How do you measure the candidate experience?
It’s been interesting to take part in a number of discussions recently around the candidate experience and also to see the number of organisations who are placing this right at the top of their resourcing agenda in 2012. Dr John Sullivan included the candidate experience in his Top 10 Predictions for 2012 on ERE.net and Matt Alder, recently described this as one of the megatrends for next year at the UK Recruiter conference. All the noises are pointing in this direction and a number of blogs and Linkedin groups are emerging to encourage more peer-to-peer debate, but there are principally two things that stand out for me:
- What defines a good candidate experience?
- How is it being measured?
Tackling the first of these points, there are clearly some basic principles that need to be in place, but people will articulate a good candidate experience in different ways. Basic communication between recruiter and candidate is, of course, important but it also extends to behaviours adopted by the resourcing teams, employees and all the touch points that the job applicant might come into contact with during the application and recruitment process. This should also evaluate alignment with an organisation’s EVP and with a large volume applicants – many of whom are going to be rejected – this is a sizeable task.
The second point is related to the first. How do you measure the ‘candidate experience’ or indeed the job applicant experience? How are organisations measuring this important part of their employer brand and also are they tailoring this feedback to ensure their operations are in line with their EVP? If you look at the essential employer branding research that organisations invest in this will be (or at least should be) around the following:
- External Perception: This includes job seekers (both passive and active), employees with other organisations and all those who will have an opinion on and can influence the employer brand. Social platforms and community engagement channels also should be monitored for regular assessment and feedback on employer perceptions.
- Candidates: Candidates are those people who potentially could apply for a job with the organisation and they are an important and influential group. Understanding why they might apply and what the motivating factors are behind their decision making is a very important aspect of understanding your positioning as an employer in the minds of the calibre of people who are right for your organisation.
- Applicants: Those who have made the decision to actively apply to your company for a job are actively engaging with the organisation. This is a tremendously important group, not least because in most cases the majority will not be successful and will be going back out into the market place talking to their peers, friends and future colleauges about what that experience was like. Future conversations at the next job may often include a response that says, “I applied for a job with them once,” followed by an appropriate evaluation of their experience. The behaviours demonstrated by the resourcing team should reflect the organisations values and EVP through the way it communicates with applicants at all stages. Evaluating their feedback on an ongoing basis is vital.
- Employees: An organisation’s culture and brand should be driven from the people within it. This evolves from its vision and values, but should be embraced by the people who work there. This isn’t just about one off research projects, but regular evaluation and sense-checking in an accessible manner.
- Alumni: People will leave and what they say about you after they have left is as important as what they said about you when they joined.
We live in a feedback society and job applicants are as keen to give their feedback on their application experience with an organisation as they might be on other interactions they have as consumers. At the Reconverse event last week focused on the candidate experience, research showed that 89% of recent job applicants polled in a survey said they hadn’t been asked for feedback, but 84% said they shared their experience with friends and family and through social networks.
What gets measured, gets done as the old mantra goes. So the over-riding question for the discussion table is for organisations focused on delivering a great candidate experience, how are they measuring it and if they aren’t measuring it how do they know if their efforts and interventions are having the desired effect?
Measuring the candidate experience
I’m currently working with a new and exciting business that works with organisations to measure, benchmark and evaluate the candidate experience. More on that to follow. In the meantime they are conducting a short survey to gauge the general mood when it comes to the experience of applying for jobs and how applicants are treated.
If you have applied for a job in the last six months in the UK or know someone who has then we’d really appreciate an insight into what that experience is like. It’s only seven questions and will take 2 minutes to complete. Click on the link below to access the survey.
http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22DKYZCMBQ2
Engaging with the long term unemployed
We recently produced a film for a new initiative in Wales aimed at improving opportunities for the long term unemployed through volunteering and participation in community schemes. The project is called QWEST (Quality Work Employability and Skills Training) and is a Welsh Assembly and European Social Fund backed project – working in partnership with the University of Wales, Newport.
The areas of Bleanau Gwent, Caerphilly and Torfaen are some of the hardest hit and most economically deprived areas in Europe. The film needed to show the real people stories behind such an initiative who have participated in the scheme. When we set up Working Films, one of the reasons we did so was because I didn’t just want to produce ‘recruitment videos’ feeling that work itself is such a strong topic that it has a powerful effect on the structure of our lives as well as its influence on the fabric of society. The areas of Wales in which QWEST is focused have suffered enormously due to the decline of manufacturing and heavy industry in the area and jobs are few and far between. As Sandra illustrates in the film, being unemployed for such a long time not only shatters your confidence and self-esteem, but your sense of well being and structure in life is also lost. It’s not a nice position to be in. Initiatives like QWEST, that focus on volunteering, developing skills and boosting confidence and self-esteem are vital in turning these communities round.
The excellent series The British at Work looked at how society and work are so interlinked that changes in patterns of behaviour, family life, work-life balance and attitudes to those around us are shaped by our work and economic climate. This has an impact on the attitudes of employers and in-turn the impact this has on those they employ. Work is so inter-weaved into our lives that to look at work and home in isolation is a tricky business and are rarely two completely separate issues. This is why when looking at an organisation’s employer brand, how they approach the people in the organisation and the values they represent need to be considered in the wider context.
When interviewing the people for the QWEST film it was impossible not to feel moved by the challenges they face and the way they have overcome these challanges through inner drive and determination. In the economic climate we have been experiencing many people will be facing the same situation. The longer they are unemployed the more their confidence and self-esteem will take a knock and the support networks, skills training and personal development programmes offered by employers are likely to have a different emphasis when more jobs do become available. It will be interesting to see how progressive employers are managing the changing nature of candidates and think about this sensitively in the context of the current labour market and economic climate.
You can view the 10 minute film shown at the QWEST launch below.
QWEST Launch Film
Employer Branding: The evolution of an imperfect concept rooted in the concepts of the past
I used this quote recently to describe the way that communications within the employer branding lifecycle have evolved since “Employer Branding” was first trumpeted as a new beginning twenty odd years ago.
The current trend is to focus on the fact that employers “can no longer control their employer brand”, but this is to confuse the purpose with the reaction. Sure there will be disgruntled people who will air their views on what they think an employer is like to work for, but listening to this perception – or experience – is nothing new.
An organisation should define its EVP and its expectations, values and behaviours which is different from talking about ‘not controlling your employer brand’, but sometimes the two elements are confused. Managing these behaviours will clearly influence what people say about an organisation and therefore the brand perception in the marketplace.
For me, it always comes back to value which is the founding principle within the EVP. The value that an employee contributes, the value placed on that role by the organisation and the value that organisation brings to others for the work that it does. These are the drivers of reward and motivation – feeling valued – and this is an age old requirement for anyone doing their job. This is the fundamental principle that lies within employer branding as a whole. Even where it has been repackaged, this is where the focus should be then the other aspects of brand measurement follow.
Maybe by focusing on what people are saying about an organisation first as the main trail of an argument we are too quick to look for reasons to blame and point the finger and react to the reaction rather than looking to achieve a greater understanding of the purpose or analysing behaviour.
Finally, this is not to say we are not right to embrace the communication mechanisms that our digital society affords to highlight injustice bad recruitment,employer and management practice. Far from it. A good organisation will be listening, measuring and monitoring every aspect of its employer brand from perception, the candidate experience, employees and alumni. But it needs something to measure its performance and behaviours against which are its values and EVP.
Employer Branding has evolved and is as fluid today by definition as it has always been. The one thing that has never changed is why someone should do the job they do for the person or organisation they work. And in an ideal world they will go home at the end of the day feeling happy and valued.
Working Matters: Filming a new education initiative in Wales
Towards the end of last year we (i.e. Working Films ) produced a launch film for UHOVI, the groundbreaking Higher Education initiative for the Heads of the Valleys region in Wales. Launched by the Minister for Education, Leighton Andrews, UHOVI is to play a key part in the economic resurgence of the area backed by £10m of funding from the Welsh Assembly Government and the European Funding Council.
Against a tight timescale (we had a month to turn it round) we were pleased with the final film and is the kind of project that Working Films is about. Economic regeneration in this area, which has traditionally relied on heavy industry, is so important. Training, improving skills and accessibility to learning plays a crucial part in giving people the opportunity to work and increase employment across the region. We spent two days interviewing, meeting people and filming in various locations and the passion and commitment from everyone is clearly evident. The launch was widely covered in the media and these kind of initiatives deserve the profile and support to make them succeed.
Click below to view the film (7m 25sec)
The Power of Film: 10 Tips for Employer Branding Films
Based on presentations I did last year at the Video and Mobile in Recruitment Conference and for the CIPD, here are my 10 tips for using film as part of your employer brand.
1. Employer Branding through film – Old Concepts, New Technology
Employer Branding was first presented as a concept at the CIPD conference in Harrogate in 1990. The principles then are still relevant today , but it was a world before the internet, social media and the technology we now have at our disposal. To produce a film as part of any employer brand communication and then distribute it to the right audience was a challenge then let alone expensive, but we can be and should be cleverer about how we communicate to potential candidates and employees. Film is an incredibly rich media that allows us to reflect an organisation’s values with more purpose than ever before.
2. The Employer Value Proposition: Show the value
We all want to be valued and film provides the opportunity to show where this value sits within an organisation. Its about the value to the individual, its value to the organisation and ultimately how the organisation demonstrates its value and recognition towards its employees. An organisation first needs to identify and understand its Employer Value Proposition. When it comes to communicating this through film it runs deep into the fundamental principle of why someone should do the job they do and ultimately who they choose to work for.
3. Demonstrate a shared sense of vision and purpose
When we did some work with Weston NHS Area Health Trust they wanted to improve staff retention in the first 3 to 6 months of employment – a critical time for most organisations. The induction process was very good on the practical side, but what it lacked was helping a broad range of new recruits (including both medical staff and support staff) to feel engaged with the broader picture of what the hospital is there to do and the role that everyone has to play. We know why a hospital exists, but if you’ve just come from working in a shop to working in a support role in a hospital it is important to know how you fit in. We created a film that featured the Chief Executive talking about the broader values as well as senior management and operational staff describing their work and to help provide new starters with a sense of familiarity and to help them feel part of the new organisation from day one.
In this clip, Amy Hanson, Assistant HR Director at the Trust, describes the positive impact the film has had as well as the broader value they have gained by utilising the footage in a number of different ways.
4. Film is not just what we see and hear, it’s how it makes us feel
If we think of our favourite films we often talk about how they make us feel. They can make us feel happy, sad, frightened and maybe even cry (Toy Story 3, apparently). This is important to think about as both a recruiter and employer. A recent report by The Training Foundation showed that employees are significantly driven by emotion when they measured engagement levels at work. We can engage with candidates and employees on another level if we can affect positively how they feel. This is why film should play an integral role in employer branding.
5. It’s all about the story
Film has little impact if it doesn’t have a story. No matter how short the story there has to be a thread and a theme that engages with its audience. In this case it is the story of the people in the organisation and the impact that work has on them and the world around them. This begins with the people in the organisation and the work the organisation does. It’s about looking beyond the job ad and seeing the story of individuals so people can relate to the job they are going to do and the people they are going to work with.
6. Show the value of people’s work not just what they do
One of the people we interviewed for the Weston project was a hospital porter called Danny. When we think about the role of a hospital porter we generally associate it with the functional aspect of moving patients around the hospital, but in this clip taken from this unscripted interview we used for the film, Danny brings personality to the role whilst talking about how his job is as much about putting patients at ease, making people smile and providing support to the nursing staff.
7. Production: It’s not always what you notice, it’s often what you don’t
Technology has made production of video and its distribution much more accessible to organisations that previously would not have had the budget for a full production piece.
Last year saw a movement towards the other extreme – the resurgence in advocating the use of flipcams and consumer cameras to record employees talking about their jobs – or worse – selling their job. I have nothing against this technology being used, but more about the way it is used. The technique for produced engaging and genuine videos from interviews is not about sticking a camera in someone’s face and expecting them to relax. The way in which the organisation and job is researched before hand contribute to a more natural interview that elicits a stronger and relevant response. And when the interview takes place we spend up to an hour beforehand with the lighting camera operator and the sound technician ensuring that the quality is the best we can achieve. The interviews often take around 30 minutes for what may end up as a 2 minute clip. You’ll be very lucky to walk up to someone with a flipcam and get that all important quote straight off the bat.
Few people will comment on good sound, but most will notice bad. Most people won’t notice a cut in an edit as if they do it’s generally a bad cut. And someone that comes across as relaxed and natural may have been completely the opposite for the first 15 minutes of the interview, but it’s unearthing those nuggets from the heart that give the film impact and engage with the audience. All of these elements require skill and knowledge of the subject and result in a stronger end product.
Danny Boyle is quoted as saying that 70% of film is sound. You can address something that visually isn’t perfect, but you can’t disguise bad sound. In post production we spend a lot of time in sourcing the right music which can make a dramatic difference to the tone and presentation of the final film.
8. If you’re filming wildlife, use someone who understands wildlife
Not that I’m comparing employees with wildlife, but there is a basic principle here that if the BBC were going to produce a wildlife documentary the first person they will call will be David Attenborough. The technical stuff can all be sorted later by recruiting in the right crew with the right gear in the right places. However, key to the success of the production is the understanding of the subject. Knowing how to approach it, how it will be used and the key points of interest to identify and show the audience.
It pays to work with people who understand the subject and have specific experience in employee communications. They will know what an organisation is trying to achieve quickly and will be as driven by the content and interest in the people and their work as the art of producing a film.
9. Don’t just make one-off videos: Produce Film about your organisation and its work
Due to production costs and the production process, it used to be the case that a video would be commissioned for one particular purpose and then distributed. Particularly, if you go back to the days of physical distribution on a video tape or even DVD. Now organisations are taking a look at how they use film from the very outset and edit a variety of content that can be utilised with different audiences. We have worked with clients where we might spend a week filming, but have edited various versions for teaser campaigns, recruitment through to induction, onboarding and employee engagement work. It is a cleverer and more efficient way of producing film and also ensures that the branding and values that the employee experiences are consistent and inline with the EVP.
10. Filming isn’t just the moment in front of the camera
There is a basic rule of thumb that we follow when someone comes to us and asks how long it will take or how much it will cost to produce a film. This ratio is 2:1:4 with the 2 being pre-production, 1 being a days filming and 4 the time to edit and post-production. Pre-production is vitally important. Everything from understanding the business, identifying the people who we need to talk to and understanding their roles, looking at how the film is going to be used as well as the logistics of scheduling and organising the shoot days. Because we rarely storyboard our films we end up working in a style closer to documentary filming which has a higher ratio of ‘unseen’ footage to that which makes the final film. This means that the two stage editing process involves going through all the footage identify the relevant content to help tell the story and once this is finalised do we move onto the ‘online editing’ which is when the polishing takes place and the sound and music is added.
“HR Marketing, or Employer Branding as it’s called these days…”
I was somewhat surprised to watch a video on a brand spanking new recruitment communications website that pretty much opened with this phrase to describe their business: “When we started up we wanted to bring something new to HR marketing or employer branding as it’s called these days.” No it’s not. It’s still called HR Marketing. Employer Branding is not simply HR Marketing. HR marketing is part of the employer brand communications, but it doesn’t stop there neither does it define the principle of employer branding that centres around how an organisation manages its perceptions, behaviours and alignment with its EVP throughout the entire employee lifecycle.
So whilst HR marketing is a vital component it is just that and before that is the understanding around the EVP and more importantly its measurement. And any organisation that says it understands employer branding and yet doesn’t do any measurement or barometer checks with prospective candidates, candidates and employees is simply paying lip service to the concept.
Working Films Presents…
Having established Working Films last year to integrate film into the world of work for recruitment, retention and engagement it is pleasing to see the increasing interest among all sectors for learning and using film as part of their employer brand communications.
Last year I predicted that video on an employer’s website would be as important as having a website itself. It is continuing to evolve with employers looking to reach the balance between professionally produced film whilst retaining honesty and accessibility to the content that is sometimes lost with the distance between the organisation and the production.
My belief has always been that in this digital age we should be embracing film and establishing it central role in the way we communicate as employers and I’ll be talking about this at two forthcoming events this Autumn.
In September I will be presenting at the first ever Mobile and Video Communications Conference to be held in London on the 28th. The conference will look at how video is used in recruitment and how organisations should approach using film as part of their wider employer branding communications. The event, organised by Web-Based-Recruitment, will feature presentations from YouTube, Inovaz, Jobsite, AllTheTopBananas.com, RoundPoint and ThirtyThree.
A few days later, Working Films will be hosting a seminar in Bristol on behalf of the CIPD on October 6th looking at how HR can embed film throughout their external and internal communications. The presentation will show how HR can use film-based content in induction, internal communications, recruitment and employer branding contexts. Amy Hanson, from Weston NHS Trust will join us to talk about how the use of film has had a big impact on their induction and onboarding process. We will cover what to consider when planning an employment related film and, most importantly, how to ensure that it is seen by the right audience.
Employer Branding 2010-2020: Engaging the Generations
I recently stumbled on an excellent video by the CRF Institute (which you can watch below). A well crafted and thoughtful presentation it illustrates the challenges facing organisations as we go into the new decade.
The labour market is in flux as we are still coming out of a recession with the CIPD predicting more job losses through the next quarter. However, the economy will shift and this doesn’t detract from the bigger picture of just how much the talent pool will be changing in the next ten years.
Employer branding has never worked in isolation and nowhere is this more evident than in workforce planning - a priority for any organisation looking to manage its talent pool beyond next week. In the current economic climate this may not be top of everyone’s list, but as this neat presentation shows there is a challenge here because our working population is changing due to the outflow of Baby Boomers not being matched with the inflow of new talent. This is going to result in a gap that can only be addressed through employers attracting and retaining the right mix of Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y.
Flexibility is stated as the key solution, but simply this is recognising that individual target groups have different needs and motivations – something that organisations should already be doing.
When I’m asked about Employer Branding it is sometimes seen as a one-fits-all solution, but any population – including an external recruitment audience and an organisation’s own employees – is varied with various subsets of that population requiring different needs. This is why research is so important because you have to understand each group in order to engage with them appropriately.
There are some interesting statistics incorporated into the video, but understanding the motivations of each group and communicating with them in the right way is the key message in addressing the demographic influences that will shape workforce planning through the next decade.
Click below to view the video
