As I’m sure you’re aware, your brand is much more than your logo and the colours you use. It’s contained in every point of contact you make with people, starting with the first impression you make, whether that’s the greeting people get from your receptionist or how easy it is to find information on your website. Your brand is carried through every experience people have with your company. Including during the recruitment process.

I can think of three reasons off the top of my head why you should treat candidates as well as you treat clients throughout the recruitment process and make a good impression.

One: You’re more likely to get your favourite candidate.

If a candidate feels valued by you, they’re more likely to choose your offer. After all, if they’re your favourite candidate, chances are they have other offers on the table too, and you don’t want to lose them.

Two: It’s good for sales.

The experience a candidate has of your company will influence how they feel about you and whatever it is you sell. Now, I’m guessing that you’re not the only company that does what you do, and you never know when a candidate will need what you provide. Even if you don’t hire them, a positive experience will make them more likely to choose your product or service over that of your competitors.

Three: People talk.

Candidates who’ve been treated well are much more likely to recommend your company than if they’ve had a bad experience. And if they’ve had a bad experience, they’re much more likely to tell anyone who’ll listen about it. For some reason, us humans delight in spreading bad news, and you never know who they’re talking to. You could lose more than your reputation as a result.

Any big delay in setting up interviews, or providing interview feedback, or making a recruitment decision can negatively impact a company’s brand, and cost them more money. They might have to make the candidate a better offer in order to entice them to join their company; or they might miss out altogether and have to start the whole process again.

Recently we have had a situation where we have had to pull away from supporting an employer with hiring, something we do not take lightly who wants to turn business away? No one, ever. However we had to have a long think on our brand, we are a small business who have built up our reputation in recruitment for over 18 years and by an employers behaviour that impacts our brand. We had an employer, who asked us to support them and we pulled out all the stops for them including having our marketer create online content to drive traffic, to promoting the vacancy across the job boards that we work with(which does cost us money) to then spending time filtering and interviewing candidates to create a short list of 5 candidates. 

A quick turnaround with a short list over within 5 working days, including a lot of late nights to ensure our client had candidates ready then nothing we were ghosted :-( 

In the end, after weeks of procrastinating, this particular company decided not to recruit for the role after all and advised us with an email(not cool) This has impacted on their brand in two ways. Firstly, the candidates who were told for weeks that they were going to be interviewed, are now extremely unimpressed with this company. And secondly, it’s impacted their brand with me. I paid to advertise their vacancy, reviewed 100's CVs, interviewed twelve people, and compiled profiles for five candidates. I briefed the candidates on their interview, and spent countless amounts of time chasing the company for interview dates.

I love working with companies to find the best person for their vacancies: it gives me such a buzz to fit a round peg in a round hole. And my favourite companies to work with are the ones who value their brand and provide a great recruitment experience for the candidates I find for them to interview.

If you have a vacancy you’re looking to fill, or if you’d like to talk further about the role of brand in the recruitment process, give me a call on 07510 051781, or drop me an email at valerie.cowan@valeco.com, and let’s find you the perfect fit for your company.