- GEICO Goes Local With Location-Based Microsites - February 9, 2015
- Talent Management Starts With Employer Branding - January 26, 2015
- 5 Ways HR Executives Can Boost Employee Retention - January 12, 2015
Two things popped on my radar this weekend, an article questioning Yahoo!’s Employer Brand and a friend’s Facebook photos about a weekend hackathon at that same search company. The timing of the two was incredibly interesting.
First, Lauren Indvik’s story about Yahoo! earned top trending status in my LinkedIn feed this past weekend. Her article titled “Is It Cool To Work At Yahoo Now?” certainly attracted my attention.
Second, a good friend who works at Yahoo! put pics on Facebook about a weekend hackathon at the tech company. The timing was ironic, and upon closer examination it was clear that the answer to Lauren’s question is yes. Yahoo! is a cool company to work at again. The best evidence of that is to see what their employees have to say online.
Employees drive your Employer Brand
After I read the article about Yahoo! on Mashable, I subsequently saw a post in a good friend’s Facebook news feed. It showed CEO Marissa Mayer greeting developers to a weekend hackathon.
The lineup of people interested in meeting the Yahoo! CEO was worth 1,000 words…at least. The picture clearly shows developers eager to meet the CEO, and showing up in numbers to participate in the weekend event at Yahoo!.
As a company, you can’t buy this type of publicity. It’s generated organically from employees who are excited to be a part of the company. It has an impact on friends of the person posting, and is an influence of their view on the company.
No PR firm can generate this level of authenticity relating to your employer brand.
New employees have a big impact
[youtube id=”jHTXi_0iuYM” mode=”thumbnail” align=”left” autoplay=”no”]I’ve had the chance to meet some awesome entrepreneurs over the last two years while developing Ongig. Two of those entrepreneurs had their company’s “acqui-hired” by Yahoo! during the course of 2012. This is interesting as they are people that I have met personally, and I would trust their recommendation.
Add to that the fact that one of the two entrepreneurs is currently being featured in a video on the Yahoo! careers site. Josh Schwarzapel was formerly the CEO of OnTheAir, and is now highlighted in a video focused on Yahoo!’s mobile engineering team. It was super cool to head to their website and see someone I knew. It also created greater interest in what the company is up to, and the direction they are headed.
While this is a message of much bigger scale, it’s still done with authenticity. Sources tell me that Yahoo! has grown from 15 mobile engineers to over 300 during the last 12 months. Anyone in recruiting knows that this is an incredibly difficult mountain to climb.
The fact that Yahoo! has accomplished this adds credibility to the fact that a company’s people drive the Employer Brand.
Conclusion
The actions of your employees makes a huge difference with your Employer Brand. Candidates can search out articles online, and peruse the comments to get a perspective. However, hearing a perspective from people they know can be the ultimate difference-maker.
Give your employees something to talk about, and more importantly, something to show. The authentic look into your company will drive the ultimate Employer Brand.
