How Do I Make My Company Interesting?
How do I make my company interesting?
Recently I gave a very tactically focused discussion on how to build a no-frills, platform agnostic talent community. Like anything I write, the plan relies heavily on traditional and tested marketing strategies. Afterward, a recruiting pro tasked with building a talent community for her company came up and said:
“I loved everything you said and it sounds like a plan I can really follow but how do I create cool content and conversations around MY company? We’re a financial services firm and that is kinda boring…How do I make my Company interesting?”
That question can be easy to answer when you work for a consumer facing company or say, a well recognized brand. Here are the answers for the rest of us:
It’s not about the company, it’s about the people. Focus on the people that make your organization great and you can’t go wrong. Candidates don’t go to work with companies, they go to work every day with people. So celebrate the people in your organization, whether you are interviewing a hiring manager or having your CMO write a blog post. People are interesting.
It’s not about the company, it’s about the job. Candidates are interested in contributing, we’ve read it time and again and yes, your careers page likely has some verbiage on how every employee contributes to the widget you make. But don’t forget that like people, jobs should be individual in nature. Tell the about the department where they’ll work, the direct impact their role has in the company and precisely what they’ll be doing.
It’s not about the company, it’s about how the company can relate. In this instance, she worked at a financial services company that had a credit card division. Not sure about your neighborhood but nearly everyone I know has at least an opinion about consumer spending, credit and debt. It’s about tapping into what makes your company relatable, even if that’s difficult to find.
It’s not about the company, it’s about the candidate. After you’ve exhausted the info about the job, your employees, how you relate to the public at large it’s time to think about the jobseeker. What do they want to see? Chances are they want to see some of the same things you’d want to see. Very few people live to work, so what else makes up these prospective employees? Are they interested in pop culture? Industry information, even (GASP!) something funny? While it rarely works for every organization to immerse themselves completely in trivia and jokes (especially inappropriate ones, use your sense) most jobseekers welcome a little levity from a corporate presence.
It’s easy to make your company interesting when you focus on what makes up your organization: the hilarious accounting team, the casual Fridays, the rockstar sales department, the best email signature contests… you get the picture.
Companies are rarely interesting. People always are.