Don’t Let Someone Else Tell Your Story

Don’t Let Someone Else Tell Your Story

Don’t Let Someone Else Tell Your Story 400 300 Breslin Strategies

employee engagementRECRUITING TOP TALENT: TELLING YOUR STORY

No matter if you are a contractor, labor organization, utility, oil company, manufacturer or service provider, if you want to attract real talent today you have to be good at telling your story. And that story is most often told online – if not by you, it will be told by someone else. You have to tell your story and tell it well, or you might get your ass handed to you.

On one hand I have the client organizations struggling to find qualified help; dealing with employees leaving for more money or lack of interest and completely absent from any form of social media. On the other hand I have clients whose CEO hits up almost every employee on LinkedIn and Facebook on great jobs every week; the contractor who gets over 60% of his hires from employee referral and my good friend whose employees regularly turn down more money to stay where they are communicated with and appreciated. How do we project organizational values? Job growth? Management interest and support? How do we maintain employee engagement? And how do we reach employees and job candidates in this brave new world?

It was not that long ago that I laughed off Facebook. I made fun of it as a stupid time-wasting social enterprise for undisciplined people with too much time on their hands.

Then I got hit in the head with a two-by-four.

A very heads-up young business agent in the Midwest showed me a discussion group on Facebook. It was made up of qualified, skilled craft workers in construction and energy turn-around, connecting peer-to-peer and sharing information on where the jobs are; the quality of certain employers; industry trends; and, in some instances, just screwing around with each other in a good-natured way.

HERE’S WHAT CHANGED MY ENTIRE VIEWPOINT:

THE FACEBOOK GROUP HAS 30,000 MEMBERS

I share this as one small example that the employment world has changed drastically. It is the era of Yelp, Trip Advisor and Glass Door. People are used to evaluating products, services, companies and careers. You have to tell your story and tell it well.

Here are four items that you might want to consider implementing to tell your story more effectively:

  1. Add high-quality video to your home or landing page on the web. Today, the narrative of who you are, what you stand for, how your employees or members feel, and what opportunities exist can be told best in visual form. If I can go on Realtor.com and find ten fixer-uppers in three minutes, shouldn’t I be able to find out all about you without searching a bunch of pages or having to read a ton of narrative? Add video. Don’t cheap out.
  2. Create a high-quality LinkedIn presence. This site is the number one location for talent procurement in the country. Every one of your employees on LinkedIn is available to be recruited 24-7, and every prospect working for someone else that could be working for you is in the same arena. Having a company or organization page, as well as a group, is certainly not a bad way to tell your story, and barely costs anything. Post cool project pictures. Recognize company awards. Tell your workplace safety story there, etc…
  3. In the Careers Section of your website, make sure to include testimonials, especially from Millennials. This group uses third-party validation as their number one reference when making decisions. And if you can combine this with the video idea, you have doubled your impact.
  4. Put up a Facebook page. Yes, it really is important. Think of your organization like a big extended family unit. They want to know what’s going on with the other family members. These can be crews, divisions or simply those working far away. Maximize the engagement and connection of what everyone is doing in this centralized way. This is a place for positive personal engagement to occur, to show camaraderie and tell your story in a more informal way – not only to prospective employees, but to your own people, as well.

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Remember, connection and engagement matter to everyone.