WorkPuzzle

How Do Candidates Find Jobs? Don’t Believe the Hype

As many of you  know, my day job involves running a recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) company called Tidemark.  We specialize in high-volume candidate sourcing for companies who have difficult-to-fill positions. 

So, when research, such as that compiled by CareerXroads in their Tenth Annual Source of Hire study, is released, it peaks my interest.  I know many of you will not share my passion (and rightfully so) for this information, but I thought a quick summary of the findings might prove interesting. 

Here are some observations that John Zappe, a technology reporter for Electronic Recruiting Exchange, put together:

“[The study] reports the results of a survey of 36 large, “well-branded” but anonymous U.S. companies who cumulatively employ 1.32 million workers and hired not quite 133,000 employees in 2010.   

As has been the case from the beginning in 2001, referrals from employees, vendors, alumni, customers, and other sources was the leading source of external hires. Last year, the surveyed companies reported 27.5 percent of their external hires came from referrals. The percentage has fluctuated only modestly over the years.  What is somewhat surprising about the referrals is that 51.7 percent of the responding companies said that up to 20 percent of their referral hires come from sources other than employees.

In past years, corporate career sites occupied second place, as a source of external hires.  However, candidates come to corporate sites often by clicking on job postings on job boards or search engines.  The current report makes the same point.  ‘Career sites are critical but they are more likely to be the end point, not the beginning or middle,’ states the report.”

What about social media?  One of the questions we often hear...What impact is social media having on candidate sourcing?  Fortunately, the study compiled some data on this topic as well:

“[The study reports] 57.1 percent of the respondents reported that social media played an important part in their direct sourcing program (only 5% of total sourcing).  That was the percentage reporting they researched candidates on social networks.  Asked to rank the impact of social media on various parts of their recruiting program, respondents said its influence was greatest on direct sourcing, college hiring, and on hiring from job boards.”

What does all this mean for hiring in the real estate industry?  Here are some of my observations:

1.  Job Boards Are Not Dead.  There are many people who believe that jobs boards are declining and are no longer relevant.  This is not true.  Most career site hires were originally referred to a given company's website from job boards, which play a role in nearly 45% of all new hires.  If you do not have an effective job board presence, you’re missing out on a large portion of the hiring action.

2.  Referrals Are Still Critical.  For an industry that depends upon client referrals for a large portion of their marketing success, this should feel natural.  Do you regularly ask those in your network for hiring referrals?  If not, you’re missing out.  This is how people most commonly change careers and switch employers.

3.  Don’t Ignore Your Own Career Site / Employment Brand.  A couple months ago, we wrote a WorkPuzzle series on employment branding.  The conclusion…candidates will look you up on the internet and form opinions on what they find.  The CareerXroads study supports this conclusion.

4.  Social Media is Way Over-Hyped as a Sourcing Tool.  The data shows that referrals, job boards, and career sites account for over 70% of the new hire sourcing.  Where’s social media?  It’s buried in the 5% attributed to direct sourcing.  As the study indicates, social media outlets are often used to research candidates after they are sourced.  Maybe this will change in the future, but at this point, social media is a small player in candidate sourcing.

5.  Does This Apply to Real Estate?  I know many of our readers may discount this type of study because it was not conducted inside the real estate industry.  Granted, a real estate specific study may give us better insight on this topic, but consider the data from the candidate’s perspective... How does a human being in our society seek out and react to career-related information?  If you have this data as a baseline, I would argue you’re better equipped to interpret the idiosyncrasies of real estate hiring.

A Couple Questions to Consider:  Was any of this data surprising to you?  Does this cause you to want to change anything about your hiring process?

For confidential responses:  Email workpuzzle@hiringcenter.net

For public responses:  Use the comment link at the bottom of today's posting:  www.workpuzzle.com

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Social Networking and Recruiting: 7 Guidelines for What to Share on Facebook

Yesterday, I pointed out that sharing too much in your social networks (quantity) is annoying to those who interact with you online.  It is a good way to get relegated to the spam box or simply turned off.  It is better to thoughtfully select the things you share (quality), and post less often.

The risk of taking this approach is that you may come across as shallow or having an agenda that is self-serving.  Having a clear focus can produce its own set of casualties. This is the classic problem with politics, advertising, marketing, branding, social media and recruiting.  Is there a middle ground that is just right?  I think so, and that place is called authenticity.

To help us understand authenticity, I'd like to share part of an article written by Heather Bussing.  Heather is an employment and business attorney who recently wrote Does Authenticity Make My Butt Look Big? In the article, she lays out some very helpful guidelines regarding what is appropriate to share professionally in social networks:

"I’ve been listening to sessions on employment branding at the Tru London conference.  The overall consensus is that companies should be more 'authentic'  But what does that really mean?  And how do you do it?  Asking yourself if you are being authentic enough is like asking if your what you're wearing makes your butt look big.  The questions are equally narcissistic and no one is going to tell you the truth.  (By the way, transparency always makes your butt look big.) 

 
To work on being more 'authentic' is to preclude the very possibility of authenticity.  Authenticity is not a destination.  It’s part of the sweat you work up taking a good hard run at life.  There is no way to 'be' authentic.  Authenticity is inherent in just being.  This is because being authentic is just being yourself.  If you are comfortable in your own skin, you will be authentic without trying.

For some, being authentic means revealing personal information.  For others, it means demonstrating their quirks and foibles to seem more human.  Still others want to be clearer in their communications and say exactly what they mean.  These things don’t always work, nor do they demonstrate authenticity.  The whole point of authenticity is credibility.  When we say someone is authentic it means that they are not fake, they are true and you can believe them.  As Jean Giraudeaux once said:

'The secret of success is sincerity.  Once you can fake that you’ve got it made.'

But,the reverse is also true:

'A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal'            - Oscar Wilde.
 
So the key is to be yourself but stay focused on your purpose, audience and topic.  Here are some practical tips I’ve learned as a trial lawyer on where to draw the line with your genuine, sincere, authenticity:

1. Avoid TMI:  Too Much Information is not the same as being authentic.  People don’t want to know about your medical conditions, particularly anything involving a rash or oozing.  They also don’t want to know about the toilet training of your children, how you cured smelly feet or other such personal information.
2. Avoid Public Heartfelt Disclosures:  It absolutely works in private and is essential to close relationships.  Most people are really uncomfortable with that level of disclosure with people they don’t know.  So avoid public discussion in business or professional settings of the epiphanies you had in therapy, church, a personal discussion with your spouse, or any combination thereof.
3. Self deprecation only works if it’s funny.  Irony doesn’t come through in writing unless you are a really talented writer with room for context.  Even adding an emoticon just doesn’t cut it.  If you say, 'I’m such an idiot,'  people will just think you’re an idiot.  On the other hand, you can push the line a lot farther if it’s funny.
4. Be your 'professional' self.  Put things out there you would share with a new boss or colleague.  If it’s someone who would get less than 70% on your Facebook How well do you know me quiz, it’s probably TMI.
5. Do not post anything online out of anger, fear, after more than one drink, or after 10 pm, whichever comes first.
6. Righteous indignation, no matter how passionate and heartfelt, always comes off closer to raving lunatic.
7. If you are uncomfortable, you’ll never pull it off.  Don’t even try to overcome it.  So just be uncomfortable and move on.  It will pass as soon as you let it.

The real key to communicating authentically is understanding what you are saying really well, then saying it as clearly and simply as possible.  This takes a lot more work and a lot more time than knocking off a few lines at the keyboard or flying by the seat of your pants.  It often requires editing, polishing, feedback and rethinking—all things that are often absent in online publishing."  

Bottom line:  Authenticity is both knowing what you are talking about and saying it really well.  The power of social networks--as a viable recruiting and business tool--will not be realized until we learn this lesson.

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Social Networking and Recruiting: Stop the Social Vomiting

Dave and I had the opportunity to attend two national real estate conferences last week in San Diego and Las Vegas.  While we attempt to stay connected with our clients year-round, there is nothing that replaces making the personal, face-to-face connections that happen at these types of venues.

I'm always amazed at how much we learn by talking with those who run businesses on a day-to-day basis.  The school of real life is a relentless taskmaster, but a faithful teacher of truth.  Gleaning these truths from our interactions and passing them on to those who read WorkPuzzle is one of the things I enjoy most about my job.

One area that remains to be of keen interest among many owners and first level managers is the topic of social networking as it applies to recruiting.  It would seem that this arena has so much potential, but the benefits have been very difficult to capture, measure, and scale.  We're really in the infancy of how social networking can be used to benefit the recruiting process.

Of course, the only way to learn is to experiment.  And many of these "experiments" have produced disasterous results.  In fact, there is a trend emerging where candidates are pushing back on clumsy attempts to use social networking for recruiting.  I've read several articles in the last week or so on what NOT to do when trying to promote your employment brand and recruit in the social networking arena. 

One of the best articles was written by Kathy Rapp, the Managing Director of hrQ.  Kathy recently took three months of maternity leave and was able to use that time to be a third party observer of the social networking state of affairs.  Here is what she noticed:

"I can't tell you how many people I've now hidden or turned-off because of the immense amount of social vomiting they do on a daily basis.  You know what I'm talking about.  There were those who continuously self-promote; those who posted every semi-humorous you-tube video of commercials, bands or cats; or those who simply retweeted everything they could without a single comment as to why I should take time to click on the link.

On the flip side were people who were extremely thoughtful in their posts, blogs or commentary.  Those who produced informative reads or insights that made me want to learn more.  I really, really came to appreciate the QUALITY of the communication.

When you are trying to establish your personal brand, company presence, networking reach, or just responding to a post, remember quality over quantity.  While I may know your name because of the number of tweets you are tied to, if I associate your name with 'annoying' I doubt it is the message you want to deliver.

An example of a company that gets the quality concept: HomeAway.  Two years ago they jumped off a big cliff and produced a Super Bowl ad with the much talked about return of Clark and the Griswold family.  This year, it was the introduction of the Ministry of Detourism.

They've tiptoed into other social media realms, and as such whenever I see the clever blue birdhouse, I tend to read what has been posted.  Excellent example of company branding that emphasizes quality communication over quantity, which also happens to be one of the concepts they are selling to their customers."

Take an inventory of what you're sharing on your social networks.  Are you guilty of a little "social vomiting" of your own?  I hope not, but it sometimes is difficult to tell what's inappropriate to share.  It's a little like trying to figure out if you have bad breath--you may not be able to tell, and others are uncomfortable letting you know.  Next time, I'll cover some guidelines on what is appropriate to share and how you can turn your social network into a professional asset. 

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Curiosity: Three Ways to Refresh Your Outlook as a Leader

While reviewing a recent blog entry by Daniel Pink, I stumbled across the work of Dr. Todd Kashdan, a professor at George Mason University.  Dr. Kashdan is the Director of the Laboratory for the Study of Social Anxiety, Character Strengths, and Related Phenomena.

I know that’s kind of a mouthful (how would you like to introduce yourself at a party with this as your job title?), so here is some more detail on what his group actually does:

"The Laboratory for the Study of Social Anxiety, Character Strengths, and Related Phenomena is committed to conducting basic research to better understand the nature of social anxiety and positive psychological processes (e.g., curiosity, gratitude, mindfulness, savoring, purposeful living) and applying this knowledge to better people's lives….  We are focused on discovering, applying, and sharing psychological knowledge to better understand components of human functioning, improve the treatment of psychological problems, enhance well-being and character strengths, and promote this work at the individual and societal level."

Isn’t this a great purpose statement for Dr. Kashdan’s work?  He seems to be working (from a research perspective) on the issues that many of us would consider critical for developing thriving relationships and experiencing a consistent sense of well-being.

I look forward to exploring more of his published work, but I thought I’d give you a little taste of what I’ve already discovered.  One of the topics he tends to focus on is the “positive psychological process” of curiosity. Here is a summary of Daniel Pink's recent interview with Dr. Kashdan regarding the topic of curiosity:

1. Thrive on uncertainty.  We rarely look forward to the tension that accompanies uncertainty, but research shows that these feelings lead to the most intense and longest-lasting positive experiences.  New and uncertain activities make people happier and create more meaning than familiar routines.  Re-train your brain to benefit from the pleasures of surprise and uncertainty.  And do the same for people around you.  For instance, every week, give a free lunch away to someone who best embodies a strength valued by the business (Compassion?  Leadership?  Gratitude?  Humor?).  Let the person who wins pick a lunchmate whom they don’t know as well as they should.  Use the pleasures of uncertainty to build satisfaction and commitment inside your organization.

2. Find the unfamiliar in the familiar.  As soon as we think we’re experts, we stop paying attention and start falling back on scripts, labels, and categories.  That’s especially true in the workplace.  Yet scientists have discovered the value of attending to what we don’t know about people and how they differ from us — instead of relying on what we already know and how they are similar to us.  Encourage your team to make this mindset switch.  You’ll develop stronger bonds, squelch prejudice, and help your star players avoid being blinded by their expertise.  For instance, when you go out to lunch with colleagues, ask them about something that interests you but that you never talk about. What are their top 5 places to travel to in the world, and why?  What movies do they like but are often embarrassed to share?  And don’t always spend your time with people you know.  Seek out strangers at work who intrigue you, who are different from you, and who expand your horizons.

3. Be a safe haven for the risks and joys of others.  To take risks and experiment with new ways of thinking and acting, we need to feel secure. If you want workers to be creative, be responsive when they share past explorations or future plans.  If they feel uncomfortable, let them know that anxiety is natural when trying new things.  Share a story about the last time you felt anxiety and self-doubt.  You might be surprised how comfortable it will make them to take on tough challenges.  And respond genuinely when they share what is intriguing and going right in their lives. Don’t just ask, “How was your weekend?”  Ask them what their peak moments were on Saturday and Sunday.  And when they share, follow-up with questions, ask for details.  You might become genuinely interested in their interests and create a safe haven for the sorts of breakthrough thinking that changes companies — and sometimes the world.

If you’d like to learn more about this topic (or, maybe now you’re just curious...), you may want to pick up Dr. Kashdan’s book:  Curious?: Discover the Missing Ingredient to a Fulfilling Life.

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Generosity: How to Persevere a Long Recruiting Cycle

I had the pleasure of spending some time in the San Francisco Bay area last week with one of our clients.  I enjoy this particular company because their energy toward recruiting is among the best I've ever observed.  Their executive team and hiring managers are truly passionate about hiring.  And their passion is not just raw exuberance, but rather an excitement towards becoming more effective in their methodologies and working smarter than their competitors.

As we talked through their recruiting challenges, it became apparent that passion and energy is something they'll need a lot of if they hope to be successful.  Why?  Because the real estate recruiting environment is going to continue to be challenging for some time.

One of these challenges is the length of the recruiting cycle (i.e. the time it takes to recruit an agent).  Whether a company’s recruiting focus is "new to real estate" candidates or experienced agents who are currently working for a competitor, the recruiting cycle is much longer, on average, than it has been in the past. 

Why?  Uncertainty in the economy and difficult conditions in the real estate market tend to make people more risk averse.  While candidates will still change companies if they experience a crisis with their current employer/broker, most people in today’s environment prefer to hang onto what they have unless the perfect opportunity comes along.

With a lengthy recruiting cycle becoming the norm, the hiring managers who can persevere and stay engaged with a candidate over a long period of time are the ones who are going to be successful.

How do you accomplish this?  One place to start is generosity.  In a recent article in Fast Company, Anya Kamenetz makes the point that the internet has a way of empowering this type of engagement through generosity:

"… what fascinates me is the way in which the Internet can unleash acts of generosity and true connection.

Truth is, anyone who goes online takes advantage of the kindness of strangers.  Wikipedia is the most famous example.  Still, sites like Amazon, eBay, Yelp, and TripAdvisor are also valuable because of the feedback provided gratis by millions of people.

When it comes to sites such as PatientsLikeMe, or any of the thousands of message boards dedicated to infertility, cancer, and various other ailments, people get informed about life-and-death decisions based on volunteered information, while also deriving much-needed emotional support from strangers.

Sociologists attribute the desire to contribute to such communities to a “reputation economy,” in which people gain self-esteem and standing by giving away their time and opinion.  Information is the thing people will share most readily, followed by time, followed by goods."

Notice what she says in the last paragraph:  “…people gain self-esteem and standing by giving away their time and opinion.”  If this is true, then hiring managers should be among the most generous people around!  In essence, recruiting boils down to continually raising your “standing” in the eyes of your candidates (over a sustained period of time) until the candidate feels compelled to join your team.

What can you be giving away to your candidates?  

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Brain Rules: How Understanding The Brain Can Make You a Better Manager

I want to address a somewhat random topic today, but I think it's something you'll find interesting.  The topic is sleep, and the question is...Why do humans need to sleep?

 

Maybe it is not as random as you might initially imagine.  If you're a regular WorkPuzzle reader, you might recall that we centered a series of discussions last November around how to gain a competitive advantage in recruiting by making sure that your office is a compelling place to work.  I would argue that if you can continue to develop your knowledge of what makes people perform at a peak level, you'll attract the interest of the most talented individuals.

 

Yesterday afternoon, I had the privilege of attending a lecture by Dr. John Medina.  Dr. Medina is a developmental molecular biologist at the University of Washington and author of a best-selling book, called Brain Rules.  As you might have guessed, he specializes in brain research.  His presentation primarily focused on the latest research on the brain's need for sleep. 

 

If you've ever been forced to stay awake for many hours, you may have noticed that it isn't your body that "get's tired," it's your mind.  This is true of all humans.  This is why sleep deprivation is commonly used to interrogate and torture people during wars. 

 

For many years, the prevailing thought was that sleep was an energy restoration activity... It only made sense- you feel tired when you go to sleep... So, you must need some time to rebuild your brain's energy stores, right? 

 

The problem with this theory is that as scientists have gotten better at understanding the brain, they've discovered that the brain doesn't really rest during sleep - It is actually quite active.  So, if it's not resting, what is your brain doing?

 

Researchers now believe the brain is learning while you sleep.  Here's what happens:  While you sleep, your brain goes through sleep cycles.  There is a deep sleep part of the cycle that typically lasts 26 minutes.  During this period, the brain is taking the information that you collected from the previous day, prioritizing it, and then replaying the important events over and over again in your mind.  This replaying of events is what causes your brain to actually capture and make sense of the information.  It's called learning.  

 

The brain ends the deep cycle after 26 minutes and then wakes you up.  This is called rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.  Most people don't actually wake up during this phase, but instead are brought to near conscientiousness.  Researchers believe that the brain does this as a safety mechanism.  It brings you out of deep sleep back to where you're nearly awake so you can check your surroundings.  If everything is OK (i.e. you brain determines you're safe), it descends back into deep sleep for another cycle.

 

In essence, the brain needs some time each day where it can shut off information from the outside world and just focus on learning.  If the brain is deprived of this time of focus, all kinds of bad things can happen.  At a minimum, the brain could develop a pattern of inefficiency for assimilating new information.

 

I find all of this brain research stuff very interesting.  Naturally, my mind starts spinning on all the applications that can be made with these discoveries.  Here are some ideas that have come to mind: 

1. Learning and Sleeping are Directly Connected.  If we have an interest in capturing and applying important information that we've collected from a training seminar, networking meeting, or some other source, it is important to get good sleep the night after the information is presented.   
2. Coaching and Training.  If you're responsible for coaching and training agents you may want to pay more attention to how your students are sleeping. Let's suppose you hold a sales meeting and hire a high-priced trainer to present valuable information to your agents.  For fun, you then host an evening activity that encourages your agents to stay out late and party a little bit.  Probably a bad idea if your hope was for your agents to retain the training material.
3. Become the Expert on Peak Performance.  We've talked the last couple of weeks about building your employment brand.  Part of your brand should involve having a reputation for helping those around you perform at a high level. Understanding how to capture and assimilate new information is critical in this pursuit.

There are many more ideas worth considering in this realm.  As a starting point, I would recommend picking up a copy of Dr. Medina's book on brain rules.  It would probably be a great thing to read before going to bed...

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Employment Brand Part 4: What Can You Learn From the Old Spice Guy?

I’ll wrap up the discussion we’ve been having (1,2,3) about creating your employment/personal brand by pointing you to one of the best examples of brand transformation that I’ve ever observed…the Old Spice brand.

If you happen to live with teenage boys, you’re probably already aware of the transformation the Old Spice brand has undergone over the last couple of years.  The whistling, nautical, bearded guy is long gone and has been replaced by the new Old Spice guy who connects with younger folks.

Don’t take this the wrong way, but there are many real estate offices that have brands that are similar to the original Old Spice image—old, stodgy, not connected with modern life.  The good news…a transformation is possible.

How did Proctor and Gamble (Old Spice’s parent company) pull this off? Obviously, they put a lot of time, resources, and talent into creating the new image.  But, they also did an exceptional job of communicating and maintaining their reinvented brand through online tools, such as YouTube. Take a look at this example:

 

On the first page of a YouTube search on “Old Spice,” you’ll notice that Old Spice videos have generated more than 100 million views.     

In fact, Old Spice has become so proficient at promulgating their new Old Spice Brand online, they are forgoing a Super Bowl ad this year and instead are releasing their next ad today (on February 7th—after the Super Bowl) through a specially chosen superfan, who has enough connections to make their ad go viral on the internet.  You might want to see if you can find it online!

"Smelling like a man" is not the only thing you can learn from the Old Spice guy.  Try applying these principles as you develop, communicate, and maintain your brand online:

1. Think Outside Your Original Image.   The Old Spice image transformation was successful because marketers thought completely outside the boundaries of their original brand.  They were able to capture new customers and take on some significant competitors (Axe, Irish Spring, etc.) by imaging something completely different.  This doesn’t mean that you have to become something you’re not (Old Spice is still good smelling stuff for guys—always has been), but does mean focusing the public’s attention on something that is interesting and engaging for those candidates you’re trying to attract.
2. Be Consistent.   Once you’ve developed your brand, consistently portray that image when you communicate with others.  Start by practicing with those who are already on your team.  Invite your existing agents to help by communicating the office’s brand to those in their networks.  If it’s fun and interesting, the image will take on a life of its own.  My teenage boys walk around the house teasing each other because they don’t smell like a man.  Needless to say, they own a lot of Old Spice.
3. Use both Online and Offline Avenues to Promote and Maintain Your Brand.   Branding expert Dan Scwabell has compiled some great ideas for communicating your employment brand.  Before you take a look at Dan’s ideas, it is important to heed the golden rule of promoting yourself:

“Put on your personal PR hat and start to promote your materials.  Before you go crazy with self-promotion, realize that the most successful people are able and trained to promote the work of others as well.” 

I hope you’ll take what you’ve learned over the past couple of weeks and start the process of making your employment brand a success.  As you find good ideas, please share them with me and I’ll republish.  I’m sure there are others in the WorkPuzzle community who would be interested in your success.  As I notice things over the months ahead, I’ll occasionally swing back and revisit the topic with some updates.

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Employment Brand Part 3: Creating and Communicating Your Brand

Hopefully you’ve had some time to put some thought into developing and quantifying your personal brand.  If you’re struggling with this, be assured, it is not easy work.  So, it may take some time.

As you think about a framework to build upon, here is some advice from Tom Peters in his classic article The Brand Called You:

“No matter what you're doing today, there are four things you've got to measure yourself against.  First, you've got to be a great teammate and a supportive colleague.  Second, you've got to be an exceptional expert at something that has real value.  Third, you've got to be a broad-gauged visionary -- a leader, a teacher, a farsighted ‘imagineer.’  Fourth, you've got to be a businessperson -- you've got to be obsessed with pragmatic outcomes.”

Your brand probably should contain most, if not all, of these components.  If you’re having trouble with this step in the process, make sure you ask questions, seek out the opinions of those you trust, and bounce your finished product off a few people who know you well.

Now, on to creating your brand... Your brand will not accomplish anything if it just lives in your head or even passively interacts with those in your close network.  A personal brand only takes on life when it is actively promoted and consistently impacts new individuals.

To create your brand, break your actions into online and offline activities.  I’ll cover each category in the remainder of the discussion.

Create Your Personal Brand Online.   If someone googled your name, your office, or [your city] real estate, what would they find?  If a person IS able to find you with a search inquiry, what does the information found say about you?  Does it match your brand?  These are important questions because a large majority of people will interact with (or miss completely) your brand online.

Here are the basics of what you need to create your personal brand online:

1. Facebook Profile.   You probably already have a Facebook account.  Does it match the personal brand you developed?  If not, you may want to create a professional version and then limit those who have access to your personal version to those in your personal network.
2. LinkedIn Profile.   Again, make sure that your LinkedIn profile matches what you’ve quantified as your personal brand.  Push the limits of LinkedIn by joining groups where you can contribute your expertise and build a reputation for being knowledgeable.
3. Twitter Profile.   Compared to the previous two venues, Twitter is much more tricky.  But, there are some people who have learned to use this tool effectively.  If you need some ideas, study some of the popular restaurants or night clubs in your area.
4. Blog.   It is tough to write a blog as a real estate company and not be perceived as biased.  So, if you decide to write a blog, you may want to focus it on a topic that is not perceived as manipulative.  One of the most popular blogs in my area is SeattleBubble.com - Even though the author is currently an employee of Redfin, he does a good job of maintaining neutrality.

Create You Personal Brand Offline.   Because real estate is such a local/community business, there are still many opportunities to deploy traditional methodologies for building your personal brand.  Here are some ideas:

1. Volunteer.   There are many opportunities in a local community to volunteer.  Pick opportunities that not only support your personal brand, but seem to get a lot of press.  Ride the popularity of things that are naturally interesting to others.
2. Take on a Cause.   Find something in your community that needs attention and make it your job to get it fixed.  For example, if there were a dangerous intersection in your community, could you bring it to the public’s attention and spearhead the public-interest project to get it fixed?  Seems like a great fit for someone who is concerned about the surrounding neighborhoods.
3. Teach a Class.   For most people, building a personal brand involves being perceived as an expert in a certain domain.  Teaching is a great way to build this perception.  Try contacting the local community college or an adult education program.
4. Participate in a Panel Discussion.   Are there conferences in your area where you can make a contribution?  It is quite common for conferences to hold panel discussions with experts from the local community.  Use your network to work your way onto one of these panels.  The first one will be the hardest, but visibility has a way of multiplying.

There are many more ideas out there, so don’t stop with what I’ve suggested... Build a good base, but then take every opportunity possible to add to your personal brand.  Tom Peters says it this way:

“The important thing to remember about your personal visibility campaign is: it all matters.  When you're promoting brand You, everything you do -- and everything you choose not to do -- communicates the value and character of the brand.”

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Employment Brand Part 2: What Is an Employment Brand and How Do I Develop One?

I’ve received a few questions back on the last WorkPuzzle I published.  Apparently, the concept of an “employment brand” is a new idea to many of you.  

Simply put, your employer brand is the image of your organization in the mind of current employees and key stakeholders in the external market (active and passive candidates, clients, customers and other key stakeholders).

So, employer branding activities are the sum of a company’s efforts to communicate to prospective and existing staff what makes your company a desirable place to work, and the active management of a company’s image as seen through the eyes of its potential hires.  (Definition Source)

When we think about this concept, our mind naturally drifts to the large businesses that have prominent brands.  Take a look at AT&T’s career page and you’ll see a great example of how the branding efforts of a well-known consumer brand now naturally crossover to the realm of employment branding.

Of course, this type of implementation would be beyond the reach of most local or even regional real estate companies.  And I would argue that it wouldn’t be very effective either.  While many real estate companies certainly spend money on building their image in the mind of consumers, the crossover to employment branding is not as natural.  Why?  Because the business model of most real estate companies is such that each local office tends to have its own culture.  And this culture (and in essence its brand) is largely driven by the owner or manager of that local office.

For real estate offices, the employment brand tends to be heavily influenced by the personal brand of the manager of a particular local office. 

When you’re attempting to recruit new individuals to your team, the first questions that go through the minds of candidates have to do with the brand of the local office (What is the office about, and is it a place I can see myself working?) and the brand of the manager (Is this the type of person I want to work with?  Does his/her team of agents have characteristics that are intriguing to me? ).

Much of our discussion about employment branding is going to focus on the personal brand of the manager or owner of an office.  And, this is where things get interesting. 

The concept of personal branding was perhaps initially discussed in Tom Peter’s classic article “The Brand Called You,” first published in 1997.  As social networking has exploded in the last 5 years, so have the tools that equip a person to develop and promulgate a personal brand.

So, what’s it take to build a personal brand as a manager?  Here are 4 steps that you should consider:

1.  Discover Your Brand
2.  Create Your Brand
3.  Communicate Your Brand
4.  Maintain Your Brand

We’ll discuss how to Discovering Your Brand today, and then cover the remaining topics in upcoming discussions. 

Branding expert and author, Dan Schwabell, offers this advice on discovering your personal brand:

“The single biggest mistake people make is that they either brand themselves just for the sake of doing it or that they fail to invest time in learning about what’s in their best interests. The key to success, and this isn’t revolutionary, is to be compensated based on your passion. In order to find your passion, you need a lot of time to think, some luck and you need to do some research online to figure out what’s out there.

Brand discovery is about figuring out what you want to do for the rest of your life, setting goals, writing down a mission, vision and personal brand statement (what you do and who you serve), as well as creating a development plan. Have you ever been called intelligent or humorous by your peers or coworkers? That description is part of your brand, especially if you feel those attributed pertain to you. To know if you’ve discovered your brand, you need to make this equation equal:

Your self-impression = How people perceive you

Before you enter the next step in the personal branding process, you’ll want to select a niche, whereby you can be the master of your domain. When I say domain, I mean an area where there aren’t many competitors Once you sort this all out, now it’s time to create your brand.”

I encourage you to take some time to put some thought into Schwabell’s suggestions and develop a clear vision of what you want those in your close geographic are to think of you and your office.

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Employment Brand: Does Anyone Really Want to Work For You?

Earlier this week, I referenced an article written by John Sumser.  John is a recruiting guru from whom I've learned a lot over the last several years.  While John's blog is on my Google Reader, I often skip over his articles because I really have to be in a position to concentrate to digest his articles.

Every once in awhile, I dive into a month or two worth of his articles for a couple of hours and try to figure out what he’s saying.  Typically, I walk away with something that changes my way of thinking.

I did this over the weekend, and the same held true.  John recently wrote an article on employment brands that is quite insightful.  I'll publish it here, and then spend the next couple of WorkPuzzles discussing its implications for the real estate industry.

"Employment Branding is the craft of being so completely organized that you are ready with the right message for the right person when she comes along.

A brand is a relationship.

Brands only matter to the people who care about them.  Mention the brand name outside of the circle of people who have the relationship and you will receive shoulder shrugs.  Mention it inside the circle and you can spark a conversation full of passion and opinion.

The only brands that matter are the ones that people care about.

The theory and development of branding has been reserved, historically, for companies that could afford large broadcast media campaigns.  The best examples of brand marketing are consumer product companies, from automobiles to popular music to varieties of American Cheese.  The term brand is used to cover a wide range of circumstances from name recognition to deep affinity.

Contemporary talk about 'personal branding' generally refers to the act of managing the fifteen minutes of fame that social media bestows.  Peppers and Rogers, the authors of popular books on database and relationship marketing, move the concept to tightly grouped members of a database.

It is useful to think about branding as an early stage technology.  Purely a 20th Century invention, branding, like many first generation technologies, began in organizations that could afford clumsy and inefficient approaches because of their sheer size.  For the past 70 years, branding has been a game of extensive spending to attract large numbers of people to a single product or company.

Today, however, the tools needed to build very clear, very small niche oriented brands are readily available.  Like much of marketing, the tools are now available from the desktop.  This 'downward evolution' of marketing creates both expanded opportunity and expanded responsibility at the department and operating unit level."

Notice what he says in that last paragraph:  "…the tools needed to build very clear, very small niche oriented brands are readily available."  This is great news for those who recruit for a living.

Do you see yourself (you personally) as having a brand?  Does your office (not your company as a whole) have a brand?  What do the candidates that you're trying to recruit think about your office's brand?  Do they wish they could be part of a team like the one you manage, or do they shrug their shoulders?

These are all important questions if you’re going to be successful at recruiting.  It's funny how much easier recruiting gets if you start attracting... 

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.