Mr. Ferrara

Human Resources, Recruitment & Training

Branding Your Hotel to Jobseekers

By Jason Ferrara, Vice President, Corporate Marketing, CareerBuilder

Attracting top talent can be difficult as many job seekers report they are unaware of the employment opportunities that exist in hospitality companies. There are often misconceptions about a lack of opportunity for upward mobility in the industry, which leads some jobseekers to view jobs in hospitality as a stepping stone to something else.

As a hotel leader, the weight to recruit the right, qualified people can feel quite heavy; especially as today's labor market tightens. Facing these challenges head on is essential to maintain a successful business and one solution is positioning your hotel as a place where candidates want to work.

This is otherwise known as promoting your employment brand.

The Power of Employment Branding

When it comes to branding, I'm not referring to investing more dollars into your consumer brand, which focuses on the message presented to the people you want to have filling your rooms. Rather, I'm discussing making a serious investment in your employment brand. One-third of hospitality employers do not think their consumer brand is enough to attract qualified workers. In fact, many companies struggle with establishing a strong employment brand because they do not go after it with the same vigor that they do when they are marketing their hotel to potential customers. strong employment brand can help shape expectations around the company's vision, mission and employee experience and give you an edge in not only preserving existing talent, but attracting those candidates that will thrive in your environment.

Recent CareerBuilder.com research found that 29 percent of hospitality employers have an employment brand - the average across all industries was 17 percent. This not only illustrates the importance of an employment brand in our industry, but also how many companies have yet to create and implement an employment brand. When you position your hotel as a place people want to work and make it apparent that you invest in your employees, you're likely to attract to the best candidates. In addition, you'll retain them over time. Just as well-recognized consumer brands are in-demand because they carry with them a promise of consistently high quality or value, well-recognized employment brands will help your hotel attract the high-quality candidates that are critical to your success.

Branding Your Hotel to Jobseekers: Getting Started

The importance of an employment brand, especially in light of today's skilled labor crunch, is an initiative you shouldn't put on the back burner. How do you get started? To develop your employment brand, talk to your employees and learn about their opinions of what sets your hotel apart from other employers. When gathering information from your employees, here are a few items to help you build your employment brand:

• Capture employees' experiences - Consider writing or recording employee testimonials on why they like working for your organization and how the contribute to the company. Having these resources on hand will be valuable in multiple ways. Testimonials can be used to give potential employees good perspective on why they would want to work for your hotel, and provide current employees with concrete reasons why they should stay on board.

• Communicate career growth opportunities - Demonstrate how employees can learn, grow and move up in the organization. Implementing a career path program is a great way to clearly communicate the growth opportunities, upward mobility, training and development available to potential and current employees.

• Focus on how the organization gives back - To employees, to customers, the community and the world. Eighty-one percent of workers feel it is important to impact others in their jobs - one-in-five (20 percent) say it is absolutely essential, so focusing on this can enrich your hotel's employment brand and make your company more attractive.

Know Your Audience

In addition to looking within your organization to develop your employment brand, look outside at your potential candidates - and do what you can to understand their motivation and what they are seeking in an employer. When looking for a new job, workers cited the following factors as most important in evaluating a potential employer:

• Good work culture (62 percent)

• Stability and longevity in the market (61 percent)

• Reputation for being a great place to work (60 percent)

• Good career advancement opportunities (53 percent)

• Ability to offer flexible schedules (49 percent)

When asked what would most likely get them to respond to a job listing besides competitive pay and benefits, workers ranked different factors as follows:

• Company's stability and growth potential (50 percent)

• Clear sense of what the job entails (49 percent)

• Good career advancement opportunities (47 percent)

• Training and learning opportunities (42 percent)

• Programs for a healthy work/life balance (37 percent)

• Sense of ownership in one's position, that you can make a difference (34 percent)

• Camaraderie, family-like work environment (33 percent)

• Employee recognition programs (28 percent)

These findings can greatly help you understanding your future employees' motivations and what they look for in an employer, ultimately helping you determine how to best create your employment brand. Therefore, assisting you in the development of your plan to attract and retain the best workers for your hotel as possible.

Harness the Power of the Internet

To truly "know your audience," you have to understand their habits. One of the foremost important habits with which to become familiar is job candidates' use of the Internet. The Internet is likely the single most transformative technology of our lifetime, and more and more people are going online every day. There were 188 million unique visitors online in the U.S. alone in August 2008, according to ComScore.

Online strategies, therefore, must be included in your plan to effectively brand your hotel to jobseekers. There are multiple ways you can harness the power of the Internet so that it works to promote your employment brand:

• Your Hotel Website - This should be the bread and butter of your employment branding initiative because it is the first touch point potential employees reference for information. To make your Web site the most effective, offer complete information on your hotel, its charity causes, what it has to offer and more in an easy-to-navigate design. Testimonials, blogs and more from current employees allow potential candidates to get a unique perspective into why they would want to work for your hotel. And keep it positive; your hotel website should make jobseekers or potential candidates feel good about your organization.

• Search Engine Marketing (SEM) - Search engine marketing has revolutionized the way companies advertise in many ways. The search space is beneficial because you can capture jobseekers' attention when they are actively searching for employment; they are a captive audience. Paid search advertising also drive users to your website where you introduce them to what it's like to work at your hotel.
  
  Additionally, SEM isn't just for driving traffic to your web site, but it allows you to brand your hotel within the search interface by creating copy that resonates with whatever audience you are targeting.

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - I can't mention SEM without touching upon the importance of SEO, which determines the order your organization will appear in organic results from a web search. SEO can be used advantageously in marketing your hotel to jobseekers because if your hotel appears higher in search rankings in a "hotel jobs" keyword search query, for example, you're more likely to have people click through to your hotel's Web site. Some ways to improve your SEO rankings:
  - Make sure you have well-written, relevant content and update it often. Fresh and keyword-driven content can have a large impact on your ranking.
  - Your site structure and navigation should be user-friendly for optimal rankings by utilizing title tags for every page of the site.
  - Optimize your site as often as possible. Staying on top of your SEO and search strategies is crucial to reaching your target audience.

• Video - Video gives you the chance to be innovative, bold and capture attention. Experiment with employee testimonials, virtual tours of your hotels and tailored messages from your executives. Staying in touch with emerging technologies such as video proves your relevance to evolving times.
  
  Hotels offer an array of job opportunities for every level of worker; yet many people aren't aware of the benefits of working at a hotel and the career advancement prospects that exist. As the labor market tightens in the current economic downturn, attracting and capturing the right candidates for your open positions is crucial to your success. Effectively branding your hotel to jobseekers and potential candidates is one of the best tools in your pocket to achieve that success.

Jason Ferrara leads the development of strategic marketing for the Corporate Marketing team at CareerBuilder.com, the nation's largest online job site with over 22 million unique visitors each month and over 1.5 million jobs. Focused on the recruitment needs of employers, Ferrara is responsible for business-to-business strategy including communications, advertising, promotions, e-commerce management, customer lifecycle and loyalty, and sales support. Prior to joining the company, Ferrara worked as Director, Online Marketing for SPSS, Inc. He holds a MBA from Kellogg School of Management. Mr. Ferrara can be contacted at 773-353-2601 or jason.ferrara@careerbuilder.com Extended Bio...

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