GE Is Buying National Ad Time for Their Employer Brand and Why You Should Care

I’ve previously blogged about how hiring strategies need to look a lot like marketing strategies. So, when I saw a commercial from GE on prime time television, I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were marketing their employer brand!

GE has an entire TV ad campaign focused on making GE look like an attractive place for software developers to work. You can see the commercials here.

Why should you care? Well, this is the latest evolution in modern recruitment strategy. It seems common place now to hear about great companies that have chefs, games rooms and company retreats. There was a time when people laughed at companies with ping pong tables and chefs…until these companies started hiring all the best people!

The latest advancement in recruiting is marketing campaigns targeted towards your target candidate market. Not for the purpose of trying to fill one job today but trying to improve your company’s overall talent level over the next few years.

Full disclosure, my company Jobhubble is influencer marketing for recruiting so I was clearly already on board with this idea before I saw the GE commercials. That said, I think the case for marketing to your target candidate market is undeniable. Your sales and marketing departments invest heavily in trying to get people to simply spend money on your company’s products. I believe most people put considerably more thought into their career choices than product purchases. If I’m right, how can you consistently expect to sell the top prospective candidates on joining your company if you’re not investing in your employer brand?

The good news is investing in your employer brand creates a holistic circle with your company’s bottom line. Better teams make more sales, create better products, craft better marketing plans, etc. Better products and sales help you attract better people and around and around we go.

So, why not just spend your entire budget on marketing to customers since it funnels back to employer brand? Simple, the cost of marketing to your target candidate market is a drop in the bucket compared to customer marketing and you get a large return on investment that continues for years.

Consider spending a little more on marketing to your target candidate market and you’ll have a better product to sell, a better sales team, better marketing campaigns and only a slightly smaller customer marketing budget. Tell me that isn’t better than the reverse.

by Mark Bailey, CEO at Jobhubble