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Archive for the ‘Blog posts’ Category

Keep Executive Speakers On Point

Hosted by Ray Ferreira Published on July 20th, 2011 | No Comments »

You’ll win their praise… and the attention of talented students

It’s that time of year when we’re lining up executive and alumni presenters to partner with recruiting teams and build some brand on campus. The PowerPoint slides are close to finished and you THINK you’ve given them an exciting and important role in attracting student candidates… but have you really?


After ten years of coaching executive presenters to speak with students at campus events, I can tell you with confidence that there are five things you must consider BEFORE you define their role…

  1. Executives DON’T like to cover things they don’t have a thorough knowledge of
  2. They perceive most audiences as investors or buyers
  3. They have a rule of thumb that says each slide should take three minutes
  4. When in doubt they’ll go autobiographical
  5. They are hungry for knowing what the audience wants to hear

Don’t let me paint the wrong picture with these points. C-suite executives offer outstanding potential for connecting with talented student candidates… and I have tons of respect for the work they do in building vision, direction, and engagement for their businesses. But WE as recruiting team members have to take on the brave leadership role of helping them know where their value lies in a university recruiting environment.


So here are the five things YOU can do to keep your presenters on point when they get in front of students…

  1. Give them a role—with high value content—that they know thoroughly

    2. Explain the value that their experience and knowledge provides in the context of talent attraction. Show them how that role ties into your brand messaging and what you’re looking for in candidates. Don’t ask them to explain the interviewing and hiring process or how to apply online.

    Not only will they credit YOU with having valuable insights… they will captivate your audience. These are very smart people. They know how to deliver on goals.

  2. Help them understand the context of talent attraction

    3. I say “talent attraction” because the value of “talent management” is something that executives know a hundred times better than recruiting (which equals head hunting in their minds). Tell them about the current research on student preferences and interests… Show them how your employer brand engages the right talent for your organization… Help them understand the dynamic of showing students an exciting culture and opportunity and the value of then meeting them face-to-face, so they can help your team keep its eyes on the prize (student interactions).

  3. Tell them what kinds of media and messaging works with students

    4. It’s an MTV world for Gen-Y candidates. They want fast-paced information coming at them and then they want to move on to the next topic. Demonstrate to your executive partners how your presentation delivers fast-paced, animated, rich media… and how that connects with students… Help them feel comfortable in delivering their hero content in a Gen-Y-attractive format… Give them a vision for how students will be engaged with new presentation styles.

  4. Give them space to tell their own story

    5. Autobiographies can be valuable… in their place. Give executive presenters a place to tell their story. Help them put it into context for students who want to see what they’re looking for in career opportunities. Coach them to take 60 seconds to explain why this has always been the right place to build a career from their personal perspective.

    When you put some scope around autobiographies, they can be extremely compelling.

  5. Show them real data on student demographics and psychographics

    6. Corporate executives work with market data all the time. Feed them with information about what students are looking for in an employer, how they perceive (or misperceive) your business, and how they’d like to change the world. Your executive presenters will value your coaching and recognize you for the quality of your briefing. They’ll also connect with your audience in a more powerful way.

So there you go… Five ways you can keep your executive presenters on point AND help them deliver a strong presentation.

There’s just one more thing: Less is more. Take the 25-minute presentation they were going to deliver and reduce it to 12 minutes. When audiences see things that they WANT to see, they envision that the rest of what they want will be right behind it. Create a shorter presentation and engage with great candidates in face-to-face discussions. That’s where the real value of a campus event comes across.

Ray

Do you really know me?

Hosted by Ray Ferreira Published on June 9th, 2011 | 1 Comment »

Today’s REAL social-media challenge for corporate recruiters
is in demonstrating the power of “me to we.”

Me to We Logo

At last week’s NACE11 conference, in Dallas, we saw a major area of disconnect between employers and university career counselors as they discussed the future of the campus interview. Employers talked about virtual connections and video interviews.  Career counselors expressed the importance of coaching students to excel at that critical point of face-to-face interaction.  The groups seemed to be moving in divergent directions.

In our business, we coach employer attraction teams to find richer ways to connect with students in an increasingly electronic social-media environment.  As we move further into this somewhat disconnected future, there WILL be employers who simultaneously leverage social media and yet continue to demonstrate a very rich awareness of WHO students are as individuals and WHAT their potential for future collaborative success may be.

Big business, on one hand, is embracing LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook as a means of more efficient attraction, while on the other hand demonstrating suspicion of these media as a form of diligent business communication. This is a façade that students will see right through. The winning employers will begin to use media more intelligently… in a way that demonstrates the power of who YOU are as an individual and the power of how WE see this new evolving world.

As a magnificent example, Intel offers “The Museum of Me.”  It’s an exploration of the wealth of social connectedness in each of us.  And, it’s a demonstration of how Intel VALUES the connectedness you may bring to their culture.  It’s purely social and it shows all of the potential of “ME to WE.”

Museum of Me

 

If you haven’t already tried the Intel® The Museum of Me Facebook application, do it right now… and be inspired (with yourself and with a company who sees who you are). Then find ways to incorporate a new vision of your candidates into YOUR social media attraction process.

Ray

PS: Thanks to colleague Damian Sian for sharing!

Damian

Posted in Blog posts | 1 Comment

Ten ideas to help your internship program
deliver long-term brand impact

Hosted by Ray Ferreira Published on June 1st, 2011 | 2 Comments »

10_Ideas

You’ve successfully hit the hiring goals of your growing internship recruitment program. You now have your largest group of undergrad and graduate interns reporting to work for their 2011 experience. Your primary goal MAY be to help them have a rich and meaningful “professional” experience over the next 10 to 12 weeks. If you succeed, you’ll have a better shot at placing this crop of young professionals into full-time positions next year.

But you really could—and should—expect a more substantial and long-term return from your program investment. After all, you’ll be working hard at this same task year after year.

Here are 10 ideas that you can apply right now to help this year’s internship experiences deliver longer-term value for your business and for its employer brand among students.

  1. Provide story-telling channels
    Interns who feel well utilized will want to tell their stories. Why not provide a channel for them to tell that story… connected to your employer brand. These could include intern diaries, YouTube video channels, or even relatively low-key blog posts.  The stories that get told will show future candidates what a great internship experience looks and feels like. You’ll also have a chance to use these stories as compelling content in a whole range of more “official” places.
  2. Connect interns with executives
    If you tell candidates that THEY are the future leaders of your enterprise, why not prove it to them by connecting them with the current leaders? You can be sure that the most confident among them will feel they have a lot to offer the executive team (and they probably do). You may also be offering your current executive team some innovative ideas from a younger generation that approaches problems differently.
  3. Disconnect toxic line managers
    We know they exist in every organization… that line manager who just isn’t cut out to lead young, emerging talent. We all need to remember that there are fewer ways to burn critical program dollars than to have a toxic manager offer a disappointing experience.  We put our A-team on winning the best new customers… let’s put our A-team managers on engaging our best new talent.
  4. Offer seasonal challenges
    Give interns a chance to prove their potential by offering exciting seasonal challenges. Remember that interns from all functional roles are critical to your business success, so make challenges broad enough to interest everyone.  Then recognize and reward the heck out of those who offer great solutions.
  5. Plan REAL work assignments
    Gen-Y interns are prepared to change the world. Fixing other people’s half-baked PowerPoint presentations IS NOT world changing and it won’t turn them into advocates for your business or your culture.  We all know that it takes advanced planning, but your innovative team of engaged line managers can help.  Make sure the assignment sends interns back to school with rich stories of important, challenging work.  They’ll be advocates for many years to come.
  6. Create a tiered program structure
    You many have heard us talk about how Disney moves successful interns to a more advanced level of assignment in their second year. This not only creates continuity (because successful interns want to come back), but also sets up a culture focused on advancement.  After all, people who know how to succeed in YOUR organization are the people you should hire.
  7. Help interns connect with one another
    One of the richest rewards of a great culture is the great people you meet there. By creating events and experiences that allow your interns to network and connect with one another, you’ll build memories and bonds that will be related to a rich experience with your company. Picnics and networking events can help… private social networks are even better. One way or another, you’ll offer value as an important shared experience among smart emerging talent.
  8. Build a showcase of talent
    You’ve probably had interns before, and you’ll probably have them in the future.  Show off your legacy of successful interns from each of your key schools.  You’ll help future interns see themselves playing important and successful roles in your organization.  You’ll also create amazing relationships with advisors and faculty members at each school.
  9. Establish a campus ambassador program
    Successful interns want to know that they’ve done something for you worth talking about. Ask them to come to campus presentations to tell their story (and yours). Chances are, if the experience was a good one, they’ll love the peer recognition. They’ll also tell a much more credible story about the kind of work and culture you offer.
  10. Build bonds between alumni and interns
    If you want to build a powerful three-way relationship between your organization, talented student interns, and key universities… work on connecting successful university alumni with recently hired interns. You’ll be demonstrating an exciting legacy of performance and partnership between your company and each key university. You’ll also build valuable mentoring relationships between employees who have a strong common bond.

Find ways to remind candidates of those key emotional differentiators within your offer letter. Enable their due diligence with supportive collateral material or with credible brand stories from employees. Help them remember why they were drawn to your organization…from the gut.

The key to all these ideas is that brand is built by rich experiences connected with opportunities for ongoing word-of-mouth communication. And social media is the new engine of word-of-mouth communication.

Have fun with your interns this year. Those strong connections can reinforce your employer brand for many years to come.

Ray

Employer Brand Value at the Moment of Choice

Hosted by Ray Ferreira Published on May 17th, 2011 | No Comments »

Which Direction?

An employer brand has many duties through the employment lifecycle…it can trigger discovery among new candidates, build engagement among your workforce, stimulate advocacy and referral among successful employees. One of the most critical roles it will play is to influence the most qualified candidates at their moment of choice—that’s the moment when they accept or decline the offer you put in front of them.

No, I’m not suggesting that we need to flood selected candidates with promotional materials while they’re in the grips of what may be a challenging selection. That would be pretty flaky, even coming from an ad guy like me. Nor should we underestimate the powerful impact that a memory of your unique value proposition could have.

How will that help, you ask?

Because, as logical as we all think the human animal is, most of our toughest decisions (and some would argue our best) come from the gut…the center of our emotional choices. (See Malcolm Gladwell: Blink).

Noted Canadian neurologist Donald Calne reminds us that “the essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusion.” To me, that means emotion trumps reason. And so, provided you are also a “rational” choice, your candidates will take action based on “emotional” conclusions like confidence or social acceptance or pride or, yes, even coolness.

If your employer brand truly sets you apart in a unique and emotional way—as it most certainly should—then it WILL bring you success in those most critical moments when candidates choose your company or someone else’s.

Find ways to remind candidates of those key emotional differentiators within your offer letter. Enable their due diligence with supportive collateral material or with credible brand stories from employees. Help them remember why they were drawn to your organization…from the gut.

Need ideas on emotional connectors in your business and with your target candidates? Leave a comment below…or, for a more proprietary response, drop me an email.

And, please, as always, share your thoughts and ideas with a comment on this page.

Ray

Want social media ROI?
Use a “pay it forward” strategy.

Hosted by Ray Ferreira Published on May 3rd, 2011 | 2 Comments »

Pay It Forward

If you’re like most corporate recruiting organizations, you’re trying to find the ROI that will help active social media become an approvable, manageable, effective social media for your team. But there are two major obstacles: 1) getting ROI; and 2) showing ROI.

Let’s start with the first problem…getting ROI. Much of the Twitter, Facebook, and even LinkedIn messaging that we see today demonstrates old-school communication principles. That is, interrupt the audience’s online activity with a promotional message and expect them to get excited. The new communication model is to “be the activity.” That means finding ways to deliver relevant, value-added, entertainment to your audience.

I know…it feels like you’re already running an ROI deficit. But think about it…would you be more likely to engage with an employer who pushes job postings to their Twitter feed, or one that’s running a weekly innovation challenge for students in your major? Or better yet, one that is asking what you think the lamest interview question is?

Now, let’s talk ROI measurement. How many days does your team spend in front of students, on their campuses, each recruiting season? Your answer is probably something like two to three days per month. And what’s happening the rest of the time? Great candidates are learning to ignore your firm in favor of every other competitive employer out there. When you consider the value of being on students’ minds every week or every day, you’ll find some social media ROI.

How much are you spending on print, or how much do you think you should be spending on print in order to stay on students’ minds after you’ve met them? What does it cost to ship that material to campus events and career fairs? What does it cost to ship it back to your warehouse when students don’t want it? You can find some social media ROI in a “reduced-paper footprint.”

Finally, what does it take for you to get qualified students into the room when you run a campus information session? Are those students just learning about your company as they head back to school, buy their books, getting a feel for their new classes? Companies like Google, E&Y, American Express, and Disney don’t find it hard to fill information sessions because students already know who they are before schools starts. I’ll bet you can find a way to find some social media ROI in that.

Want more ideas on finding social media ROI for your university program? Drop me an email…we’ve got at least a dozen more.

Have some ideas of your own? Please, let’s pay it forward. Add your ideas as comments on this post.