By Michelle Boyde

Today, The Times reports that the Big Four are recruiting 3,850 graduates in the UK this year. This is an increase of more than 20 per cent on 2009 and surely good news for the UK’s graduates. However, it seems that too much of the UK are lured by the lights of London. PricewaterhouseCoopers reports that 70 per cent of their applicants apply for jobs in the City, making it tougher to fill vacancies in other offices.

This is not only the case with graduates. Some BBC employees have been reported to be unhappy as they are required to relocate to Salford Quays in Manchester, to continue their jobs outside the capital.

However, invention and ideas are rife outside London. In today’s FT, a report from the British Library, home of the national patents collection, reports that north-east generated more patents per person per pound of investment than any other region.

Geographical location will continue to be an important factor when choosing a job. Firms need to build their employer brands to encompass how attractive locations outside of the south-east can really be.

By Michelle Boyde

A-day is fast approaching. On Thursday,  anxious 18 year-olds across the country will collect their A-Level results, discovering if their place at university is secure or not. For many it will not, and students will have to move quickly to find a place through clearing, although this is no longer a guaranteed route to gaining a spot with many universities reporting no places available through clearing.

So what will become of our budding students? A colleague of mine, recently out of university herself, told me she has a friend who achieved three A’s at A-Level and missed a place at university two years in a row – he is trying for a third time this year. If it is not a case of third time lucky, I doubt he will pass through the UCAS system a fourth time. He is an example of potential top talent who may become ‘lost’.

For those students not entering the UK university system, what are the options? Some may forego a tertiary education all together, or others may venture abroad. The US is becoming an increasingly appealing option, especially as the gap in fees between the UK and US narrows. In addition, Australian and the Dutch universities will be undergoing recruitment drives in the UK this week.

UK top talent will inevitably become more dispersed with young people abroad or missing from the education system all together. The question is how will graduate recruitment evolve to prosper from these increasing considerations?

Gen Y has seen university as their right, many going through the motions of UCAS without considering what they wish to achieve and what they want from a career. Increased tuition fees and insufficient places may provoke our youngsters to consider their career path more closely.

The corporate brand and the consumer brand constitute important elements of the employer branding strategy for many companies.  An effective branding strategy for all brands means that the communication will emphasise common messages and values imbedded in the brands. The brands thus strengthen each other.

However, sometimes the company’s employment offer differs from its consumer image. People with values and attitudes similar to the consumer brand are attracted to the company, but discover that the workplace falls short of their expectations— or even worse, the company’s consumer image may convey a boring and uninteresting employer brand.

Some companies are fortunate enough to have overlapping consumer, corporate and employer brands. The consumer brand attracts the right talent, for example the target groups that the company wants to attract and retain. However, the consumer brand might create very high expectations among job seekers that might be difficult to meet.

Re-published: “Integrating your brands”, by By Annika Lagerholm, Universum Quarterly, 2006, Issue 1

It’s often attributed to a one-sided focus—often personal attitudes and behaviours—while neglecting the development of processes and structures. Sometimes, diversity efforts target certain groups, such as women or employees of a particular ethnic background, rousing resistance amongst others who feel like they don’t belong because they don’t recognize the advantages for themselves. As these employees often comprise the majority and hold managerial positions, they feel excluded and may hamper the progress of your diversity efforts and affect the perception of your employer brand. Thus, do not focus exclusively on those that differ from the norm, but give everyone the opportunity to develop.

Republished: “Diversity”, by Annika Lagerholm, Universum Quarterly, 2006, Issue 1

Integrate your brands

Employer branding is a dependent marketing tool: it’s influenced by the company’s corporate and consumer branding strategies. Yet to integrate the brands is a challenge to manage and communicate effectively to employees, customers and investors.

Companies with strong consumer or corporate brands often have an advantage in employer branding. However, a consumer brand might skew the employer image and lead to misconceptions. Or a strong consumer brand might inflate expectations amongst candidates, meaning that the company instead faces the risk of disappointing. To believe that a strong consumer brand will automatically translate into a strong employer brand is chancy.

You should:
• Use Common Messages
• Dare to differentiate
• Track expectations

To be continued…

Re-published: “Integrating your brands”, by By Annika Lagerholm, Universum Quarterly, 2006, Issue 1

Address diversity in your Employer Branding

Embrace diversity: It’s necessary to meet an increasingly diverse customer-base and be able to recruit and retain skilful employees. If you fail to introduce diversity into your workforce, it’ll cost you missed business goals and even potential lawsuits.

For many years, diversity was regarded an unimportant issue. Yet, due to demographic changes that have lead to shortages of skilled workers, employers need to recruit from a broad and complex talent pool. The success of diversity initiatives generally depends on three key factors:

3 success factors for diversity initiatives

1. Develop formal structures and processes in the organisation, such as recruitment, compensation, promotion and career development
2. Change personal attitudes and behaviour, such as corporate culture, leadership styles and attitudes amongst employees and managers
3. Include everyone in the organisation
 

 Re-published: “Diversity”, by Annika Lagerholm, Universum Quarterly, 2006, Issue 1

Your corporate website – the most powerful employer branding tool

It’s important to make a good first impression: going to a company website is the first thing students do when they want to learn more about an employer—what they find on the site will reflect negatively or positively on the employer brand. In addition to the types of information students want, companies should take great care in making the site easy to navigate and visually attractive, a boring or cumbersome site easily translates into a boring and cumbersome employer.

Website do’s
Testimonials from employees are popular and so are application pages where students can submit their resumes. It’s important to students that the site contains relevant information for them and is easy to navigate.

Quotes from American students:

• “The best websites are the most informative on the application process, and the career opportunities. Hard, concrete facts are always best!”
• “Information, emphasis less on philosophy than on what philosophy has accomplished.”

Website don’ts
Students bristle at irrelevant information, cluttered websites, pop-up advertising and dead-end links.

Quotes from American students:

• “Many are designed for customers, rather than prospective employees, with no access to the employment areas of the website.”
• “Pompous fluff! Every company has ideals; I want to know what the difference is between your company and the others in your field.”
• “If the website is hard or confusing to navigate, it doesn’t look professional.”

Re-published:  Universum Quarterly, “The Importance of Websites”, by Catrine Johansson.

By Michelle Boyde
Source: Universum Quarterly 2010, Issue 1

Do you work in a recruitment team or a rejection team? It’s possible that you have not considered your role in this light before. Many employers decline far more candidates than they ever hire. The world’s most popular employers will always have to deal with declining large numbers of candidates. However, due to the impact of the global economic crisis, employers of all sizes, from small start-ups to multinational conglomerates are facing the issue of declining candidates in large numbers. Today’s rejects are possible future lateral hires and potential customers or business partners – do your processes protect your employer brand against this threat?

The phrase ‘rejection machine’ was coined by Charles Macleod, head of global resourcing and mobility at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). This is a very fitting phrase as PwC receives 20,000 to 25,000 applications for 1,000 jobs in the UK– they certainly do much more ‘rejecting’ than ‘recruiting’. This expression prompted Universum Quarterly to take a look at an aspect of the recruitment process many employers are reticent to discuss.

Once upon a time…
What a great story can do for your company

By Kina Zeidler
Source: Universum Quarterly 2009, Issue 1

A great story sells – but a really good one can also be used to enforce corporate cultural values. Storytelling describes how companies and organisations use stories to communicate, internally and externally; yet, storytelling is mostly known as a method for companies to sell more iPhones or Nike shoes.

Now, add the prefix ‘corporate’ and you get ‘Corporate Storytelling’ (CS). It is an increasingly popular management and leadership approach, where a collection of stories, from the corporate corridors to the factory floors, are used internally in an organization to exemplify good leadership practices, demonstrate corporate values and to enhance internal organisational communication. All companies have real-life stories they can share within the company and between locations. CS can play a vital role in a recession, when knowing how and what to communicate has become ever so important.

Once upon a time, in 1995, a Mr. Pierre Omidyar was dining with his fiancée. During dinner, his beloved mentioned that she had problems finding collectors of the breath-freshener PEZ dispensers so she could boost her collection. This gave Omidyar the idea to build a Web site for her where she could trade them: auction giant EBay was born. The story quickly spread far and wide – and so did the myth of EBay, a company whose service we use and a company we’d like to work for. But why does this story stick? And why do we re-tell it to others? According to CS gurus and company representatives, the answer is simple: the story is real and memorable. But practically, in corporate life, how can you use stories to improve your internal employer brand?

5,800 students from Russell Group universities select their “Ideal Employers”
 Apple and Google were the undisputed winners in Universum’s Ideal Employer rankings this year, released on April 15th, according to a student poll of nearly 12,000 students – yet look at Russell Group’s students only and the choice of employers change. Read the rest of this entry »