Sell Sell Sell-- hasn't everyone been told to sell the job.

Here comes some information that says that may not be the best approach.

Almost half of more than 2,000 HR and Training executives surveyed by Novations Consulting are seeing employee turnover of up to 50% within the first year.

The reason? Novations executive consultant Tim Vigue has this to say: “… there are managers who are not very good at describing and communicating to the candidates what the job and the organization is all about.”

Here's the stats-
• Unrealistic expectations of the job and organizations, cited by 47.9 percent.
• Poor communications with immediate supervisor, 33.1 percent.
• Failure to develop a sense of belonging and purpose, 26.4 percent.
• Not understanding the link between the job and organizational goals, 20.9 percent.

While employers may think they’re simply selling themselves in a war for talent, he noted, “if you’re not being realistic in how you talk about yourself on the web site, in college recruitment,” or the job interview, “you are going to mislead some people.”

Here are some tips from your favorite expert on Branding for Business Results (and if you don’t think that making a dent in 50% turnover is a sound business result, please call me) —

1. BRANDING- In all your communications, don’t invent—reveal. Identify the culture (the real culture) and then recruit to it. Over lunch with Les one day I said “Les, a Boiler Room is a Boiler Room, and lets not pretend by calling it a sauna/spa. if there are reasons people want to work in one- let’s find out what they are. Then we’ll offer candidates the option of seeing if they’re a match."

This approach takes guts because, you have to be willing to lose perfect candidates through your honesty.

2. Communicate the business strategy and put actions around the plan to get from A to Z. Get everyone’s buy in. Sit them down and review it and make them feel part of it.

3. Communicate from the top down and bottom up. Survey the population and find out how they feel about the entire process of assimilation. Jayne told me that people who leave in the first 60 days made their decision on day one. Lets put an onboarding plan together.

Don't be so busy selling the jobs that you forget what is supposed to happen once the curtain is unveiled.

Labels: Employer Branding, war for talent