Saturday, November 03, 2007

Define Yourself or Have Others Define You

By the time a US President takes office, he or she will have spent more than two years campaigning, speaking to voters, answering questions (or avoiding answering questions), debated, advertised themselves in commercials and done a lot to create an image of who they are.

What is your firm and, by extension, you doing to create an image of your firm as an employer?

Is all your company doing running ads on job boards and telling people that yours is a growing company with a growth position that is visible and offering an incredibly dynamic and progressive work environment? That yours is one of the fastest growing companies in the world and has a high profile opportunity for career advancement requiring a candidate who is a high energy team player?

Have you discovered that the word progressive appears I more than 5000 job listings on Monster? Dynamic is also in more than 5000; Career advancement is, too, as is high energy. High profile is in more than 3000; visible in 3400+.

In contrast, the word "renegade" appears once. Maverick appears 95 times. Invisible appears 105 times including The Invisible Fence Company. Laid back appears 286 times.

Do you get my point?

Terms like this are ordinary and making you invisible and telling employees nothing.

It’s time to re-think your ad campaigns and really speak to people instead of copy and pasting job descriptions from requisitions and then adding these phrases to the ad and calling it marketing. Do you know how your firm is seen in the job market, both from a positive AND a negative standpoint? What is your employer brand and how can you improve it, especially as we enter what, I believe will be an extremely complicated part of the employment cycle.

It is tough enough that unemployment is so low, but the Baby Boomers will start retiring, the population cohort entering the job market is far smaller and will be less skilled (on average) and you will be asked to fill jobs only using trite words like these.

Jeff Altman
The Big Game Hunter
 Concepts in Staffing
thebiggamehunter@cisny.com

© 2007 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in many disciplines since 1971. He is a retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search for openings that The Big Game Hunter is working on, to use Jeff’s free job lead search engine, Job Search Universe, to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “Head Hunt Your Next Job, or his staffing ezine, “Natural Selection”, or to learn about his VIP program, go to www.jeffaltman.com.

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