Authenticity is attractive. Be it a person or an organization, as long as they speak from a place of sincerity, others will gravitate toward them and believe their causes. Authenticity is not simply saying what is true but also about winning someone’s trust and being consistent with that trust. Therefore, authenticity will work best when one is committed to it.
Staffing agencies can practice authenticity by staying true to their brand. The key to maintaining a brand is knowing what it is from the start and calibrating it as needed when the market changes. Potential hires’ first encounter with a brand is through job posts, and what they experience after that spells out how they’ll describe that brand to others.
Top talents know their worth. If they detect that what they read and hear about the staffing agency is what they are experiencing, they’ll choose to continue their career growth with you. So let’s talk further about authentic branding and how to communicate this to your potential hires so that you’ll earn their trust.
Branding Being The Core Of Attracting Top Talent
LinkedIn surveyed a set of talent acquisition leaders, and 83 percent said that the brand is significant to the quality of hires a company can get. The best professionals understand that they will thrive in companies that show honesty and consistency in treating their workforce. Top talent is more interested to know a company’s reality: who they are and what happens on a daily basis.
If you wish to have an authentically communicated brand, avoid the following mistakes in all platforms that potential hires might take a look at when evaluating your staffing agency:
- Fun must not be the center of your agency’s brand. Company parties, out-of-town excursions, and a recreation room with a pool table are common snippets of information found in many job posts. While the prospect of giving employees rest and recreation after some hard work hopes to attract applicants, don’t lean on the fun as a selling proposition.As mentioned, top talents want to know what happens at work daily, and parties aren’t it. Your brand should act more as a filter for the type of professionals that you want to work with. We’re not saying scrap the company events entirely. The fun aspect of the work should just be an accent to your brand, but not its core.
- Not being straightforward with their ideal hire. In the long run, your hires will become brand ambassadors. With this in mind, prospective candidates must have a good idea of what they will be part of once they succeed in the recruitment process. Lay down their responsibilities, what skills they must possess, and even how demanding the role will be.
Are you filling in a vacancy or preparing for a lifelong career? If the applicant has a good grasp of their professional life with your staffing agency, they’ll give the same effort needed to get the role. However, bear in mind as well that not everyone will get the role, and not everyone will try out for it. This is good because, remember, your brand should be a filter in getting the right hire.
- Not including employees in the conversation. Speaking of brand ambassadors, your current and former hires have actually experienced your agency’s brand. Whether they have left unsavory words about your company online or are ready to praise their experience, it’s best to let them speak out.Current hires are what make your brand more human and relatable. It includes complaints posted on other websites, and it’s your responsibility to address them to protect your brand. Do negative reviews damage your brand’s authenticity? Address it not as a weakness but as a point of improvement. Why not include continuous improvement as a significant aspect of your brand?
If you see reviews or posts of current/former employees about your agency expressing disappointment about their experience, reply to them immediately. Thank the person for expressing their feelings, and offer to reach out if there’s a need for rectification. Others seeing your comment, will know your agency is doing something toward improvement.
Attracting Top Talent Through An Authentic Brand
In a survey of 805 Americans who have applied for jobs before, the following red flags in job posts came up:
- No clear salary range
- The experience requirement is too high for the position
- No mention of paid time off or sick leaves
- Mention of occasional weekend work
- Pay commensurate to experience
Remember, applicants want to create a general idea of the reality of working with the staffing agency. Withheld or unclear information sounds like there are aspects of the brand that are to be concealed for now. Thus, some transparency from the start of the application process would be greatly appreciated.
Creating sincerity in the job application process starts with your staffing agency’s value proposition. If this is something your team has not decided on, perhaps gather your leaders and ask these questions:
- What is unique about us?
- Who is our ideal employee?
- Have we attracted that employee?
- What challenges are unique to us?
- Are we able to provide opportunities that are enticing to others?
- What to us are the qualities of a staffing agency worth working with?
- Do we have those qualities?
Rounding up your agency’s answers to these questions will lead to realizing the values you wish to uphold, who is the right person to hire, and their characteristics.
Also, give time to create job posts and messages that encapsulate what it’s like to work with your staffing agency. May it be on job boards, social media accounts, or your agency’s website, incorporate the following advice to communicate your agency’s authenticity clearly:
- Wording matters. Communicating your brand means choosing the right words. Challenge your job ad writers to not only make your agency’s value proposition well-incorporated into the ad but also make it readable. It must sit well with a potential hire who will imagine working with your staffing agency.Be careful not to use gender-coded language. These are words associated with stereotypes of specific genders, and studies have shown that women tend to turn away from job ads that seemingly appear to a male demographic because of the use of words often related to men, like active, adventurous, and so on.While there is no intent to discriminate, bias here is either unconscious or assumed. Be on the lookout for gender-coded words and how to avoid or incorporate them into your job posts to put inclusivity and gender sensitivity as part of your authentic brand.
- Stick to the “must-haves.” Include only the base requirements for job openings. Skills or experience that are “good-to-have” might turn away potentially exceptional ones who don’t necessarily have beyond the required skills. This also makes the job ad more succinct, which fits into a job hunter’s attention span, spending an average of 49.7 seconds per job ad.
- Include testimonials from current and former hires. How does it feel like to walk in the shoes of someone who has experienced your staffing agency’s brand? Why not get the answers straight from them? Ask them if they can answer a survey or if they can come up with a short anecdote of their tenure with your company. Ask permission to include them in your messaging.
FOR THAT AUTHENTIC AND COHESIVE BRAND, TALK TO ALLIED INSIGHT.
Not only authenticity but also brand consistency will help companies survive changing corporate initiatives. This is the goal of Allied Insight for staffing agencies like you. We can provide you with optimizing your online content, establishing a brand identity guide, and complete competitive analysis, among others. Let’s have a conversation that will lead to authenticity and a distinct brand. Contact us now.
