How Does HR Image Influences Recruiting?

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Aren’t you concerned about your HR brand yet? If not, it’s the right time to start building it, before your competitors send offers to the best IT employees!

Finally, the HR brand strongly affects the overall success and profit of a company. Although this influence is rather indirect, success is not measured directly by the professionalism of employees. Still, in the end, the product made by experts will dramatically differ from the product that lay people were working on.

What is HR Brand?

This is an image of your company based on the interaction of the enterprise with the staff. It is formed by the feedback of former and present employees. For some companies, the HR brand serves as a transmitter of their corporate culture to the outer Internet. 

All in all, the HR brand defines the company’s place between ‘It’s a dream company’ and ‘I won’t ever work here’.

How Does HR Branding Influence Company Success?

• If you have a positive HR brand, the best professionals will be eager to work on your products. This is fair even for people who can be hunted from other companies. So, you won’t even put a colossal effort to attract strong experts to the project. 
• Recruiting issues will be solved as people will contact you first. You won’t spend weeks searching for several candidates. You’ll have a ready-made sample of candidates who shared their CVs.
• Staff turnover will reduce. People enjoy working for reliable companies with a positive reputation and great working conditions.
• Financial costs for unsuccessful hiring decisions and achieving new recruitment goals will reduce. Also, costs for promotions may fall, as in some cases, people are motivated by working for a reputable company even more than by a salary increase.
• Improving the entire company image on the market. A company that doesn’t value its own employees will never be successful. Positive HR image, on the contrary, helps firms get famous thanks to word of mouth.

This works in the long run and random negative feedback can cause unpleasant consequences anytime. So, if you don’t have a single strategy for nurturing your HR brand, please, start dealing with it right now!

Also, the way you deal with negative feedback influences the whole business’s success. If an employee leaves a negative review, you should politely respond to it. Finally, your potential partners will find this information in search engines. What will they think if they read a rude answer written by the company’s recruiter? That’s it! HR brand influences the trust to your company, it demonstrates how the company solves issues if there are some.

Dealing with Reputational Risks

Almost every company faces these risks daily. People share negative reviews, articles about unscrupulous employers, and so on. And most often, such things are shared not by clients but by offended former colleagues. If a person got fired and there was a conflict, be ready to get an avalanche of negative feedback from them. The worst thing is that people respond to ‘revealing’ comments very fast and the reputation can be destroyed in just several hours.

The only right solution is resolving conflicts in time and becoming friends with those employees again.

Who Can Be a Threat to the Brand?

• Candidates who received refusals. You and your recruiters may be extremely polite, but some candidates will look for the smallest word to make it a spark for scandal.
• Fired employees, especially those who left the company with a scandal. The reasons may be different, from unprofessionalism to violating the company rules. Still, the causes are the same – negative reviews on the Internet.
• Employees who have been reduced. Staff cuts are sometimes inevitable, however, offended employees can share their emotions on social media. Their feedback might be less negative than fired employees’, still, you better respond to it.
• Competitors who promote their products and brands via black PR tools.
• Even HR managers and recruiters can harm your brand if they behave incorrectly. Wrong replies to online reviews, harsh expressions or inappropriate behavior can leave an indelible mark on reputation.

As you can see, there are lots of threats out there. Don’t panic, they won’t attack your company at once. Moreover, if you take care of your HR brand from the very beginning, you’ll eliminate most of them!

How to Maintain a Positive HR Brand?

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1. Start with clear vacancies

Be clear and don’t use vague descriptions. A person should understand what their duties will be at work. If you’re not sure about a role you’re posting, consult with the leader of a team that needs a new member. This will relieve you of the need to explain for mistakes if there are any in the text of the vacancy.

It’s not rare when vacancies seem strange as if a company is looking for a JavaScript developer who will write code in Java. 

2. Support all candidates

Let’s assume you’ve written a great text for the vacancy and people start responding to it. How to behave yourself to improve the entire company’s HR brand?

1. Reply to everyone who sent you their resumes. To save time, create a template for that. Let a candidate know that you’ve received their CV and provide them with the dates of further feedback. Anyway, responding is crucial for your image.
2. Respond to test tasks in time. Once a candidate submits a test task, do the same thing. Let them know that you’ve received their work and provide them with the date of deciding on their success. Contacting candidates is mandatory if you want to maintain a positive image. Also, not replying to candidates might ruin your own reputation, as such information spreads on socials as a bolt of lightning. 
3. Follow-up candidates after interviews. This point is extremely important as well. Once a candidate spends their time talking with you, not sharing feedback will be too rude. Be honest and tell candidates whether they’ve passed the interview or not. It is simple!

3. Pay attention to communication

On every stage of negotiating with potential employees, you should be discreet and friendly. Any sharp word can lead to harsh consequences and tons of hate on the web. So, what is the checklist for communication?

1. Be considerate. Even if a candidate behaves like a psycho, don’t do the same thing. Forget about your emotions and wish to answer them in the same tone. Otherwise, your talk will grow into a scandal. Do you want everyone on the Internet to see this? Of course, you don’t. So, smile, and keep your positive image in mind. This is your strength.
2. Don’t argue. If you encounter unfair claims, don’t try to find out who’s right and who’s wrong. Do not get personal. On the contrary, try to disengage from this situation and analyze the facts. Leave emotions behind.
3. Do not make excuses. If you’ve made a mistake, just apologize. Saying ‘It was not what you think’ or ‘I had 10 reasons for that’ sound unprofessional. Sure, you can explain some reasons for negative decisions. Yet, don’t become fond of that.

How to Deal with Negative Feedback?

Many IT companies wonder what to do if someone has left a negative review. Some brand managers recommend deleting these comments, some advice replying to them. So, what is the best way to solve this serious reputational issue?

1. First of all, don’t get upset if you see such a review. This is not a tragedy and you actually can solve this issue! What’s more, you might find new perspectives for development. Crises always lead to new opportunities. Remember that!
2. Don’t be urged to delete comments from your Facebook page. Other subscribers could already have seen the comment and deleting it will cause a stir among users. This will be a reason to think that the company is cheating. 
3. Deleting reviews can cost you huge money. You can delete comments on Facebook, but you don’t have access to well-known feedback-sharing platforms. Their admins commonly charge cosmic fees for cleaning companies’ reputation. 
4. Your decision to delete a review might lead to other reputational losses. Admins of those websites will appear to be very honest. So, they won’t delete a review and will tell everyone that you wanted to do so. No one likes cheaters, right?

The ONLY correct way out of online conflicts is the right communication. With an effective approach, your online dialogue can switch to positive. This will be proof of your professionalism, and will only improve your company’s HR brand.

Key Takeaways

Recruiters and HRs are people who are always communicating with candidates and employees. If there is a conflict with future or former colleagues for any reason, it’s their responsibility to solve them.

The key to success is correct, calm, and professional communication. Not all candidates are polite, not all of their claims are adequate. Remember that they are driven by emotions. Don’t let them unsettle you. 

Keep calm… and always reply to any feedback on the Internet, be it positive or negative. This will be a major fundamental brick in the wall of your HR brand.