The Year Ahead Conference – Glenda Stone and Where to Work

I mentioned recently that I was at the Enhance Media the Year Ahead Conference.  It was a great event and I came away with so much information that I want to share.  My plan is to blog about the key elements from each speaker’s presentation.

The first speaker of the day was Dr Glenda Stone is who CEO of Aurora.  Aurora is a niche marketing company that provides employer brand marketing and recruitment advertising, business product/service awareness raising and marketing and market intelligence, consultancy, research and speaking engagements.  They also run the wheretowork.com company comparison jobsite

Glenda spoke about, in a candidate led market, what the opportunity is for a job board or recruiter in creating differentiation.  Her suggestion was we can provide a better service, and ensure clients get a better response by helping clients understand about writing job specifications for vacancy boards.  She shared her thoughts on the key information to give jobseekers in job adverts to get the best results.

1. About the Business
What the company does, their competitive advantage and what types of projects and opportunities you could find yourself working on?
2. Company Culture
What it's like to work there, what's on offer, how progressive their employment initiatives are, what employees say, and what's in it for you?
3. Diversity
Does their employee base reflect the real world, are different perspectives and backgrounds valued, and how open-minded and vibrant is the company?
4. Use of Technology
Does the company have good technology, processes and networks to tap you into the information and people as needed?
5. Giving back/Responsibility
How socially and environmentally friendly is the company and how do they give something back to the world

She then talked a little about the importance of employer branding.  Research from Robert Half (in 2007) showed that in the UK 44% of large companies already has an employer brand in the place. This is the highest across all 17 countries they surveyed (US was at 38%).  However, what I found equally interesting is that around 30% of large UK companies have no plans to implement an employer brand in at least the next five years (Ireland “beat” us here with 50% of companies not planning to implement one).

Overall the point that Glenda made during her presentation was the challenge for job boards and recruiters is in differentiating by adding value through helping clients post better job specifications which follow their employer brand and which will enable them to get the better candidates.

You can find more out about Aurora and the products/services they offer (including The Times/Aurora 2007 Where Women Want To Work TOP 50) from their website www.wheretowork.com

Comments

[Richard]

I completely agree and think that job boards and recruiters must strive to provide sound job specifications for attracting the right candidates to the job. Employer branding is also key when advertising online as it sets up the tone for differentiating from that of the competition.

Richard

JumpToJobs.co.uk