There's truth in advertising.
*crickets*
Ok...there CAN be truth in advertising. How much truth, depends on how honest you are prepared to be with your audience.
I was speaking with one of my mentors in the recruitment marketing business last week (we call him: Bradvertising), and he referenced a brilliant line from an article that ran last year on ERE by Dave Lefkow. Literally, the point was - Branding is NOT putting lace on the pig.
In recruitment marketing in particular, there is a heightened tendency to use standard fare catchphrases to differentiate yourself from your competitors. As the job market continues to give us heart palpitations and recruiters the serious cold sweats, how you position yourself in the employment market is going to become increasingly critical.
We all want to stand out as employers of choice. We all want to tout our culture as dynamic and welcoming. We want to position our benefits as broad and competitive. We want to promise career development. We will work to drop into our brand statement and recruitment marketing campaign nearly anything we can to get a step ahead of "the other company."
Weaving a beautiful tale of corporate Camelot may get you a flood of candidates clamoring at your ATS, but it will not get them through the process if they don't fit the qualifications. More importantly, it won't keep them, if they find out Camelot is more like Camden. (No offense Camden, NJ - you have your bright spots)
Beware of using trendy catch phrases in your campaigns that paint a picture of who you aspire to be - rather than who you truly are. Creative storytelling up front leads to skyrocketing turnover when the honeymoon is over. Some pitfalls many companies still fall into:
- Competitive Benefits (insert whatever fluffy terminology you'd like here): Have you done any benchmarking to conform that your flashy benefits are any more or less than the standard fare?
- Work/Life Balance: Beware this slippery slope. If it's currently past 11pm and you're on your laptop preparing a presentation for tomorrow morning's meeting while nursing a pending ulcer, odds are your company has some work to do before putting that gold star next to their "work/life" stance.
- Career Advancement: Are you recruiting for a dead-end job, and know it? Don't fall into the trap of trying to lace up that pig.
So what do you do when you know you cannot in good faith, highlight the catchphrases that some of the best-in-class companies do? What do you do when you're not in the position to make executive level changes in your compensation, benefits, corporate culture or advancement opportunity?
There are a few things you can do.
1. Create compelling trends from your recruiting analysis and put in the hands of people that ARE catalysts for change in your organization.
2. Find the attributes in the job profile, or company culture that ARE desirable, and create your own catchphrases unique to YOUR company.
3. Gather focus groups of current employees to see what THEY would say about your work environment. Their feedback may surprise you.
Don't help along the stereotype of salacious advertising by feeding candidates information that you know is creative license. Be...what you write.
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