Year: 2020
Type: dissertation
Abstract: One of today’s businesses greatest challenge is to attract and retain skilled personnel. The competition for talent is becoming more and more intense and at the same time, the brand-driven millennials critically evaluate potential employers already before applying. The competition for talent is extremely fierce in the market of young professionals. Furthermore, great salespeople are crucial to any successful business but attracting them can be difficult. Employer branding is seen as one of the key strategic tools to fight the war for talent as it is found to have a direct impact on how appealing an organization is perceived. However, the academic literature about employer branding from a sales talent perspective is scarce. Moreover, as the targeted talent of young professionals continuously evolve and new generations are entering the talent markets at a high pace, timely insights are necessary. This study aims at discovering how employer branding impacts on young sales professionals' willingness to apply and what attracts them to sales. This research will provide insights to employer branding from the talent’s perspective by answering the question: "How to attract young sales professionals through employer branding?" Literature about employer branding and young professional recruitment work as a theory base for this research. Based on literature, to attract the desired talent, companies first need to identify their target audience and understand what appeals to them. With a specific target talent, companies can think of candidates as customers and apply branding techniques originated from marketing to build a strong employer brand. This research has been conducted as a qualitative study and the used data collection method is semi-structured interviews. Altogether eight interviews were held with young sales professionals at the beginning of their career. Based on both the theory and the empirical results of this research, the role of employer’s brand is significant in talent attraction. Young sales professionals are attracted to companies with a strong and positive employer brand since those companies are perceived as enjoyable places to work at. The millennial talent is looking for an employer who shares their values and the comments of the current employees have a direct impact on how favorably a company is viewed. A well-known company is also viewed as more appealing as young sales professionals look for references for their future career and expect a famous brand to enable more sales opportunities. People are mostly attracted to sales due to the independent nature of the job and money. A job in sales is perceived as a great launch for career and young professionals are attracted to the role due to its networking opportunities. By building a strong employer brand, and a positive employee word-of-mouth, companies can expect to attract young sales professionals.
Source: Osuva (University of Vaasa)
Author: Mia Jokiluhta
Language: English
Topic: Employer Branding and e-HRM
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3094898392