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Imagine this. Your company is growing. Because of recruitment challenges, you found yourself partnering with an embedded recruitment team. A couple of weeks, and a few thousand pounds later, candidates keep dropping through the recruitment process. And thankfully, you think you’ve managed to recruit the top talent you’re looking for.

Only for the candidates to start dropping out of the process at the final hurdle.

How would you feel? What could have gone wrong? 

Yello reports that the top reasons why candidates drop out of a hiring process include confusing job applications, long hiring job processes, poor interview experiences, a lack of candidate communication, and failing to collect candidate feedback.

All these trickles down to the recruitment team representing your brand in the hiring process.

Your Branding And Why It Matters

Let’s go back a bit to the basics.

Branding. We generally refer to it as the brand color, font, designs — anything to make your company visually appealing.

Yes. But also no.

Branding is way more than what meets the eye. And most of the time, it’s what’s not seen that really matters most. It’s the tone of voice, benefits and culture, values, CVP (Candidate Value Proposition), what your team says about you, and most importantly your people.

Branding is not just an image but an experience, a journey.  

Why exactly would candidates want to work with you? How would you like stakeholders to feel when they engage in your business? What would you like for them to experience? How do you want them to view your business as a whole?

This is all branding.

Having a strong, prominent, and unique brand will help you attract and retain top-tier talent around the globe. All these impact your brand’s influence and credibility. 

It’s A Candidate-Driven Market

LinkedIn reports that 75% of employees research a brand before sending an application. What we have is a competitive market for top talent, this is where your branding makes a difference.

Part of your branding is your CVP (Candidate Value Proposition), basically how you value candidates and what you can offer.

This is why we’ve created the 6F Methodology to really understand and grasp what drives candidates and employees to stay happy and motivated at work.

So, let’s say you’re now ready with your brand – in depth branding, competitive CVP, wholesome workplace, positive culture.

Now the hard work begins. With recruitment challenges increasing, many more businesses are turning to embedded recruitment partners to help with various challenges:

• Lacking recruitment capacity in their team 
• Having gaps in TA capabilities, functions or geographies 
• Behind in their hiring plan 
• Entering a new location or setting up a new business area 
• Lacking business buy in to TA strategy 
• Unable to attract passive talent 

The list could go on. But what does embedded recruitment mean?

It’s basically when an outside recruiter goes into your business and takes on some or all of your hiring needs.

However, many recruiters don’t always properly embody your company brand, undoing all the hard work you put in.

The Not-So-Good Side

An embedded recruiter should represent your brand to the candidates. What happens when they don’t…?

Don’t treat candidates how you would treat them. Because they don’t embody the values that you’ve built within your brand, they don’t treat candidates the way you would. This can give a misleading or even negative impression as to how you treat the people in your company.

Spray and pray. The enemy of recruitment. You should avoid this like the plague. Sadly, it’s common, particularly in contingent recruitment, but also across the board. Recruiters send out bulk messages to mass candidates that might not even have the proper qualifications. Spray as many messages as possible and pray that it works.

This leaves candidates wondering why this message even ended up in their inbox. Is your company’s strategy for hiring just sending spam messages to anyone who roughly embodies what they’re looking for?

Does your business even care if the candidate will work out? Or are you just hiring lots of people and hoping some will work out…

Ghosting Candidates. Anyone who has ever applied for a job knows that the worst part of job hunting isn’t the interview or the background check. It’s the waiting.

With a spray and pray approach, recruiters don’t have the time to reply to all the candidates. They just pick the best ones and leave the others hanging.

For the candidates who don’t get messaged back, they’re left with a negative impression of your business.

Word of mouth. People tell other people. If they’ve had a bad experience engaging with your company, they will tell. As Stephen Covey said, “…just as word-of-mouth advertising is the highest form of advertising.” This type of marketing has been proven to be really affective. And free! It’s up to you to put it in good use.

Now, to the brighter side.

When a Recruiter Embodies Your Brand

First, literally all the opposites of what’s mentioned above! Moreover, when an embedded partner embodies your brand…

Your embedded partner will live and breathe your brand. They will spend just as much time needed to really get a deep understanding and a good grasp of your brand, embodying your values in every step of the process.

The candidates will see and experience what you want them to. A much-needed proper representation of your brand. A great partner cares. They will care about your brand and will do so accordingly to reflect your company’s great image.

They’ll have everyone bought in. Your partner will make sure to spend time (lots of time!) making sure that everybody is bought in and convinced of this decision. This also gives your embedded partner a chance to understand each and everyone’s picture. Everyone on the same page.

Just as much as we want the candidate to be happy, so do we want for the existing team. Everybody is happy. 

Continuity. Because your team is bought in and happy, they will more likely be using the same partner’s services for future hiring needs thus creating continuity with the same quality results. 

Great candidate experience. A great partner cares about the candidates just as they care about your brand. Your talent partners make sure that the qualified candidate they reach out to will have proper communication.

This means transparency and engagement throughout – from the moment the they send the message to the moment the candidate either accepts or even rejects the offer. 

Right hire, first time, every time. A partner that embodies your brand will understand your pain points and know how to address them. We’re not talking about a general solution. We’re talking about a bespoke solution tailored especially where you need it, giving you the right hire, first time, every time.

When the right candidate enters your company, they will stay for all the right reasons (Don’t forget the 6F Methodology! *wink emoji*). You’ll have less of a headache about employee retention.

Long story short, VERY IMPORTANT. An embedded partner who embodies your brand is very important. That’s not an option.  

Your brand is a journey. A journey that will narrate your story. Make it the best experience a candidate can have. And remember… 

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” 

If you want to partner up with an embedded team who embodies your brand, reach out to us. Our expert team will be glad to discuss how we can tailor a solution to fit your hiring needs all while truly embodying your brand.