Probably the best graduate scheme in the world…

How often do people truly interact with your brand? While customers may eat your cereal for breakfast, drive your cars to work or eat your pasta sauces while drinking one of your very refreshing beers, it is typically only when something goes wrong (or very right) that you are likely to have some form of interaction or dialogue with your customers. Critically, it is the manner in which you deal with your customers in these situations that counts. And we believe these situations are a great opportunity to show off how good you are.

The same can be said of your recruitment brand – you should be aiming to build a fantastic employer brand to help you attract and retain the best people. And you should use the recruitment process to show off how great your company is. The last thing you want is 2,000 recently rejected applicants bad mouthing your business because they have been treated badly or in a sloppy way. If your recruitment process is a mess and your campaign is rather uninspiring, what does it say about the way your products are sold or how your services are delivered? Many of our candidates who experience a bad graduate recruitment process will be annoyed that their time has been wasted or that their expectations have been mismanaged and will probably tell 10 of their friends as well.

The graduate recruitment process is one of those ‘moments of truth’ when a candidate comes into direct contact with your brand or organisation. While not all applicants may successfully become employees, it is important to recognise that they could well be potential customers, clients, opinion formers or champions of your business down the line.

Treat all applicants as well as you would treat any of your customers and use the recruitment process to breed a pool of brand champions for your business or organisation.

The Best Job Advert in the World?

In January 2009 a large beam of Antipodean sunlight brightened our dark, recession laden media when Tourism Queensland took the idea of recruitment marketing one step further and launched an incredible campaign to find a caretaker for Hamilton Island, a tropical paradise just off the Great Barrier Reef. Clearly the main motive of the campaign was to attract a huge amount of publicity and tourists to visit Queensland. And that’s exactly what it did.

The campaign, which has since won a host of awards and has been judged as the ‘greatest PR stunt in the world’, shows us how you can capture the imagination of people through your recruitment marketing. And while only 20,000 candidates applied, many millions of people will have seen the campaign and the enticing images of Australia’s north east coast. At FreshMinds we believe you should work shoulder to shoulder with your marketing department or agency to help create a great campaign – but make sure you deliver on the promises.

Ten top tips for graduate recruiters

1. Be human – have a hotline or contact system that allows candidates to engage with you and talk to someone. Don’t rely on an automated application form.
2. Be different – if you can’t think of three reasons why you are different from your nearest competitor, then you need to keep thinking.
3. Be original – shake it up a bit. Use this opportunity to do something genuinely different from the crowd to help your employer brand stand out. It might be sending all your accepted candidates a bunch of flowers, or sending everyone who did not make the mark a little present – you can be sure they will tell their friends about it.
4. Be honest – don’t pretend that things are better than they are. This will only lead to disappointment and shattered expectations down the line.
5. Be talked about – while your aim is ultimately hiring new people, you also want to take the opportunity to build your brand to the wider community. Candidates have families and friends and if you look after your recruits then the image will spread.
6. Work with your marketing team – make the most of their customer insight, brand knowledge and budget.
7. Get advice – if you need some new ideas and you are serious about building your recruitment brand then give FreshMinds a call…
8. Be relevant – make sure that the interview is relevant and that you ask questions and set tasks that relate to the job or your company. Involve your products and services in the process.
9. Set clear timescales - always give a clear timescale of when (and how) candidates will receive feedback.
10. Don’t stop at the offer stage – continue to invest time in getting to know candidates after they’ve accepted your offer. Take them for a drink, perhaps with a couple of their team or senior people in the business.

Read more here

• How to use web 2.0 for recruitment
• Inspired by tough circumstances
• Putting oomph in your employer brand