How Public Relations Supports Employee Recruitment

Over the years, we’ve heard from clients and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions in our net­work that recruit­ment and hir­ing is a grow­ing area of focus for com­mu­ni­ca­tions teams, and that grow­ing their brand aware­ness as an employ­er is a top pri­or­i­ty. Cur­rent­ly, we’re see­ing a big spike in those anec­dotes and requests.

Even pri­or to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic (which has brought its own set of recruit­ment and reten­tion chal­lenges), orga­ni­za­tions of all sizes, loca­tions and indus­tries came to us strug­gling to attract can­di­dates — from man­u­fac­tur­ing to IT, installers to cus­tomer ser­vice sup­port and beyond. The prob­lem isn’t lim­it­ed to com­pa­nies out­side of met­ro­pol­i­tan areas, either – across the board, the labor mar­ket is becom­ing intense­ly com­pet­i­tive, mean­ing com­pa­nies must find ways to authen­ti­cal­ly dif­fer­en­ti­ate them­selves and attract high-qual­i­ty candidates.

Of course, on the oth­er side of the coin is the fact that the pan­dem­ic has hit some indi­vid­u­als and com­pa­nies hard. Some indus­tries took a hit while oth­ers boomed, and while some employ­ees found them­selves busier than ever, oth­ers have been out of a job for a long time or have left the work­force due to chang­ing child­care and school­ing sit­u­a­tions.  As with any glob­al-scale health cri­sis, a full recov­ery will take time. How­ev­er, we are begin­ning to see hard-hit indus­tries rebound, and employ­ment rates are look­ing optimistic.

So, as things begin open­ing up and com­pa­nies look to bol­ster their hir­ing efforts, how can HR and com­mu­ni­ca­tions strate­gies work hand-in-hand to help find qual­i­fied can­di­dates? We have a few suggestions:

• Your com­mu­ni­ca­tions team or agency already knows your busi­ness’ unique val­ue propo­si­tion and what makes it stand out. They can tai­lor mes­sages to reach the right audi­ence, at the right time, on the right chan­nel, and help tease out great sto­ries about your busi­ness from a work cul­ture perspective.
• Tes­ti­mo­ni­als from cur­rent employ­ees go a long way to res­onat­ing with poten­tial can­di­dates. Com­mu­ni­ca­tors can help iden­ti­fy these sto­ries and lever­age them in ways you may not have expected.
• Sim­i­lar­ly, indi­vid­u­als want to hear from com­pa­ny lead­er­ship now more than ever and see a company’s val­ues in action. High­light­ing exec­u­tives’ thought lead­er­ship, as well as show­cas­ing your company’s inter­nal cul­ture and community/philanthropic activ­i­ties, across plat­forms can give can­di­dates a glimpse of what the com­pa­ny stands for and how the com­pa­ny gives back.
• Work­place awards are a great way to bring HR and com­mu­ni­ca­tions teams clos­er and have your busi­ness rec­og­nized for being an awe­some place to work. Some of these award oppor­tu­ni­ties also include an employ­ee sur­vey, which can pro­vide direct feed­back from employ­ees about why they like work­ing for your com­pa­ny (as well as areas to con­tin­ue improving).

Bell­mont Part­ners believes that the best way to recruit can­di­dates is to be an authen­tic, peo­ple-dri­ven orga­ni­za­tion, and to share those qual­i­ties in your com­mu­ni­ca­tions efforts.

If you antic­i­pate need­ing help with recruit­ment com­mu­ni­ca­tions and employ­er brand aware­ness, we’d love to learn more about how we could sup­port your com­pa­ny cul­ture, cur­rent open­ings and hir­ing needs with pub­lic rela­tions. Drop us a line at info@bellmontpartners.com, and we’d be hap­py to set up a free con­sul­ta­tion or brain­storm to get the dis­cus­sion started.