As you likely know, our second RallyFwd Virtual Conference is looming on the near horizon! You can register to join us on December 5 – and even if you can’t make the date we’ll send you the sessions afterward.
To get revved up for our Small Effort, Big Impact in 2019 themed conference, and to help you plan out which sessions to attend, we’re doing a lightning round with some of our amazing speakers to find out what they have in store for us during their sessions.
Here is the inside scoop on Kelley Kaezyk, Recruitment Marketing Manager at MedExpress. We’ll overview her background, what she’ll cover at RallyFwd, and tips for executing on a stand-out EVP project.
Hi Kelley, can you tell us how you got into Recruitment Marketing?
Definitely! My background is in consumer marketing, initially on the agency side and then with corporate roles at Walmart and GNC.
In my brand role at Walmart, I partnered with our corporate recruiting team to help them bring the brand to life for potential candidates through both traditional advertising and on the careers site. This was my first time working in the recruiting space and I really enjoyed applying brand/marketing practices to sell a culture that I truly believed in.
When the MedExpress opportunity came up, I was able to use that experience to position myself as the right person for the role (vs. someone with a traditional recruiting or solely marketing background).
Can you describe what you’ll be talking about at RallyFwd?
I’ll be explaining how we were able to use our EVP work to create and distribute content that is relevant to our candidate pool. This content really illustrates what it’s like to work at MedExpress and highlights all of the incredible benefits that you can’t necessarily glean from a job posting. Our EVP activation work also positions MedExpress as a thought leader in healthcare employment.
Why do you think this is an important topic for us to be talking about now in Recruitment Marketing?
Right now, it is so important to be able to tell an authentic story. Everyone says they’re the best place to work, but in the end we all offer similar benefits. How you differentiate yourself is where you’ll be able to win the quality candidates your organization needs to succeed. Leveraging real and unique employee stories is the most effective way to do that.
What are some challenges that might exist in the space between uncovering your EVP and activating your EVP?
Internal education is the biggest challenge we’ve encountered. It’s an ongoing process to inform leadership that our EVP is a living, breathing entity that we need to support and nurture – it’s not a “one and done” endeavor.
How did you overcome this challenges?
To counter this, we build in an employer brand initiative into our annual strategy each year. This helps us evolve and grow our approach to finding and communicating the stories within our organization.
Some of the examples of this in action include:
- Partnering with our internal communications team to develop and deploy ongoing messages about our employee stories through internal channels
- Working with our PR team to connect them with employees that have stories that are relevant to external channels
- Utilizing an annual event calendar to celebrate and recognize specific roles, like National Doctors’ Day or Nurse Practitioner Week with actual employee stories.
Any fast tips for companies looking to start activating their EVPs in 2019?
Working on your EVP will be a really different project depending on how your organization is structured. But at its core the foundation for your EVP work includes the following questions: Why do people come to work here? And why do they stay here?
When developing our EVP, I had the support of my supervisor and budget to engage a third-party partner to help me. But there is a lot you can do on your own! A good approach is to schedule interviews with leadership, hiring managers, and employees. These interviews can be as simple as a conversation over coffee to begin to compile your data and look for the commonality in everyone’s responses.
To get buy-in from leaders in other departments, like operations and marketing, I used business insights that drew a direct correlation to a strong employer brand and the bottom line success of an organization. This really helped me sell the project to leadership groups that didn’t necessarily have a prior understanding of how talent acquisition works.
Want to hear more from Kelley? You can take a look at the summary of her session What Comes Next: Activating Your Employer Value Proposition With Content That Tells Your “Why” for more info – and don’t forget to register for RallyFwd to hear the full session!
