Evaluate Companies’ Branding Efforts
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Job-Seeking Managers Should Evaluate Companies’ Branding Efforts
Successful Branding Is More Than Simply Remembering a Company Name
Branding is the antithesis to the old standard, “It doesn’t matter what they say about you as long as they spell the name right.” Branding involves carefully structuring a company (or personal) image to generate positive, hopefully glowing tributes to their products, services, and customer service.
While people hopefully remember the company name, their clever advertising, public relations, and slogans fall on deaf ears if their products, services, and customer support don’t measure up. In these cases, while the buying public may remember your company name, it typically is not a fond memory. Many statistics say that these unhappy people often tell up to ten of their friends about their displeasure. Can you say, “reverse” branding?
When designed, implemented and followed up correctly, however, branding can improve operations in both the short- and long-term. Companies with successful branding can enjoy a dependable competitive advantage over others in their market. For example, when you think of tissues, do you think of the Kleenex brand first? Many buyers do so consistently.
But, how do a company’s branding efforts affect your choice of a new potential employer? You might be surprised. Keep reading.
Job Seekers Can Learn a Great Deal About a Workplace by Evaluating Branding
As you consider new employment opportunities, be sure to place a company’s branding, whether successful or not, high on your list of evaluation criteria. Branding is more important than just creating a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
- Employee and manager pride for working for a company can be just as important as their branding strategy. This may or may not always equate. The key is learning the difference. Those companies that do equate their employee branding with their company efforts are typically wonderful places to work.
- Evaluate a company’s commitment to excellence by analyzing their branding strategy. A strong company commitment to superiority usually translates into a dedication to employee high performance and support. These companies normally understand that long-term branding success is dependent more on employee performance than purely clever marketing and media use. Their employees and managers must “buy into” the corporate dedication to creating a superior brand to help ensure success. This commitment indicates a positive and supportive workplace.
- Decide on a comfortable “balance” of compensation and benefits from a new employer. You may find a company that has a less than stellar reputation in the marketplace that offers significantly higher compensation than others that are highly respected in their industry. Why? Often, because those with a marginal reputation must offer more compensation than those well-respected companies seeking accomplished managers. Higher compensation is wonderful. However, you will be better served by seeking a balance between potential compensation with a longer-term outlook that evaluates a higher job satisfaction with managerial performance and more challenging—and rewarding—professional opportunities.
- Try to learn if the company equates product branding with employee branding. The best companies coordinate and equate their corporate branding with their employee professionalism, at all levels. As a manager, you’ll usually enjoy a much more satisfying work experience surrounded by a corporate culture that stresses high-level products, services, customer service and support, and a verified commitment to be the best that they can be.
Using a top professional search firm, like Kelly Services, will expose you to more professional opportunities with the “right” employers than you could typically locate using your own devices. They understand the critical link between companies who have established a strong brand with the treatment of and respect for their valuable employees.
You should place these firms at the top of your desired employer list. As a good manager, you will receive the respect, notoriety, and compensation you deserve. A few different surveys indicate that almost 80% of participants want to work for employers with excellent products and services. The increase in employee pride and positive corporate identification offsets the sometimes lower compensation. Those companies with less-than-stellar reputations often offer higher salaries, but employees tend to exhibit less job enjoyment, less creativity, and enjoy fewer career options.
Always keep the top employment search firms in mind, as they typically have some of the most lucrative positions with the best companies. Their employer-clients are often companies that have had great success with their branding strategy. Carefully evaluate the reputation and brand recognition of prospective employers. If you are seeking a new position and corporate brand evaluation wasn’t high on your wish list, consider changing your priorities, as this is an important component of locating the right job with the right employer.