The Importance of PR in Your Recruitment Efforts

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It isn’t enough to post an ad on your website or a job board and expect top talent to inundate your inbox with their resumes. You may passionately believe your company is an exceptional place to work, but you can’t assume that the general public feels the same way. You need to consider what the company looks like to the outside world.  How do prospective hires know you? Do they even know you at all?  Help potential employees see what you know by building your image. One of the most effective ways to do this is to introduce some public relations principles to your traditional recruitment efforts.

Public relations is ultimately about communicating with your key audiences. When you think about incorporating PR into your recruitment strategies, think about your messages, your constituents and the media. What do you want to say, how do you want to say it and who do you want to say it to? Here are some ways HR managers can think like PR people to attract and retain top talent:

Develop and Fine Tune Your Message
What do you want people to know about your company? What is your organization’s differentiator? What makes you special? What are your values? Edward Sussek, an employment consultant, recommends involving those populations you are trying to reach when developing your company’s differentiator instead of leaving it strictly up to leadership.

Sussek suggests starting with current employees. Ask your people: "What is important to you? Why is this a great place to work? What drew you to this company when you were looking for a new job?" Feedback from this key audience can help you refine your message to recruits. If you address what is important to your employees, you can use similar messaging to describe your company to the outside world.

Once you have determined your differentiator, package or brand it so that it can be easily discussed. Is your company the market leader? Do you strive to provide work/life balance? Are you a "green" or diverse company? Do you invest in training and educating your employees? Make sure your leaders, recruiters and current employees—anyone who may come into contact with a potential candidate—can identify and share your "it" factor with others.

Public relations, after all, is communicating with your public. This encompasses many audiences—potential recruits, current employees, clients, vendors and the community in general. Make sure that when you are communicating with these audiences you are delivering your key messages.

It is also important to back up your claims. Don’t say you are a green company if you don’t recycle. Make sure your differentiator is a legitimate core value of the company and not a gimmick to score some quick PR or buzz.

Identify Your Marks
Research the groups you most want to target. How can you reach them? What publications do they read? Where do they currently work, live and hang out? What industry and alumni groups do they belong to? What websites do they visit? What types of activities do they partake in? Reach out to your target audiences through these avenues. Set up speaking opportunities at these group meetings, sponsor an event and work to get stories about your company featured in the trade journals and business publications your target audiences read.

You also should partner with your internal marketing and PR department, or your organization’s outside PR firm, to see how your efforts overlap and might complement each other. Your company’s PR professionals can pitch stories that incorporate your key messaging to the publications your target audiences read. They can also work to have members of your company included in broader business stories about issues that affect your area and industry.

Consider Each Medium You Want to Pursue
Of course, the business and trade publications you identify will be considered as target media to relay your organization’s messages. But you must also consider other media sources. Incorporate your message into all your internal and external communications—from your website to your email signatures. Your messaging should be reflected in all aspects of written, web-based and verbal communications including newsletters, marketing pieces, public relations stories and speaking opportunities.

Public relations can play an invaluable role in helping to recruit and retain top talent. Organizations that consider and refine their messages, audiences and strategies for reaching those targets will be better able to recruit and retain top talent in a competitive market.

About the Author: Dave Sanford is Executive Vice President of Business Development for Winter, Wyman (http://www.winterwyman.com)—the largest and one of the most recognized staffing firms in the Northeast.

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