Engaging Alumni & Retirees: AKA Your Neglected Talent Brand Ambassadors  

Oftentimes, your Talent Branding is constructed around advertisements targeting individuals across a variety of job sites. These ads highlight the experience of working at your company, featuring individuals and promoting the benefits of employment. You invest considerable effort into analyzing ad views, click-through rates, and pondering over how or where to allocate the remaining budget. When a job posting is made, applications pour in (often hundreds within just a few days!). Observing the Talent Branding landscape, it seems that everyone else is following this approach, leading to the assumption that it must be effective! 

But is it truly effective? The quantity of applications doesn’t inherently translate to quality candidates when it comes to hiring. Nor does it reliably indicate the true efficacy of your campaigns. Your goal is to bring the right people, at the right time, into the right roles. This is where engaging your company’s Alumni and Retirees becomes crucial. 

Your company’s alumni and retirees possess an intimate understanding of your culture, mission, values, and requirements. Beyond current employees, they represent a valuable resource for identifying well-suited candidates. They function as brand ambassadors who pre-assess candidates on your behalf. According to Enterprise Alumni, the additional benefits of integrating alumni into your hiring process include: 

• Enhanced culture fit, as candidates are pre-screened by alumni who understand your company. 
• Typically, longer tenures for referred hires compared to those brought in straight from outside. 
• Broader access to talent beyond individuals who are actively or passively job hunting. 
• Reduced time-to-hire compared to traditional recruiting methods. 

As a leader in branding, how can you creatively and seamlessly incorporate your alumni and retirees into your messaging to bolster your efforts? 

• Shift your Talent Branding focus to engage alumni and retirees, rather than solely concentrating on active job seekers, to attract top-tier talent. 
• Develop a compelling “What’s In It For Me?” proposition for alumni to refer potential candidates. This could involve financial incentives, charitable donations, or featuring them on your company’s social channels. 
• Highlight stories of successful alumni on your diverse social channels 
• Establish and promote a series of continuous learning events, enabling alumni to participate, network, and continue growing. 

By embracing your alumni and retirees as valuable brand advocates, you can enhance the effectiveness and authenticity of your Talent Branding initiatives in new and creative ways!