Recruiting strategies and practices

Recruiting

An employer brand is the image that your company has among workers. It reflects the desirability of the company in the eyes of both current and potential employees. The most effective employer brands are built on the same fundamentals as other branding -- segmentation, target markets, and alignment with the overall business strategy (Moroko & Uncles, 2009). The brand therefore is what sells the experience of working at the company to prospective employees. The best employer branding helps the firm attract the type of workers that it needs to fulfill its mission.

Wellpoint is a health care benefits company with 35 million members, making it the largest firm in its industry (Wellpoint.com, 2009). As an industry leader, Wellpoint has many career development advantages to offer. The company is, as typical of the industry, fairly conservative. The Business Change Manager, therefore, will be tasked with the job of implementing government-initiated change across a company that may be expected to have a high degree of resistance to change. The position, however, can be an effective springboard for a career in the company. The industry is subject to heavy regulatory influence so change programs are likely to occur frequently. The position is an important one, and the ability to excel in this role can put the right candidate on an executive track.

The employer brand that Wellpoint should cultivate would emphasize the career development aspects of the role. The company should also emphasize stability, strong benefits and professionalism as part of its package. In doing so, Wellpoint will attract employees that share its culture, but are motivated to build a career based on their ability to wield influence in this setting. The recruiting message should focus on the stability of the company for most roles, but for the Business Change Manager should emphasize the career development potential. This particular role is not suitable for the employee seeking stability, but one that embraces change.

The recruiting message needs to be consistent with the employer brand and corporate strategy. Therefore it is important the human resources, marketing and public relations departments collaborate on both the employer brand and the specific recruiting messages that support it (Minchington & Estis, 2009). The message for this role needs to convey the challenges entailed in the position because the role is more challenging than most at the company. It is important, however, that these challenges are demonstrated within the context of the firm's brand as a stable employer with good career development opportunities. Stability of employment does not entail -- especially for this position -- stability of type of employment, of business operations or of responsibilities.

Therefore, the employer brand should emphasize the company's commitment to its employees. The brand should focus on stability, opportunity and on the benefits package as well. For the position of Business Change Strategy, the opportunity element should be the primary focus of the recruiting message. The position will be of particular appeal to conservative-minded people who are able to be adaptive and guide change processes in such an environment. Wellpoint is a large company with many opportunities in a wide number of fields. Because organizational change requires working with many different functional disciplines the message should focus on the diverse nature of the role and how it can help leadership development and lead to a bright future within the organization.

There are a number of potential recruiting sources that can be used in order to improve the staffing of this position. The first source is the company's website. This source is probably the strongest with regards to the ability of the company to promote its employer brand. Control over the recruiting message is also strongest through the company's website. The disadvantage of this method, however, is its small reach. Only employees already interested in the company are going to search the website, significantly narrowing the field of candidates. However, some of these may be former employees, a group that has been demonstrated to be among the strongest of candidates (Zottoli & Wanous, 2000).

The second recruiting source recommended is the internal job board. Wellpoint has a large staff from which to find a suitable candidate. The candidate will be familiar with the company and clearly seeking to build a career within the company. The employer brand will not need to be sold to internal candidates. Although the internal candidates will be the strongest, the talent pool is again limited through this recruiting source.

The third recruiting source should be an executive search firm. Although expensive, these firms can be useful for screening candidates. The recruiting message can still be controlled and the field broadened. The downside to the use of executive search firms, I addition to their cost, is that Wellpoint would lose some control over its employer brand during the early stages of the search. Wellpoint would, however, have the opportunity to make up for this during the interview components, where its hiring managers could place emphasis on building the employer brand with the candidates.

There are many ways in which this recruiting action can be made effective. The first is to ensure that the job description matches the competencies that included in the hiring qualifications. This ensures that the skills of the hire are well-matched to the nature of the position.

A job analysis at the outset of the process would allow for an effective job description to be compiled. The job analysis will identify the core skills, competencies and innate abilities that are required to be successful in this position (Howatt, 2009). Without an understanding of the organization's needs, it will be difficult to hire the right person. This position, for example, entails implementing a change that is not yet defined. This lack of specific role definition may result in the attraction of candidates that are ultimately unsuitable for the role that they will undertake, which will be defined as a later date by government mandate.