Optimizing Your Company’s Rankings on the Most Popular Search Engines

image_11In this current employment market, cream-of-the-crop recruits are in high demand. Now more than ever, organizations must be prepared to compete globally to hire the top talent.

The Internet is the most widely used tool for jobseekers in search of prospects. Those who know they have the goods to offer have so many choices when it comes to finding the right employer. How is your organization going to compete for the individuals who can give your business a cutting-edge advantage?

Search Engine Optimization and Inbound Marketing are the name of the game. Organic search drives 51% of all visitors to business-to-business and business-to-consumer Web sites, whereas paid-search drives 10% and social 5% [1]. Companies must rank high on the most widely used search engines in order to be found quickly. Ranking high on these search engines does not happen by chance. There must be a strategic marketing plan in place to position your company for success.

A strategic Inbound Marketing approach is comprehensive, and the results are measurable. When your organization utilizes this critical business strategy, there will be impressive results. The best of the best will start knocking on your door.

A strategic marketing approach must be ongoing. It is not a one-time solution, so working with a reputable Inbound Marketing company is crucial. Search engine algorithms change frequently, so experienced Internet marketing specialists are equipped to adjust the strategy to meet any challenges. Staying on the cutting edge of recruiting top talent is essential to your company’s bottom line. Money spent on marketing is certain to yield a high ROI.

Your Internet Marketing specialist will design a comprehensive strategy. They will then optimize your website and all of your content distributed online. Any adjustments that need to be made will be discussed with you and your firm. The real key to a great Internet marketing strategy is consistency.

These specialists are able to analyze what works and tweak the strategy to best work for your recruiting needs. At any given time, your organization will be able to see how many visitors are landing on your site, what practices are working and what strategies need to be changed. As an organization, you don’t have to worry about these details. Let a skilled, reputable Internet Marketing firm bring in the goods.

 

[1] http://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/21-spectacular-seo-and-search-marketing-stats-and-facts-01258892

Increase Brand Awareness and Your Recruitment Reach by Implementing Fresh Content

image_16When you need to increase awareness of your brand and bring in new, energetic staff members to your team, one way to do so is to implement fresh content across all of your media. Your website is the first place prospective candidates go to find out about you. Old, outdated content that is no longer relevant or that never changes from one day to the next is a sure way to turn off high-quality applicants. Consider implementing these four types of content to keep your recruitment and brand up to date.

Informative News
When you’re launching a new company-wide initiative, releasing a new product or making updates to an existing service, let your customers and potential employees know about it. Take care to not only release statistics but to create small sound bites of 88 words or less about what’s going on this week at your organization.

Videos
Actions speak louder than words, and today’s job seekers want to see what your company is up to. Uploading relevant videos to your website and social media pages helps applicants really get a feel for what your organization is doing. Videos should not be highly choreographed or edited but should provide a glimpse of the important goings-on at your headquarters and facilities.

Asking Questions
Another way to increase your brand awareness and keep recruits interested in your organization is to ask questions as a part of your overall content stream. Be welcoming to any and all responses, including those that might not be as positive as you would like. Even criticism helps to keep the conversation going. The more likes and followers, the more of your content that will be shown on your followers’ feeds.

Success Stories
Your customers and potential recruits love to hear success stories related to your brand and not just self-serving ones. Let your customers, current employees or former staff members who have retired or moved on tell others about their successes with you. Perhaps an episode of exceptional customer service or a fantastic mentoring program is just what your recruitment marketing needs to draw in the best of the applicants.

 

The Importance of Articulating & Positioning Employer Branding

image_03In recent years, labor markets have become increasingly competitive, which in turn has become a major concern for employers trying to attract and retain employees. Finding the perfect candidate who not only has the skills, but who also will contribute to the strategic goals of the organization can be a difficult task. HR leaders need to know the importance of articulating and positioning employer branding in order to gain a competitive advantage.

Just as consumer branding attracts customers, employer branding serves as a means for attracting talent to your organization. Before marketing your brand, make sure you fully understand what your brand stands for. By gathering information both internally and externally, you’ll see what makes your organization’s brand engaging, compelling, and unique.

In order to position your brand in the marketplace, you must first create an accurate view of what it’s like to work at your company. Be real and upfront with people. Instead of using stock photos on the company website, take real pictures of employees working in their actual work environment. When you clarify your brand in the marketplace, you will attract more candidates that are in line with your goals.

Once you have your brand positioned, you need to consider a method of reaching your desired audience. The Internet should be one of your main marketing tools as it is a great platform to reach a large pool of job candidates. Social media is also trending among employers looking to reach young, emerging talent. Of course, newspaper, radio, and television ads are also good traditional methods. Even involving your employees can be a great way to reach people and disseminate the message you want to share.

Employer branding can help attract key talent, increase the number of employee referrals, and even improve the quality of job candidates. As an HR leader, you have the responsibility of sustaining your employer brand. It’s not something you can check off a list; maintaining your brand is an ongoing project. Once you actually see the results of what articulating and positioning employer branding can do for your company, you will have a noticeably stronger business.

 

The Importance of Selling the Job Opportunity

image_017Every employer wants the best staff that his or her money can buy. In order to attract the most desirable candidate, you need to sell the opportunity as you would any other product. The purpose of this is to attract top individuals to your organization. These prospective employees need to feel like working for your company is the ideal career choice.

Peaking Their Interest

When you post a job opportunity, there is little doubt that you may see an influx of resumes and applications. With the job market the way it is, even unqualified individuals may send in their information. By putting more effort into selling the job, you may increase the interest of candidates that excel in the position. With his or her skills and knowledge, the candidate can find a job in a variety of locations, and you want your organization to stand out among those prospective employees that have superior qualifications.

The Competition

The employees of competing organizations are what drive its success. If you don’t secure highly qualified staff members, you could be inadvertently strengthening the competition’s hold within the market. By enhancing the listing of the job opportunity to engage those individuals, your company could become stronger as a whole. Cases in point, brand name organizations such as Apple and Google are successful because of the people working within the establishment. Talented employees can drive the success of virtually any business platform.

Being More than a Brand

While many people will seek employment from various companies simply because of the brand name, others may want to know why they should apply. What kinds of opportunities are available for growth? What is the general atmosphere like? Questions such as these can speak to a potential candidate and give him or her information about what it would be like to work for your company. Certain working atmospheres can play into people’s personalities creating an enjoyable environment. The happier staff members are to remain at their jobs, the less likely you’ll have to find replacements and train new employees.

Selling the job opportunity doesn’t need to sound like you’re begging for qualified staff. You need to focus on why a person would want to work within your organization. This can help you find the right staff member who will be an asset to the team and enhance the company profile.

Effective Blogging Strategies for Recruitment

image_010Locating and then recruiting the right staff members is a challenge for any organization. As job candidates increasingly look to blogs, online postings and social media to search for jobs, one way that Human Resources personnel can recruit the top tier of applicants is by taking to the blogs themselves and enticing the best candidates to apply for openings within the organization. These top four blogging strategies for recruitment are effective and efficient at getting the most desirable person into the job.

Infuse the Blog with Personality

Even corporate blogs should be infused with personality that is in line with the operations of the organization. The tone of the blog should allow readers and future applicants to get a feel for the culture of the organization. A light touch of humor can go a long way in helping applicants feel welcome to the company.

Vary the Posting Types

Readers of a business blog do not want to read the same material over and over again. Vary the type of posts to maintain reader interest. Consider various post options such as tips for applicants, hints about what is going on in the industry and success stories of people working in the company. Interviews with current staff members and list-type posts also help to recruit top-notch candidates.

Make a Point in Every Post

Give applicants a reason to come back and join the corporation. Every post should have a point. Making each recruitment posting worthwhile helps applicants understand that their time is respected and that future events at the company, such as staff meetings, will be productive and worthwhile. Blog posts should not be too wordy or too vague.

Share Industry Insights

Keep it interesting by sharing industry insights that show why the business is top in its field. Infographics are an up-to-date means of sharing information in a way that is eye-catching and easy to understand. Embedded videos are another way to share insights while maintaining the applicant’s interest in being recruited to the organization.

 

Best Practices for Engaging Top Talent in Interviews

image_015A prospective employee’s interview is part of the hiring process continuum rather than an isolated stage. Top talent engagement begins before the formal interview and continues while they remain in the pipeline, during training and throughout their career with your company.

Engagement Based on Employment Brand

Your organization’s employment brand derives directly from the company’s shared vision of the future. The brand image must be comprehensive and present themes tailored to your hiring demographics.

Each organization’s brand is unique, but encompasses basic values:

  • Open communication and information sharing
  • Support for learning and growth
  • Meaningful work goals
  • Regard for work/life balance
  • Generous compensation for great work

These and a shared sense of mission towards personal, department and company-wide goals are the basis for recruit engagement.

Prior to the Interview: Consistent Branding

Smart companies will have developed suites of videos communicating their organizational values and showing off their “best place to work” attributes. Videos reinforce brand image after an interview and are easily shared via social media.

During the Interview

Despite a consistent brand image, a top candidate may remain skeptical about whether the organization means what it says. Prepare for their doubts about how their career goals align with those of the company. Listen carefully and address these with relevant, concrete examples. If possible, enlist a member of the team with the requisition to address their questions.

Post-Interview Engagement

Especially if your candidate was identified with the help of social media, utilize that media after the interview to maintain engagement. Sharing relevant media or comments shows interest as long as it is tasteful and non-intrusive. Regular contact lets the candidate know there is ongoing interest, and he or she will greatly appreciate the attention to any further questions they have.

Benefits to Interview Engagement

Candidates who feel that a company has a place for them and listens to their concerns and ideas are far more likely to accept an offer and subsequently grow to be high performers. They also have potential to become one of your organization’s greatest proponents of the company culture to other recruits.

Take Control of Your Employer Brand With Buyer Advertising

In the fight for talent, a strong Employer Brand is your best weapon – it differentiates you from competitors, and helps you attract the right candidates. A strong Employer Brand can lower your cost per hire by 50% and can reduce your employee turnover rate by 28%.

Our Employer Brand development services include:

  • Brand Audits
  • Leadership Interviews
  • Employee Surveys & Focus Groups
  • External Audience Research
  • Competitive Analysis

For more than 47 years we have been helping our clients take control of their employer brands! Learn more about Buyer’s employer brand development services by clicking here or by viewing the video below:


 

Search Engine Optimization for Jobs

Your career site’s ranking on search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo is based on what the search engine considers most relevant to user. Our Talent2You Job Optimization SEO solution from Buyer Advertising delivers an automated way for recruiters to attract talent directly to your career site!

View our YouTube video which goes into detail about SEO and how our Talent2You Job Optimization platform can help you:

Learn more by clicking here, and contact us today to discover how our Talent2You Job Optimization SEO solution can help you!

How to Create an Attractive Corporate Culture

When it comes to recruiting, having the right company culture is the key to drawing top tier talent. Even companies with high wages and great benefits can still experience high employee turnover if their company culture is lacking. Here are some tips on how to create a more attractive corporate culture:

Encourage Innovation

Few people enjoy being micromanaged. Many businesses find that allowing employees to be creative and take ownership of their work leads to increased performance. Communication is the key to inspiring employee ownership within your organization. At the beginning of a project or company initiative, encourage managers to sit down with employees and discuss their vision for the project. Once they have a clear understanding of what the expectations are, allow them the freedom to accomplish it in their own way.

Promote Fun

Creating a fun work environment is a great way to boost employee satisfaction. Company sponsored sporting events, family days and barbeques are great ways invest in morale-building activities. Another idea is to give your company break room an overhaul – consider adding a Ping-Pong table, pool table or designated nap area for your employees. Remember that the more your employees enjoy working for you, the more productive they will likely be.

Embrace Company Values

Employees enjoy being part of something larger than themselves. You can accomplish this by establishing and maintaining the priorities and values of your organization.

Celebrate Achievements

Do not let open enrollment and disciplinary meetings be the only interactions you have with employees. This is a quick way to lose some of your top talent. Take time to celebrate accomplishments of all sizes. For small accomplishments, take some space in the employee newsletter or on the interoffice board to congratulate employees for a job well done. Larger accomplishments may warrant a luncheon or a certificate. Regularly acknowledging and celebrating accomplishments is a good way to keep your employees striving towards their personal bests.

The way that your corporate culture is perceived has a huge impact on the type of talent that your organization will draw. These simple tips will allow you to create a company culture that draws and retains high-performing, happy employees.

New Technologies and Growing Pains

Sometimes, the little guys have it easy. While it’s easy to conceive of modern, social-media aligned initiatives, implementing them is a task that requires a nimble touch. If you’re a peppery bunch of 20 employees, designing and implementing a tactical approach to blogging, Facebook,’ing and tweeting is a matter of a few afternoons. For larger entities, you’re looking at meetings, discussions, brand decisions, approval rounds, and more. Months of work could be in store before you even give a shout out to your very first of fans.

Our advice to these larger organizations: be like the little guys. The smallest companies can amass enormous followings through charm, personality, and transparency. Shoot for the same attributes—even if more obstacles stand in your way. As a marketing department, stand unified in your decision to engage social media. Set guidelines and milestones from the start that are flexible enough to allow multiple contributors while keeping your voice unified. Here are a few more tips:

– Create Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts—even if you have nothing to say (just yet).
– Your blog should be professional and informal—practice style before posting.
– Once you start, don’t stop! Maintain a regular schedule of updates.

Until next time,

Buyer Advertising
www.buyerads.com