Employer Branding — Part 8:
Impress Your Candidates with Events

Success­ful employ­er brands are much more than guide­lines print­ed on paper or displayed on websites. They have to come to live in the enter­prise – in inter­ac­tion, in the ways teams are built, in expe­ri­enc­ing appre­ci­a­tion. The ques­tion is: How can this expe­ri­ence become visi­ble to the outside in a cred­i­ble way? How can you reach out to those urgent­ly need­ed skilled work­ers or those demand­ing young profes­sion­als? Valdivia Expert Tip no. 8 on Employ­er Brand­ing provides a few answers.

Expe­ri­enc­ing Your Employ­er Brand: Recruit­ing Events

You can list lots of bonus­es in your job descrip­tions or on your webiste: promo­tion­al programs, a day care facil­i­ty for employ­ees, or free-of-cost charg­ing stations for elec­tric vehi­cles. The core of your employ­er brand needs to be expe­ri­enced in real life. No matter how well-phrased a descrip­tion may be, it will never real­ly touch the read­er. Poten­tial candi­dates want to feel that yours is the right compa­ny and that you will respect them.

The best commu­ni­ca­tion chan­nel for this is person­al contact and an event is the best tool. For events not only offer inter­est­ed people the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet your HR special­ists, they also serve as a oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet future colleagues. With the help of the right event concept, any type of exchange will be possi­ble, from casu­al conver­sa­tions to a high-level expert talk.

The Right Format for Compa­nies of Any Size

Recruit­ing events come in many shapes and forms, they are not limit­ed to the HR sphere. In the follow­ing, we are intro­duc­ing the most impor­tant ones. Whichev­er you choose – never forget that the look and contents need to be consis­tent with your gener­al CI as an employer.

• Career Fairs and Tech­ni­cal Fairs
  The most well-known type of recruit­ing events are prob­a­bly gener­al or indus­try-specif­ic job fairs. For the real estate indus­try, for instance, there are the IZ-Karri­ere­fo­rum in Frankfurt/Main on 13 May 2023, or the Career­Day held at the Munich-based EXPO REAL (4 — 6 Octo­ber 2023). Basi­cal­ly, any specif­ic fair or conven­tion can be a plat­form for address­ing poten­tial candi­dates! Just remem­ber to provide infor­ma­tion for job seek­ers at your booth or stand, to draw atten­tion to current job open­ings, and to brief your crew on this impor­tant addi­tion­al responsibility.
• In-house Congress­es and Barcamps
  When using your own facil­i­ties or a rent­ed space, you are very free in the design of your event: You can invi­tie for a recruit­ing-centered event. Or else, you arrange for your own small tech­ni­cal confer­ence with in-house special­ists as well as exter­nal experts, and make a point of invit­ing suit­able candi­dates and univer­si­ty students.
  Barcamps are a very popu­lar format with the younger demo­graph­ic. Sessions there are not neces­sar­i­ly moder­at­ed by experts. Quite the contrary: candi­dates, too, can take over with their ques­tions and wishes.
• Coop­er­at­ing with Acad­e­m­ic Institutions
  Depend­ing on whether you are look­ing for grad­u­ates or trainees, you can enter into a coop­er­a­tion with local schools or univer­si­ties. Both long-term commit­ments (such as schol­ar­ships, study projects, or intern­ships) and contests are inter­est­ing formats: Many plan­ning and devel­op­ment jobs in the construc­tion and real estate sector are ideal projects for this. The young team with the best propos­al will win an attrac­tive prize, which will be crowned with a glam­orous award cere­mo­ny and talks with the contes­tants about a carreer in your enterprise.
• Event Spon­sor­ing
  Your compa­ny is not big enough for your own event? Why not spon­sor other enter­pris­es’ events who address the same target group! Sports, cultur­al, leisure, social – there is hard­ly a field in which clubs, soci­eties, and event managers will not be grate­ful for a little support. They will be happy to give you a spot for your infor­ma­tion booth and a little stage time.

The Trump Card of the Construc­tion and Real Estate Sector

Many enter­pris­es are only able to present their daily activ­i­ties to candi­dates in an abstract way. This is where you can bene­fit from a uniquie advan­tage: You can stage almost any type of event right in the middle of the action. An aban­doned build­ing or a carcass are immense­ly fasci­nat­ing. Obvi­oul­sy, the owner would need to agree to this and the incom­plete struc­tures will have to be safe and secure. If so, howev­er, you have found an unbeat­able event loca­tion, open for the most orig­i­nal ideas: an in-house congress will become a guid­ed tour on tech­nol­o­gy or the real estate busi­ness. Empty office spaces will turn into session rooms for your barcamp. The logis­tics build­ing will host the party to mark the finale of your best tenant app contest. And if you offer an oppor­tu­ni­ty for your guests to test their exca­va­tor oper­at­ing skills in the course of your event, you will defi­nite­ly arouse enthu­si­asm with lots of candidates.

At the same time your unusu­al ideas will gener­ous­ly feed into your Social Recruit­ing chan­nels and, most like­ly, gain media atten­tion as well.