Recruitment advertising builds corporate image and branding for companies.

I was fortunate to attend the awards ceremony of the Pink slip awards last year where creative awards were given to agency and companies for creative excellence in recruitment advertising. This is a new and interesting inititiative from the Times Group to encourage both the clients and the advertising agency to produce great work in the field of recruitment space which helps in companies to draw good talent especially in today’s employment market where there is ample opportunities but limited talent available. The excellence awards are given across various industries such as finance, banking, pharma, BPO, technology and software etc. What is disturbing a bit here is that the big agencies are not involved in creating communication on recruitment ads and you mostly find mid-sized agency do this of which some of them have become specialist in creating only recruitment-advertising campaign. The larger agency does not recognize this has a major revenue earner and exciting opportunity for their creative team to do inspiring work. Hence invariably designing the recruitment advertisement takes a back seat. I only look forward with the introduction of Pink slip awards we get to see larger agencies also create purposeful communication with strong idea for their clients and brands in the area of recruitment ads. Lets also remember recruitment advertisements is one of the most powerful way of building the corporate image of the brand internally, externally and to the company stakeholders.
Corporates ought to focus on creativity and original ideas:
In the beginning of 80s and in even in the 90’s corporates used print media with powerful communication to sell their companies to attract good talent. Since the only means of communication available was the daily press and business magazines limited space was allocated by media companies to release ads. Most publications earmarked some space and special dates in a week to release these recruitment ads and as a result the recruitment space was cluttered. Most of the appointment advertisements appeared in the supplements of the main issue in black and white for senior positions and you had the classified ads, which permitted companies to release ads for junior posts and walk in interviews. The country is today in its growth path and industries have started flourishing across category and the need for quality talent is required on a continuous baisis. Earlier we had very few industries that used to advertise for manpower. That has taken a quantum leap and today the industry has grown leaps and bound beginning from BPO, Healthcare, Finance, Banking, Advertising, Media and Entertainment, Insurance, Software &Technology and the growing FMCG and Retail segment. All these up-and-coming industry are giving sleepless nights to the HR team and Search consultants, as there is a huge gap between demand and supply. The HR team is pulling all stocks and strategy to get the right candidate through various communication tools and headhunters. In doing so companies have forgotten the pivotal role and significance on the role of recruitment advertisements, which has a strong pulling power for job seekers to respond. Companies now have realised this and are actively engaged in infusing newness with original idea and creativity on recruitment advertisements to beat the clutter and draw quality talents to their organisation.
What drives to create great recruitment ads?
If you pick up any newspaper containing recruitment ads you will notice high clutter and the paper is filled with a whole of lot advertisements without any differentiation. This has been the perpetual problem even decades back when we did not have job portals. Since most advertisements were in black &white it was all the more challenging for brands to shout and stand out. With the advent of colour the scope to increase one’s bandwidth in terms of creative opened up. To create great communication in the recruitment space the first and foremost objective is to speak truth to your prospects. You should not promise them the moon and disappoint them. Give a complete run down of the company right from its values, culture and the vision of the company. In your communication you must enlighten about the entire structure and the person to whom the prospect would be reporting in the work function. This is most critical as attrition rate invariably occurs due to lack of job satisfaction or the incorrect chemistry with the boss. Many companies to create a strong image and build credibility release full-page advertisement to attract talent. This is one way of showing the bigness of the company and communicating to the prospects that we are a large conglomerate with strong guiding principles. Some MNC’s also try follow to create a design & grid with the right tone and style and use them as a template. This holds good if the post one is advertising for is at middle level. But it is always better to try and be different even within that template to catch your audience’s attention.

Job Portals barrier to recruitment ads ?
One of the major reasons that has forced many corporates to have moved from using the conventional route of advertising for drawing talent is the rise of job portals and search consultants who help these companies filling up vacancies. While consultants and job portals have made life easier for many companies but one must also understand that the reach of these portals are not so high that they can touch the length and breadth of the country. With penetration of PC’s dismally low in India and the reach of this medium is not adequate enough to address a large audience. But these portals through their brand campaigns have ensured to create very high awareness in the minds of several job seekers. They also offer a very wide choice of employment options with constant update on new vacancies. As an interesting strategy the job portals make available the relevant links of the companies with a good dose of information about the organisation. To also ensure that they should not lose their clients some of publications like Times group have extended their brand by introducing web platform such as Timesjob.com. The goal here is to provide value to clients apart from the print media with good combined media rates for effectively using both the mediums.

Adds values to the corporate brand:
A well thought out communication for a recruitment ad has direct bearing not only on the future prospects but also the stakeholders, business partners and employees within the company. A good recruitment ad also builds credibility and image of the organisation so long as the company paints the correct picture and information of the organisation. The power of recruitment ads also helps in enhancing the position of the company in the prospects mind by maintaining the right style and tone consistently in their communication. This is where creative excellence for recruitment ads will play a major role as that will motivate clients to think out of box and get their brand across in the most unique and outstanding manner instead of churning out the run of the mill formatted ads. Any piece of communication to attract talent must have heaps of energy to entice the job seekers to respond. If that energy and passion is delivered through strategic recruitment ads we will be able witness more and more HR personnel pushing their communication partners that much extra to create advertisements that will deliver great value to the brand and will motivate and attract quality talent to the organisation.