I’m going to shoot it outright: does your company fail to succeed in employer branding and talent marketing?
It’s a tough question, but if you consider yourself a talent marketing professional, it’s a question that needs answering.
And before you say no, we’re not failing, think just for a second what evidence you have to prove it.
When I say “evidence” I mean data. Facts. And I’m not saying this to hurt your feelings. Quite the opposite! I’m saying this because since you read this blog, you are an aspiring talent marketing professional, and I want you to learn how to be successful in talent marketing.
Failing to succeed in employer branding is surprisingly common
For the past 10 years I have worked as a business consultant in talent marketing and employer branding. My agency helps specifically growth businesses who hire a lot, which means we’ve experienced a lot together with our clients.
My take on talent marketing is that there are a lot of expectations towards it from hiring managers, yet the expectations are not backed up with the required resources. And because professional talent marketing is a new competence, most people doing talent marketing tasks aside recruiting or HR, or company communication are not trained in talent marketing specifically.
And that’s precisely why failing to succeed in employer branding and talent marketing is surprisingly common.
Why most companies fail in talent marketing?
There are many reasons why companies fail in marketing. The most common reason is that there is no plan.
A marketing plan in it’s most simple format captures:
- Why we need to do (talent) marketing?
- What is the goal we need to achieve?
- What are the measurable objectives, the milestones on the way that keep us on the right path?
- Who are the people, the audience, we need to grow and engage in order to reach our goal?
- What are the tasks (as in tactics) we stick to and repeat in order to meet our milestones?
- What is the budget we can use for this work in order to reverse engineer the actual route to the goal via the milestones.
Most companies fail, because they have none of this written down and planned.
Understand the difference between goals, objectives and metrics >>
A simple outline for a talent marketing plan >>
What do I need to do to stop failing and start succeeding?
Professional talent marketing means planned and consistent actions towards a pre-set goal. It is exactly the same as setting yourself a goal to learn a new skill, reach your ideal weight, finish your dissertation, build and move into your new house by the end of a specific date or time.
It means you need to be specific about what you attempt to get done and by when. And then you need to make a plan for how to get that done. And that’s not all, of course. You need to decide to stick to your plan as well.
That’s the difference between those people who actually achieve their goals and succeed, and those that dream.
I also have a tendency to dream a lot. So, I’m aware how much will power it takes to actually stick to a plan. I could say, it’s not that important. And that would be ok too. But then that goal was never a proper goal, just a dream.
You need to make that decision whether you want to actually become a talent marketing professional and build a career out of it. Become a respected, valued and noted talent marketing professional, who is wanted by ambitious businesses to come help their business to grow and succeed. It’s not for everyone. Is it for you?
Success is an attitude more than anything.
In this episode of Building a Modern Employer Brand -podcast I talk about five reasons why most companies fail to succeed in talent marketing.
A lot of companies spend a lot of time in various talent marketing related tasks, but still suffer from the typical signs of failed talent marketing. There is a difference in keeping busy and actually delivering results.
This episode is for all of you who are driven and ambitious about becoming a talent marketing professional. The rest will keep on keeping busy, but not making a difference.
Episode-length: 31:17 min
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