Hi Rally readers,
My name is Natasha Makovora, and I am a Social Media & Employer Brand Specialist at Indellient.
I’m new to the Recruitment Marketing and Employer Branding world — about 5 months into my current position — and over the next couple of months, I’ll be sharing some of my experiences and insights as a newbie in this space on the Rally blog. I am thrilled for you to follow along on my journey as I continue to learn and grow as a recruitment marketer!
My first foray into Recruitment Marketing
I want to focus the first blog in this 3-part series on how I made the transition into Recruitment Marketing, and also why my company of 100 people decided to hire me, as I realize it can be unusual for a company of this size to prioritize a Recruitment Marketing hire.
Prior to working at Indellient, I worked on the Talent Acquisition team at a larger tech company called Sandvine. In my role there, I was supporting all aspects of the recruitment lifecycle including, sourcing, pre-screening, interview coordination, offer and onboarding.
However, during times when there was less hiring volume, each member of the TA team would focus on different side projects. During one of these periods, just when the company was gradually starting to focus more on Employer Brand and Recruitment Marketing, I was able to take the reins on my first Employer Brand project!
I partnered with our Marketing team to launch a series called “Sandvine Spotlight.” Sandvine Spotlight highlights exceptional team members and covers why they enjoy working at the company. We shared these short-form content pieces externally on LinkedIn and shared longer-length interviews internally on our company’s intranet on Workplace.
Building out an Employer Value Proposition (EVP)
The spotlight series was so well received that we wanted to focus more efforts on Recruitment Marketing, and in particular, our messaging, culture and how we position ourselves as an employer. Essentially, we wanted to develop an EVP – Employer Value Proposition.
I knew this would be a huge task, as Sandvine had 800 employees across the globe and everyone was going to have a different experience with the company. As a result, I didn’t try to tackle the EVP project alone (especially as recruitment efforts were ramping up again), so I went through a vendor identification process and decided to work with a local Recruitment Marketing and Employer Brand consulting agency, The Employer Brand Shop.
During this time, they interviewed and surveyed our employees, examined Glassdoor reviews and conducted an employer competitor analysis to determine what our key messaging and positioning would be. This was such a fun project for me. I learned that I really wanted to work in Recruitment Marketing full-time – so, when the opportunity at Indellient popped up, I knew I had to go for it!
Small companies need Recruitment Marketers too!
As I mentioned earlier, my company, Indellient, is still pretty small — we only have about 100 employees. Many companies don’t think about making a Recruitment Marketing hire until they have a few hundred employees, but Indellient was ahead of the curve. I think they stand out as a real testament to the fact that companies of all sizes can benefit so much from the work we do.
The reason Indellient decided to hire a Social Media & Employer Brand Specialist at this stage was because the company was feeling the pains of the competitive tech talent market. Unemployment rates are low and most tech talent in our markets (Toronto, Kitchener-Waterloo and New York) are already happily employed.
The other challenge is that we are a professional services company, so we need to be able to meet changing customer demands quickly. From a recruitment perspective, that means we need a large enough candidate pool to be able to fill positions quickly to meet our clients’ needs.
Indellient’s leadership team recognized these challenges and wanted to get the organization’s name out there in order to compete with bigger professional services companies (think Accenture, Cognizant and Tata Consultancy Services). Recruitment Marketing, therefore, had to become a bigger part of our hiring strategy. However, using an external agency wasn’t affordable on a long-term basis, so that’s how the in-house role was created.
In a full-time recruitment marketing role, Natasha can focus on activating Indellient’s employer value proposition through the company’s social media channels.
How I landed the Recruitment Marketing role of my dreams
Being a small team, the person taking this newly created Recruitment Marketing job would have to wear many hats. In other words, they were looking for someone who could bring other skill sets beyond just Recruitment Marketing to the table to support both HR and Corporate Marketing efforts.
I knew I would be a great fit for this position because I was coming from a recruitment role and could lend support in that capacity as needed. Additionally, I had a passion for social media and had even launched the careers and culture Instagram page for my former employer.
During the application and interview process, I met with the HR Manager, Marketing Manager and the President of the company, and was able to demonstrate why investing in someone like me would be the right choice for Indellient. I leveraged my recruiting background, experience partnering with the Marketing team, and savvy for social media to land my dream job in Recruitment Marketing.
My first 5 months as a full-time Recruitment Marketer
The first 5 months in my new role have been busy! Here’s what I’ve been up to so far:
- Identified our EVP
- Activated some of our EVP messages across our social media channels
- Selected and attended various recruiting events in the Toronto-Waterloo tech corridor and New York City
- Contributed to the Indellient careers site rebrand project
We have slowly but surely seen results from these efforts, including an overall increase in applications and more candidates reaching out directly to our Talent Acquisition Specialist about opportunities at the company. The numbers are up, and that’s a great way to show impact!
One of Natasha’s first projects has been to contribute to the rebrand of Indellient’s careers website.
What I’ve learned along the way
One thing I have learned in my role so far is that our internal culture is really important to the success of our Employer Brand. As a recruitment marketer, our company culture is basically the product I’m selling. As a result, I’ve focused my time early on working on a number of culture and employee experience initiatives to make our culture even better so I have great Employer Brand stories to showcase externally. This approach ensures that our EVP messages and brand are really authentic to what employees are experiencing #InsideIndellient — but more to come on that topic.
Look for the next installment of my Rally blog series in January. And if you want to ask me any questions about my experiences to date, feel free to connect on LinkedIn! I look forward to sharing my journey with you, Rally community.
