Parents tend to strongly influence our career choices. Factors such as gender and social background naturally have an impact, too, and so do TV shows and celebrities. But in a world with numerous options and where the media plays a large part, our parents still play the most significant role. Some of us follow directly in their footsteps and others pursue their educational suggestions. However, today, there are studies showing that many of us (who are now in our 30s and 40s) regret our career choices, choices we may have made to please our parents in the first place, according to some psychologists. Knowing this, how can a company with a long-term employer branding strategy benefit from information about childhood influences? Start influencing children early by branding to the entire family and by encouraging higher studies in general, one employer branding expert suggests. By doing this, companies not only help build future generations of talent, they also generate a positive applicant flow in real time.

When asking student directly, parents are less seen as influencers, but we schale naturally keep this information in our mind.

Some brand new information out of our “Communicating with Talents” report 2010 (Field period: January to March 2010). In this Survey we can see information from eployees are the most valuable for students.

The TOP3 ranking of the most credible source of information about potential employers (out of 12 propositions).
1. People I know who work at the employer
2. HR Staff at the employer
3. Other employees at the employer
(…)
6. My parents