Tuesday March 30th, 2010
If you're so concerned about 'quality of hire', how come you're ignoring your employment brand?

You can't attract the best and brightest if people would be embarrassed to tell their friends they work at your organization.

If you live in Toronto - or even in southern Ontario - you probably know that the TTC (the Toronto Transit Commission, Toronto's public transit authority) has had a lot of bad press lately:  Whether it's residents launching class-action lawsuits, riders posting photos of TTC workers sleeping on the job, TTC workers driving drunk, crashing vehicles, or just a good old-fashioned sex scandal, sometimes it feels like the TTC is just one long Saturday Night Live sketch, not a huge, serious operation with an annual budget of $1.2 billion.

The result?  Sooner or later, every Torontonian turns to their spouse/friend/colleague/random strangers on the subway and says:  "What the heck is going on over there?  Why don't they get rid of these idiots and hire some people with actual business skills? I feel like a half-witted 12-year-old could run the TTC better than whoever's doing it right now."

Because we all know that sometimes, hiring just one person in a key position can transform a whole organization.

If people hate your brand, it doesn't matter what your comp package looks like - they still won't apply to your jobs

Here's the thing:  If you examined the compensation plans for junior/intermediate TTC employees, you'd probably find that the combination of mandated vacation time, sick leave, personal days, pension plans, health benefits, education reimbursement and basically 100% total job security means that working for the TTC (especially over 5 years or more) is way more lucrative - and offers a better work/life balance - than working at, say, Google.

However, ask people to complete the phrase "Oh, I've always wanted to work at...", and exactly none of them will say "...the TTC."   (Whereas I'm pretty sure that a random sample of any demographic population would see 25% of respondents saying "...Google.")

The result?  Even if the TTC did decide to get rid of some underperformers at the management level, it's unlikely they'd be able to attract enough A-list overachievers to replace them.  

Better employment branding =
Better candidates =
Better hires.

So how come 95% of companies don't even think about employment branding, let alone make it a priority?

Don't get me wrong - I'm just using the TTC as a particularly egregious example here, but they are definitely not unique.  

Think of all the companies you've worked with/for in the past 5 years.  How many of them have an employment branding strategy?  How many of them are even thinking about it, outside of the recruiting department?  How many of them say that "improving quality of hire" is one of their top priorities - but don't have a strategy specifically to attract A-listers?

1?  2?  I'll bet you didn't need more than one hand to count them up, did you? 

So why is employment branding such a low priority, even within companies who know the value of branding and spend a lot of time and money building their consumer brand?

Well, as I've said before, I think we're in the midst of a huge paradigm shift, and organizations just haven't caught up yet.

Most people in management roles (i.e. the 35+ crowd who came of age in the early 1990s, when jobs were scarce and job-seekers were plentiful), who are, after all, the ones most in a position to drive employment branding initiatives, still think that if you post a job ad, you'll get lots and lots of great applicants from which you can take your pick.  

However, with the economy recovering, and StatsCan saying that by 2015 there'll be more jobs than job-seekers to fill them, maybe employment branding will finally get the attention it deserves.

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Wednesday March 24th, 2010
I have a tattoo of the Head2Head logo. Am I a brand champion - or just nuts?

So I noticed John Zappe's article about the guy who has the company logo tattooed on his arm.  Apparently John was unable to speak to the Rackspace guy who has the tattoo, so I thought I'd respond.

Because I have the Head2Head logo tattooed on my back.

(No, there isn't a photo.  But visit the Head2Head website - see that orange head in the logo?  That's my tattoo.)

So what happened?

A couple of years ago, we held a networking event at a downtown club called the Tattoo Rock Parlour.  As the name suggests, it's a club with a tattoo parlour attached.

As it happened, Nike had hosted an event there the night before, and had offered free tattoos to anyone who wanted the swoosh permanently attached to their body.  When Paul - Paul Dodd, president of Head2Head - heard this, he offered to pay for Head2Head tattoos.

An hour later - and yes, I was sober - I had the orange head on my back and was calling my poor husband, who just sighed and said "Why am I not surprised?"

(I wasn't the only one, by the way - one of our senior salespeople, Jesse Ryan, also got a H2H head, on his foot.)

I've never really thought of myself as a tattoo person - in fact, the H2H one is the first and only tattoo I've ever had. So how do I feel about it now?

Absolutely no regrets. 

I've been involved with Head2Head practically since the beginning - I think I first started working with them in 2002, and became the Director of User Experience (that's Marketing Director, for those of us disenchanted with fancy titles) in 2005.  Building the Head2Head brand has been a big part of my life for a long time, and I'm proud of what we've accomplished.

Sure, in my cynical moments I think, "I'll never get H2H off my back..." (see the clever pun there?) but it's definitely a more meaningful tattoo (to me, at least) than some random Chinese character or a star or sun or whatever.  

I do get a kick out of the reactions of new employees when I'm doing orientation and show them the tattoo.  I think they wonder what kind of brand cult they've just joined, but there's also something kind of inspirational in knowing that more than one person who works at this company you've just joined loves it enough to make the relationship permanent.

I also happen to think that work is only enjoyable when you really commit to it - even if I left Head2Head tomorrow, I'd never regret the tattoo, because it'll always represent a body of work that I'm proud of, and a time in my life that I was part of a great team.  I don't see a cluster of logo tattoos blossoming across my back as I move through the rest of my career - but I hope I always feel as invested in the companies I work for. 

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Friday March 12th, 2010
WEBINAR: To Tweet or Not to Tweet? Twitter 101 for Recruiting

Still on the fence about whether to use Twitter? Wondering how it could work for your recruiting challenges in your organization?

Join Head2Head for a free webinar!
THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 2010
12-1pm MDT

CLICK HERE to register.

Topics include:

• Twitter 101:  From setting up an account to growing your list of followers, we'll show you how to get started
• Real-world Twitter recruiting success stories
• How social media can play an active role in your recruitment process

What participants said about our last Twitter webinar:

"Thank you for bringing Twitter to my attention.  It's more powerful than I thought and I will start tweeting!"

"Well researched and presented - thank you"

"Refreshing format, not too long, straight to the point"

"This session answered so many of our questions about Twitter - I finally feel like I 'get it'!"

After registering, you'll receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP, 2003 Server or 2000

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4.11 (Tiger®) or newer

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Saturday March 6th, 2010
Where to find diversity candidates? 44% of Canadian orgs don't know where to start.

So today, Talent Oyster - North America's first job board in 11 languages simultaneously - reported the results of their first 'diversity recruiting' survey.

The bad news?  44% said that their biggest challenge in diversity recruiting is that they simply don't know where to look.  If they needed, say, 10 Arabic-speaking mining engineers for a project in northern Alberta that's starting in 3 weeks, they wouldn't know how to target and reach the Arabic-speaking community - at least not at short notice.

The good news?  71% of Canadian recruiting/HR professionals said their organizations would be increasing diversity hiring initiatives in 2010.  More than 40% said that diversity recruiting/hiring was one of their organization's top priorities for this year.

The really good news?  Statistics Canada predicts that by 2031, at least one in four Canadians will have been born outside Canada - the term 'visible minority' may become obsolete in the new mainstream.  

I think this is great:  Maybe, 5 or 10 or 20 years from now, the term 'diversity candidates' will also be obsolete, and we can just talk about 'candidates', regardless of their country of origin, language, or faith.

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About the Authors

Paul Dodd
Co-founder and President
Head2Head Canada

Paul has one simple goal: To help companies hire great people - and get the most out of every recruiting dollar they spend. That's why he's recognized as one of the best recruitment-industry thinkers in Canada.

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