downturns — is that students will lose hope and not invest appropriately in their job search. Already, many graduating students are making plans to go to grad school (whether or not it’s the best choice for them) to avoid the job market.
So some employers may actually find themselves competing with grad schools for great candidates. After all, students don’t have to worry about layoffs at grad school!
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