Discussing Employer Branding with Sofology and ResponseTap — Corporate Recruiters Networking Manchester (15/02)
Last week we held our first Corporate Recruiters Manchester event for 2017 at The Castlefield Rooms (Dukes 92). As possibly one of the best events we’ve had so far in Manchester we wanted to have a catch up with one another and let you all know how it went. The reason? To simply provide you with the information and happenings of the evening so if you missed it, you can see what to look forward to at our next one in June. So thinking about it now, what did we learn about improving our Employer Brand?
For the love of Networking
After a long day of work and the stress of getting stuff done, what better way to relax than have an evening of food, drink and networking with peers. If you’ve visited us in Manchester before you’re sure to remember how wonderful it is to network with people like you and just simply relax. Everyone heads to the bar to get themselves a drink when they first arrive and start networking with their peers as soon as they can. This is when the networking really begins, and what a buzz it was to hear the room filled with happy chatter and laughter. Everyone getting along famously was the perfect way to kick-start our Manchester event.
Our MC for the evening was Jessica, who worked hard to fill the room with some great guests and sent us straight into our guest presentation for the night!
“How to improve your Employer Brand” — Ben Gledhill (Talent Acquisition Manager at Sofology).
With over 11 years’ experience in Talent Acquisition, and with a vast experience in using social media to recruit the best talent, who better to give a presentation on Employer Branding than Ben Gledhill? Passionate for everything Employer Brand and Candidate Experience, Ben ensures to attract and retain the best talent for Sofology.
Starting with the foundations of buy-in from the business and Employee Value Proposition, Ben led us through a series of interesting components to help organisations identify what they can offer their employees in return for remarkable service and performance. Feeding into how you can find your strengths to offer great EVP. After some well-done examples of what organisation like Aldi, Swinton and Costa are doing to build their brand, Ben took us into his ideas and advice on how to communicate well with your candidates.
Ben was also able to take us through the different types of content marketing that gets good response rates, whilst sharing with us statistics on how well content marketing works online. Linking well with the types of Social Media you should be using and how they should be used, including sites great for networking (Facebook/Twitter), creating content (Vimeo/Youtube) and reviewing your organisation (Glassdoor).
After providing us with a few kind examples of content calendars, and Sofology’s results from a recent Employee Engagement survey, Ben ended with some quick wins available to start immediately and one simple quote…
“Make it unique, don’t be afraid, stay authentic, stay genuine”.
It’s Panel Time!
With Ben’s presentation at an end, what else could he possibly do to help us all that little more? Well, he could (and did) join our panel discussion along with Matt Jones (Talent Manager at ResponseTap) and EasyWeb Founder Adrian McDonagh to continue the discussion on Employer Branding.
Matt and Ben talked about their own personal experiences of implementing direct sourcing strategies and how to build a strong employer brand. Matt had a few people aghast when he explained the number of hires he makes per year for an incredibly small budget. Adrian explained that he meets over 1,000 In-House Recruiters/HR Professionals per year and oversees our own recruitment of about a dozen people per year.
The questions were flying from Glassdoor, from which avenues to use to promote your Employer Brand for free, through to who should own the Employer Brand and whether it should be the recruitment/HR team or marketing (the answer was a resounding vote for the recruitment/HR dept.).
Thanks and Congrats
Once the panel had come to a close and everyone was filled with relaxation and some fresh knowledge, it was the perfect time to draw our prize draw and end the event. For a gift card from The Restaurant Choice, everyone sat on the edges of their seats to find out who won, and the winning business card was revealed. Congratulations to winner Chris (Practical Publishing Int. Ltd).
We would also like to take this moment to thank Ben for being a great guest speaker, and Matt for joining us on our panel. We enjoyed your company and your knowledge, so on behalf of us at EasyWeb and our guests, thank you for taking time out of your evening to join us. As to our guests, a big thank you for making it one of the best events we’ve held in Manchester so far and we cannot wait to welcome you again to the next.
With Manchester done and dusted for another few months, we’re heading back to London next, but not long before we’re back here in Manchester on June 21st. Our special guest presenter will be announced in the coming weeks so keep an eye out on our Twitter and LinkedIn pages for the reveal.
We expect this event to be as successful and full as last week, so register now to avoid disappointment: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/corporate-recruiters-network-manchester-registration-32159420693
Written by:
Becky Cellupica (Marketing & Events Executive) & Adrian McDonagh (Founder / Chief Ideas Officer)