The Snitch

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Even in bad economic times, companies should not let up on employer branding as it is a good way to reach out to the new influx of talent in the market right now. But budgets are tight and it’s unlikely you would be able to convince your company to give you a large sum of money to brand your company.

So what are some ways HR practitioners can brand their company for cheap? Wilson Chew, CEO and group principal consultant for StrategiCom sits down with Human Resources and gives us a couple of ideas for employer branding on a small budget.

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Intel's latest marketing campaign

I attended a forum catered to the logistics and supply chain industry where a panel of industry practitioners lamented about the challenges they face in recruiting young and women talent. The problem, the panelists complained, was that the industry has always been considered to be “unsexy”.

But does it have to be that way?

Enter Intel.

Wanting to brand itself more than just a processor company, Intel just recently launched a new marketing campaign called “Sponsors of Tomorrow”. Soon to roll out across 30 countries, the campaign compares the company’s engineers with the likes of Mick Jagger, Bono and other legendary rock stars.

According to an article by FastCompany, the advertising agency that created this campaign was inspired by Intel’s forward-looking culture:

When Intel decided to retool its largest advertising push in years, the chipmaker wanted to make a familiar statement: “our products make everyday life possible.” But Santa Clara-based advertising firm Venables Bell & Partners found this slogan a bit trite.

Venables Bell discovered that virtually every technology company presents itself as necessary for the here-and-now. The new Intel campaign, launching Monday in the U.S., instead hinges on the notion that Intel makes the future possible. Taglined “Sponsors of Tomorrow,” Venables Bell’s multi-platform strategy casts Intel as a technology-focused innovator that celebrates technophile culture and highlights the company’s engineering achievements rather than the products derived from them.

Venables Bell found an interesting culture at Intel; rather than working on solutions to today’s problems, most R&D was focused on projects two or three years away from hitting the market. This forward-thinking atmosphere, coupled with a reverence among engineers for the breakthroughs that came before them, spawned the “Sponsors of Tomorrow” theme.

In one television ad, a middle-aged man donning his company ID enters the break room to raucous fanfare and swooning reminiscent of a red carpet moment with the Beatles circa 1964. As the man winks to his admirers and signs autographs, the screen graphic reads “Ajay Bhatt, co-inventor of U.S.B.” followed by “Our rock stars aren’t like your rock stars.”

So here’s my question: Where do your employees fit in with your marketing and advertising collateral?

Branding your employees is nothing new when organisations such as FedEx and Singapore Airlines have been doing it for ages.

But when you consider it, the cost of a plane or a truck or other physical infrastructure costs a lot more than an employee’s entire year salary. However, your expensive Airbus 380 airplane isn’t going to give your business the advantage when placed side-by-side with your competitor’s Airbus 380. On the other hand,  your well-trained customer service employee who goes the extra mile for the customer? Yeap, she’s the person who will help your company gain the sales from.

So maybe HR needs to start thinking about working with the marketing department to come up with campaigns that brand employees instead. Not only do employees (like these Intel engineers) gain from the job branding, but you differentiate your company and product as well. From these messages, we now know that Intel isn’t just a chip manufacturer, they’re the company that has the people who are providing the solutions for tomorrow’s technology.

So for the logistics people that are complaining about the less than glamorous factor of the industry, maybe they might want to learn a little from Intel’s new direction.

And you know what’s my favourite part about the new Intel ads? The last two seconds where employees are the ones signing the Intel jingle.

Just a bit of Friday fun.

When you’re up against several other worthy candidates for the job position, how do you ensure that you secure the job that you’re dying for? This new Pepsi Max ad shows you how to rope in your friends to help increase your chances of securing that job.

Have a good weekend!

Is your employer brand taking a beating from competitors?

Ah, it’s the $1,000,000 question: What is it that Singapore employees want?

In a survey conducted by B2B branding specialist StrategiCom and Singapore National Employers Federation, it sought to understand what key employer brand attributes drive employee attraction and retention. (See our original story here.)

Here’s the full breakdown of the survey answers.

5 most important attributes to attract employees

(Ranked in order of importance)

• Allows a lot of freedom to work on one’s own initiative
• Recognition and appreciation of employees work
• Opportunity for long-term career progression
• Attractive overall compensation and benefit package
• Training and development

5 most important attributes to retain staff

(Ranked in order of importance)

• Attractive overall compensation and benefit package
• Recognition and appreciation of employees work
• Job security
• Opportunity for long-term career progression
• Training and development

5 least important attributes to attract employees

(Ranked from least important)

• Dressing
• Conservative working environment
• Internationally diverse mix of colleagues
• Humanitarian organisation
• Only recruiting the best

5 least important attributes to retain staff

(Ranked from least important)

• Dressing
• Accessible location
• Employees with varying background
• Internationally diverse mix of colleagues
• Use your degree skills

It’s interesting how an attractive C&B package only ranks as number 4 to a potential employee, but later becomes the number 1 retention attribute. And from these results, it’s clear that recognition and saying ‘thank you’ is a simply but surefire way of both attracting and retaining employees.

I’m also surprised at how the survey respondents say a ‘accessible location’ do not matter much to employees — because I’ve definitely heard complaints about companies being located too far away from work before. And with ‘humanitarian organisation’  not attractive a trait for attracting employees – does this mean companies don’t really need to perform acts of corporate social responsibility to attract candidates?

What do you think? Do these results tally with your company’s employee value proposition?

Job applicants get thrown off track most of the time during an interview when they are asked, “What is your greatest weakness?”

Christopher Morrow, senior vice president of Calabasas in California says candidates tend to divert the question and respond with something that is not a weakness. “It is a deal breaker,” says Morrow. Believe it or not, giving the wrong kind of answer will weaken one’s chances of gaining employment in today’s tight job market.

While one cannot possibly identify weaknesses that are most obvious – like, say for instance; “I really hate coming back to work on Saturdays and would prefer not to, regardless of how much work I have to do!” Such statements would only leave you deservingly unemployed. So how do you handle such questions professionally?

Morrow suggests that a careful game plan can help you cope with the shortcoming query in a way that highlights your strength for a desired position. “Job seekers who field the question well demonstrate that they can take initiative and improve themselves,” he added.

Another way is to take conscious note of your weaknesses, focusing especially on job-related ones that will not impede your credibility to perform your tasks. Never choose a personal flaw as your reply, the way an IT manager did by choosing to say that his true weakness is that he’s a terrible cook. This will not impress the interviewer.

Here are some of the wrong answers that job applicants give when asked the question:

Via WSJ

At the Robert Walters media session yesterday, the senior management team shared with us some of the local and global highlights shared in the presentation by Andrea Ross, managing director of Robert Walters, Singapore.

Locally, our financial services are experiencing recruitment freezes, especially within operations and finance. The areas of growth are within compliance credit and audit. The revenue generating sales roles are also more prominent within the oil and gas FMCG sectors when it comes to sales and marketing. The good news is that job opportunities in finance within the commerce industry continue to grow, showing no signs of slowing down.

Ross also touched on the general outlook for Singapore, which are as follows:

Globally, professionals are moving from financial services into less volatile commercial and public sectors. Demand for contract staff has also increased amid the headcount freezes and redundancies. Also, because of a smaller discrepancies when it comes to quality of skills, employers are able to select from a larger pool of quality candidates.

Are interviewers in Singapore “rude and unprofessional”? There’s one guy who certainly seems to think so.

In a job interview workshop for PMETs conducted by JobsDB, speaker Steven Cheong says that interviewers in Singapore are known to be “rude and unprofessional”. (The statement is made around the 0:50 mark in the video).

Ouch. That seems like a gross over-generalisation of all the interviewers. While I wouldn’t deny that there are lousy interviewers in Singapore who could use a bit more professionalism, to say that all interviewers are “rude and unprofessional” is too far-fetched and cannot be applied to everybody.

What do you think? Is the speaker right? Do you have any horror interview stories to share?

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Most companies are tightening their belts during the downturn but local childcare chain Cherie Hearts remains on course in its recruitment plans for expansion. Co-founder Gurchran Singh reveals his secret to keep costs low and employee motivation high.

Watch on to find out.