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It isn’t enough to post an ad on your website or a job board and expect top talent to inundate your inbox with their resumes. You may passionately believe your company is an exceptional place to work, but you can’t assume that the general public feels the same way. You need to consider what the company looks like to the outside world.  How do prospective hires know you? Do they even know you at all?  Help potential employees see what you know by building your image. One of the most effective ways to do this is to introduce some public relations principles to your traditional recruitment efforts.

Public relations is ultimately about communicating with your key audiences. When you think about incorporating PR into your recruitment strategies, think about your messages, your constituents and the media. What do you want to say, how do you want to say it and who do you want to say it to? Here are some ways HR managers can think like PR people to attract and retain top talent:

Develop and Fine Tune Your Message
What do you want people to know about your company? What is your organization’s differentiator? What makes you special? What are your values? Edward Sussek, an employment consultant, recommends involving those populations you are trying to reach when developing your company’s differentiator instead of leaving it strictly up to leadership.

Sussek suggests starting with current employees. Ask your people: "What is important to you? Why is this a great place to work? What drew you to this company when you were looking for a new job?" Feedback from this key audience can help you refine your message to recruits. If you address what is important to your employees, you can use similar messaging to describe your company to the outside world.

Once you have determined your differentiator, package or brand it so that it can be easily discussed. Is your company the market leader? Do you strive to provide work/life balance? Are you a "green" or diverse company? Do you invest in training and educating your employees? Make sure your leaders, recruiters and current employees—anyone who may come into contact with a potential candidate—can identify and share your "it" factor with others.

Public relations, after all, is communicating with your public. This encompasses many audiences—potential recruits, current employees, clients, vendors and the community in general. Make sure that when you are communicating with these audiences you are delivering your key messages.

It is also important to back up your claims. Don’t say you are a green company if you don’t recycle. Make sure your differentiator is a legitimate core value of the company and not a gimmick to score some quick PR or buzz.

Identify Your Marks
Research the groups you most want to target. How can you reach them? What publications do they read? Where do they currently work, live and hang out? What industry and alumni groups do they belong to? What websites do they visit? What types of activities do they partake in? Reach out to your target audiences through these avenues. Set up speaking opportunities at these group meetings, sponsor an event and work to get stories about your company featured in the trade journals and business publications your target audiences read.

You also should partner with your internal marketing and PR department, or your organization’s outside PR firm, to see how your efforts overlap and might complement each other. Your company’s PR professionals can pitch stories that incorporate your key messaging to the publications your target audiences read. They can also work to have members of your company included in broader business stories about issues that affect your area and industry.

Consider Each Medium You Want to Pursue
Of course, the business and trade publications you identify will be considered as target media to relay your organization’s messages. But you must also consider other media sources. Incorporate your message into all your internal and external communications—from your website to your email signatures. Your messaging should be reflected in all aspects of written, web-based and verbal communications including newsletters, marketing pieces, public relations stories and speaking opportunities.

Public relations can play an invaluable role in helping to recruit and retain top talent. Organizations that consider and refine their messages, audiences and strategies for reaching those targets will be better able to recruit and retain top talent in a competitive market.

About the Author: Dave Sanford is Executive Vice President of Business Development for Winter, Wyman (http://www.winterwyman.com)—the largest and one of the most recognized staffing firms in the Northeast.

How to Use the NEHRA Listservs

1. Log-in to the NEHRA website.  

2. Click on "Listservs" on the left side bar of the home page.

3.  Select the Listserv or Listservs you are interested in joining and click on the name under the "Subscribe" section. Currently we have listservs that support communication for the following Community Forums, and communication from these groups will be generated from these listservs:

• Diversity and Inclusion Forum Healthcare Forum
• HR in Higher Education Forum
• Learning and Organizational Development Forum
• Small Business HR Forum
• Talent Acquisition Forum
• Consultants Forum
• Technology in HR Forum

4. You will receive email confirmation when you have been added to the Listserv you subscribed to, and you will then begin to receive messages from the subscribed members of that Listserv. Any questions on subscribing—please email webmaster@nehra.com.

5.  Posting a message to the group is easy—simply send a message to the unique address for your Listserv (i.e., healthcare@nehra.org) and your message will sent to the subscribed members of the group.

If you decide that you no longer want to receive message from a group it is simple to unsubscribe. Log into www.nehra.com—click on Listservs on the left side bar and click on unsubscribe.

RULES
No direct solicitation of members is allowed. NEHRA will void memberships after a member has been warned of an infraction. And obviously, no defamatory, obscene or profane remarks are permitted.

Once you click on "MEMBER BENEFITS" along the left-hand menu on the home page, the section will expand to include the member tools you were used to seeing separately on the left hand menu.

These member tools include:

• EAP Hotline
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• Aberdeen Access Research Library
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If you are not already a member of LinkedIn, you will need to follow the easy steps to create your profile. Once your profile is completed you can follow the steps below to become a member of the Northeast Human Resources Group.

• Find the tab for "Groups" on your home page and select "Group Directory."
• Use the search function in the upper right and type in "Northeast Human Resources Association."
• Click on "Join this Group."
• This will bring you to a description of the group and you will be asked to make selections about your preferences for display the group logo on your personal page.
• Enter a contact e-mail address, a digest e-mail address, delivery frequency, announcements and messages.
• Once you have made these choices click the button "Join Group."
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To Join a Community Forum Subgroup on LinkedIn

• Once you are a member of the Northeast Human Resources Group, select "Subgroups."
• Select all the groups you are interested in joining.
• Your request goes to the NEHRA Group Administrator for approval.
• You will receive a message that you are a member of this subgroup and you can begin to read and post information on the Subgroup page.

Current NEHRA Subgroups

• Learning and Development Community Forum
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• Consultants Community Forum
• Small Business HR Community Forum
• HR Technology Community Forum
• Talent Acquisition Community Forum
• Flexible Workplaces Community Forum

As you may know, NEHRA is continuing to evolve to better meet the needs of members. Therefore, we have created a new membership category: Group Membership.

This category is created to recognize the need, and often the desire, of many organizations to control spending and manage membership expenses for their employees.

What does this really mean for you? It means that if your company has five or more current members, you could experience a savings of 10 percent or more on the total cost of these NEHRA memberships through Dec. 31, 2011. In addition, the group membership allows you to renew all memberships at the same time—reducing the hassle and workload of individual renewal dates. Finally—and perhaps most importantly—it ensures that all members of your team have access to programming, to our new webinars, to resources and information at our website and to networking and professional development opportunities.

• How does the program work? All current members from your organization are renewed on a pro-rated basis—based on the individual membership type (NEHRA or NEHRA/SHRM), to bring them to a common renewal date, Dec. 31. Any new members are added and pro-rated, based on a Dec. 31 end date. The entire group is then renewed for another full year, based on this common renewal date.
• Can I add new members? New members can be added to your group at any time during your membership cycle, and their membership will be pro-rated to maintain them on the single renewal date.
• What if someone leaves? You can easily transfer that membership to another employee within your team, with one quick call.
• How does the membership work? Each group member is assigned an individual membership number, allowing them to access information on www.nehra.com and to register for events, webinars and professional development throughout the year.

This is an exciting new opportunity for you to expand access to NEHRA and save money!

If you are interested in learning more about the group membership or getting a quote for your group, please contact Carole Edson, Director of Membership and Alliances, at (781) 239-8705 or cedson@nehra.com.