Use Your Brand Platform in Hiring Decisions

We write a lot about using your organization’s culture to help define your brand. But what about flipping that and using your brand to help you decide if a potential employee is the right hire?

It makes sense that the criteria you use to define your brand would also define what you want in a new hire. Hopefully, HR is already on board with your brand and understands how employees can live the brand and serve as brand ambassadors. If they are not, start the process with them. Once they are on board, you can incorporate these pieces of your brand platform into the hiring process.

Mission, vision, values, and bigger purpose

Mission, vision, and values are fairly common in the corporate world and they help you define where you are headed as an organization and how you will behave in the process of achieving that goal. Having a bigger purpose in addition to those can give your employees a rallying cry. It’s something you do that is good for the company, good for your customers, and also good for the world.

For example, Warby Parker makes fashionable, affordable glasses. Their bigger purpose is that they believe everyone has the right to see. It’s simple, relatable, and it helps them quickly define why they do what they do that is bigger than just making a profit.

When hiring, it’s important to consider your own mission, vision, values, and bigger purpose. Talk to your potential hires about it. How passionate are they about these principles? Do your values align with their personal values? Do you see evidence of that in their previous work experience, volunteer experience, and/or their attitude? Finding someone who is already on board with your bigger purpose reduces the need for up-front education.

Message platform and brand story

Your message platform is a series of simple statements about who you are, what you do, what sets you apart, and why it matters to your customers. A brand story is a narrative that gives your customers a peek inside your brand. It’s engaging, memorable, and is sometimes tied to your organization’s origin.

Use your message platform and brand story to educate your potential new hire about the company. The path to becoming a brand ambassador starts the moment they enter your door. Does the story resonate with them? These building blocks will help them decide if they fit within your organization.

Brand personality

Your brand personality is made up of your brand attributes, your brand voice, and the emotional connection you want your customers to have with your organization. Your attributes are a list of descriptive words that represent the way you do your work. Your brand voice is the style in which you communicate with the outside world. And your emotional connection is your aim for each customer interaction.

Does your potential hire line up with your brand attributes? If one of your brand attributes is inclusive but everyone at your company looks, sounds, and acts the same, you might need to broaden your approach to hiring. If a brand voice is casual, you might not want to hire someone who speaks above everyone’s head with technical jargon.

Using your brand in the hiring process will not only help you make the right decisions for your culture, it will help your employees live your brand from the start.