Hodes Voices

Re-Thinking Employer Branding, Pt. 1

Mar 8, 2011 | Mark | Analytics, Consulting, Employer Branding, Recruitment, Strategy

Employer branding owes much of its intellectual legitimacy to the practice of product and corporate branding. Talent executives have studied what their counterparts in Marketing and Communications have learned and adapted that body of knowledge to employment.

Thus, concepts such as the Brand Funnel and positioning have become essential parts of any discussion about an employer brand. For those not familiar with those concepts, a brief digression.

The Brand Funnel is a visual representation of the stages a consumer— or candidate— goes through during the process of buying a product or service or applying for a job. The funnel shape (Fig. 1) is often chosen because it represents the winnowing process that occurs.

Fig. 1 - The Classic Brand Funnel

The candidate begins with some trigger event that prompts a search for a new job. It could be the proverbial bad day at work or something more severe, such as a layoff or even surviving a layoff. Immediately, the candidate considers employers to investigate for new opportunities. Usually, this will be a short list made up of companies in the candidate’s industry or geographic area (depending on their primary criterion for choosing a new employer). This is the Awareness phase.

Many organizations vie to be “employer of choice” on the theory that when a candidate is beginning a job search, having top-of-mind awareness and a positive image will result in more quality candidates. Certainly, as people go through the second phase, Familiarity, they will examine the pro’s and con’s of each of the employers of which they are aware. This is when they will research the employers, visiting Web sites, looking up reviews on rating sites such as Glassdoor or Jobitorial, asking questions in forums on Indeed or other sites.

The third phase is often labeled Trial or Consideration. Candidates read through job descriptions, deciding whether or not any of them would be a good fit, as well as evaluating what has been written about the various employers by other candidates and employees— current or former— of the employers.

They then decide to Apply (“Purchase” in the classic funnel model). Like other considered purchases (e.g., house, car, university degree), the process is complicated and takes time. Time that can fray the patience of the applicant and cause him or her to re-think their decision and go back Consideration.

Once the applicant is hired, then s/he moves to final phase, Loyalty. The first ninety days or so for a new hire are often compared to a honeymoon and most research supports that view. After an initial unease at being in a strange place with new co-workers, the new hire settles in and feels enthusiastic about the new challenges and opportunities ahead. Astute employers know that this is a critical period and provide comprehensive orientation to ensure that the new hire is acclimated and inspired as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Research has shown a direct correlation between the quality of orientation and ultimate retention.

Positioning is a concept first articulated in the late ‘60s by Al Ries and Jack Trout in their seminal book, “Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind”. In a nutshell, the authors wrote that consumers were becoming confused by all of the choices flooding towards them in the marketplace. In order to cope with this onslaught of information, consumers categorize brands in order to be able to rank them and later recall them.

A classic positioning example often used in classrooms is the personal computer category. Dell and HP compete to be first in sales. Dell’s position is its customization— they build your computer to your specifications so you get exactly the computer you want at a reasonable cost. HP relies on its extensive retail channel, low cost and the reputation of its popular printers to drive sales. And then there’s Apple, which revels in its uniqueness and translates that into a position of exclusivity and individuality that makes fanatics of many Mac owners. (Ironic, in that Macintoshes are among the least customizable PCs available and thus not as individualized as a Dell.)

After these three, other brands trail far behind and begin to serve niche audiences. Toshiba is best known for its ToughBook® line of rugged laptops. Lenovo sells the ThinkPad line, which began as an IBM brand and has adherents in corporate IT departments. Acer, Gateway and others compete mainly on price, while ultra-high performance makes like Cyberpower go after online game players.

Fig. 2 - Positioning Matrix

Positioning strategies are often plotted on a matrix (Fig. 2) that uses two salient facets of a brand category and then plots the various brands within the category. The conventional wisdom is that you are better off as a brand if you can “own” one quadrant or another of the matrix because consumers will gravitate to the brand that best matches their criteria. Conversely, the worst position to be on the matrix is dead center, as you are “neither fish nor fowl” and you won’t attract a core audience or following. So, in this example, Brand “B” has a large share of market because customers value its low prices over its less than average quality; Brand “C” does well because its customers are willing to pay a premium for its better than average quality. Brands “D” and “E” are about equal, the former enjoying presumably high margins in return for its high quality, while the latter ekes out its existence almost entirely on price alone.

The foregoing is provided as context. Because the way we think about brands— specifically employer brands— is changing radically. And, yes, the culprit once again is our old friend the Internet and its progeny, social media. New research by McKinsey and others indicates that the old concepts such as the Brand Funnel no longer apply, or work very differently i.e., Positioning.

Next: the Candidate’s Journey.