Brand Recruitment: Marketing your brand to candidates

Used with permission of the author:
Author: Robert Ridout
CEO
The Ridout Group
www.ridout.co.za 
24 May 2007

Interactive recruitment – E-recruitment – Web recruitment - all are claiming to be the new phenomenon in the recruitment showground. As our telecommunications environment improves in South Africa will we see these new technological buzzwords become a greater force in our industry?  Maybe the question we need to ask ourselves, as participants of this booming economy, is how this influences, and even maybe improves, our businesses acquisition of talent from an ever decreasing pool of talent. Have we not forgotten the cornerstone of our marketing strategy – OUR BRAND?

The trend in South Africa has been for companies to outsource the recruitment of talent, on an interactive level, to web based companies that can centralise mass candidates in an outsourced database. Candidates are therefore given licence to search huge amounts of opportunities all centralised in one location.

Every time a business goes to market to attract staff in whatever format, the business sells its brand and corporate identity. For this one reason we should think twice when selecting our methodology regarding recruitment. I am sure that every Captain of industry would want to have as a strategic objective that talent recognise its company as the best company to work for in South Africa. How should this then differ when you choose an outsource e-recruitment platform to represent the opportunities within your business? Are you not outsourcing part of your branding strategy when allowing your business opportunities to be represented on an outsourced website? 

Have we not missed the entire point of recruiting – shouldn’t we be making sure we attract the best talent to our brand and therefore our company and shouldn’t we be in control of this tool? How many companies today include recruitment in their brand strategy? The same can be asked about choosing a recruitment company to screen and find talent. Many companies today distribute vacancy specifications to a huge list of recruiters not even knowing the calibre of who will represent their brand to potential talent. Surely, if you want to understand a business then understand the Brand through the leader and team that determines the Brand uniqueness.

What is the answer? Companies need to spend more time strategising on how to attract top talent through leveraging their brands in the best way possible.

Every successful web project manager recognises the fact that most money spent on web based projects will be invested in marketing the website.

Drawing candidates to your own company website not only attracts new customers but also new investors. Establishing your website as a mini-outsourced online recruitment database needs to be a strategic incentive to attract and market your brand to talent. Most South African companies today will go through processes of internal talent identification first. By interfacing with the online web database, companies can source available pools of talent in a more effective manner.

Most successful candidates are promoted within a company several times in a career span yet how many recruiters or e-recruitment sites today monitor this important facet? With your own web enabled site, these elements of important screening can all be monitored and screened.

Companies need to become more aware of the challenges of attracting the right staff and in a growing economy the war on talent is about to become even more serious. Shouldn’t we use the strongest tool at our disposal – OUR BRAND?

Born in Cape Town 1972, Robert Ridout began his recruitment career in the fast paced medical recruitment industry in London after studying a diploma in Marketing Management. After returning to South Africa, Robert joined Don Gray in Cape Town as search consultant. Thereafter Renwick International approached him to start a Search Business called Speedsearch and after relocating to Johannesburg Robert grew the business to a competitive force in Johannesburg.  Whilst with Renwick, Robert was involved on various projects in web recruitment and recruitment software. Robert then joined Paracon and managed a team of project mangers before returning to Cape Town to start a search business for the Laser Group. In 2001 Robert finally decided to start Ridout and Associates, his own search consultancy. Working from home the business grew into offices in Claremont to eventually open its doors in Johannesburg in 2005. With over twenty staff strong at the moment Robert continues to lead the business as CEO with his capable team of executives. Robert has dedicated his career to the advancement of Search in South Africa promoting this specialist form of recruitment as the preferred form of talent acquisition. The Ridout Group is testament to the passion that he has for his trade. Robert Ridout can be contacted at www.ridout.co.za or 011 465 2800.

Short description
Outsourcing recruitment could have an impact on the strongest tool of an organisation - its brand. Organisations should use their brands to recruit skilled candidates to their organisations.

Key words and related terms
Brand, candidates, outsourcing, recruitment, talent management.