Recruitment agency branding

What is a ‘brand’

This is probably one of the least understood words in the English language. A brand is a logo right? The Nike swoosh, the Olympic rings and the Apple eh.. apple! :). Yes it is, but it’s a lot more than that. Logos and visual identity make up an organisations brand name, but these days the ‘brand’ has evolved to become everything that people associate with you. The brand if you like is non visual, this might be your ethos or how you are perceived by your stakeholders. This is anything that may set you apart from your competition. What makes you different? What’s going to make me like you and want to find out more?

Recruitment agency branding then is made up of two parts. The first is in the launch phase where you decide your company name and design a logo and website and everything else. The second part is continuous, building your brand through the content you produce, through the ways that you communicate, the messages that you put out.

Building your visual brand

The visual brand is the face of your recruitment business. It starts with your business name and once this is established the visual identity will follow. Often the logo and colour schemes will be determined by the name. For example, one of our recruitment partners at SSG is Archer Care Recruitment. Unsurprisingly, our exceptionally talented creative team designed a logo incorporating a bow and arrow design and used green as the prominent colour in the colour palette!

When choosing your name it’s always wise to carry out some research. Quite often the name may revolve around your own name or initials or something personal to you which is fine. Whatever you decide on though, always do a Google search to see if the name already exists. You don’t want any confusion with an existing company. In addition, you need to ensure that a suitable URL (web address) is available.

Visual identity

When complete, your visual identity will be made up of not just your logo and colour scheme. To ensure brand consistency, try to stick to using the same font(s). Also look at creating social media headings, templates and layouts that are consistent and easily recognisable as being part of your identity. You may decide on a particular style of photography, use of icons and illustrations or not to use certain elements. Be careful not to dilute your recruitment agency branding with too many variations or colours. This will result in a lack of consistency and you could lose awareness with potential customers.

Brand messaging

The last part of your visual brand is in your messaging. Have you got a slogan or tagline that accurately reflects your business and what you stand for? Putting some guidelines in place that reflect your businesses mission statement is always a good idea. Depending on your type of business and the sectors that you are looking to recruit into will decide how you want to come across. Are you a serious business or are you a caring business? This should be reflected in your tone when posting on social media or composing emails or web copy.

Your ‘non visual brand’

Your brand is like storytelling. Every touch point that you have with your intended audience tells another part of that story. To begin writing your story you need to know what it is about. If you don’t know then you will likely send out mixed messages and your audience will not engage. A good place to start looking at your brand or story is to complete a mission statement, core values and purpose. Simon Sinek calls this the golden circle, ‘Why, how and what’.

• Why does your business exist?
• How does it do business?
• What does your business do?

Next think about what makes you different from your competitors. To do this you might look at researching your competition. How are you different, why should anyone care about what you do and choose you over your competitors?

To connect effectively with your clients you need to be consistent in your use of all of the above. Moreover, it is good practise to ensure that you have a good reputation across your target sectors. Things like ensuring that you have good reviews on Google and other feedback platforms are advisable. When you get good feedback, make it easy for a client to leave you a review. Likewise, if you receive negative feedback don’t just leave it – try and take a conversation offline and aim to rectify the situation and potentially get the review removed. Responding promptly to any feedback good or bad is always good practise and show that you care about your customers.

Your clients and candidates are your best promoters so use them when you can to get case studies and help to promote you positively.

Working with SSG

SSG Recruitment Partnerships help launch recruitment businesses. We provide experienced recruiters with the expertise and full service support to launch and more importantly the mentoring and business advice to scale and grow. Part of our service is to work with our partners through the initial stages of launch to help them build their recruitment agency branding. Our team of experts will design a logo and website and roll out visual elements as well as advise and support on an ongoing basis.

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