Focus on Potential When Hyping Employer Brand

 Which is most important when judging and deciding the likely success of job candidates: their past accomplishments or future potential? Of course, you might say, “It depends on the situation”, and you are probably right. But you might still be interested in the findings of this study by Stanford University. The school looked at how people (potentially hiring managers and candidates), consider potential vs. accomplishment when making decisions about the likely success of a particular person. I believe that their findings have implications for both the way that employers should ideally brand their organization and how job seekers/employees should brand themselves to employers for prime positioning.

So, what was the study about and what did it find?It was a Stanford Harvard Collaboration  and they looked at what conditions and situations (art, leadership, advertisements, letters of recommendations), that people preferred potential over accomplishments. What they found was that when evidence of high potential was very strong, there was greater excitement about that individual than about someone who has already achieved the things that the potential individual is only promising to achieve. They also found that in certain situations, participants were more ready to hire someone with potential over a person with a track record and are also more ready to increase pay.

What makes this study’s findings so interesting is that it shows that in general people ‘do believe the hype’ about other people’s capabilities when judging how suitable they may be for a task. This has implications for both employers, in how they can more effectively brand themselves to candidates, and for candidates in how they can more effectively brand themselves to employers.

Let’s take a look at the employer branding angle for starters. While a large part of your brand message should clearly be based on accomplishments in terms of profits, bonuses, benefits, etc. you should also provide evidence of you being a potentially great organization. Yes, a large amount of your branding should be based on future potential, be that a plan to: float, expand, diversify, introduce more benefits, be the market leader, etc. as this will be of incremental value to your brand. The power of potential over accomplishment is backed up by another study by Spherion, which found that companies with a clear mission/vision have a 70 percent rating for keeping current staff over the next five years compared to just 34 percent with companies with no clear mission.

So, candidates and employees do believe the hype and can and will be persuaded and energized by the future potential of your business (if it’s credible). In order to generate the most powerful employer brand, build a compelling but believable future vision and ensure it forms a dominant part of your brand message.

Job seekers also can also leverage this tendency for people (employers) to value credible potential over past accomplishments, all things being equal. It suggests that when writing your cover letter, building your social media profile and selling yourself at interview, don’t just sell your past achievements; angle a large part of your message to your potential to achieve more in the future. Yes, hype yourself up, as this study suggests employers do actually believe the hype, as long as it’s credible and plausible given your background.