Is your company ready for the recovery?

The headlines are trickling in: Experts think the recession has bottomed out. Manufacturers are seeing an uptick in business. The unemployment rate in Minnesota improved, however slightly, in September.

It's time to get your company ready for the recovery, and one area for review is "employment brand." Although it may feel like a pipe dream, at some point the labor market will tighten, returning to a time when it's difficult to find strong candidates.

Is your company positioned to woo the best and the brightest performers? Before you can answer, you need to understand how your organization is perceived by prospective employees, as well as understand how these perceptions are created -- and online tools are your key.

The first place to start is by considering your company's website. This is where your company has the most control over the message and can do a lot to engage prospective employees. Questions to ponder:

• What is the overall impact of your website? Does it leave the impression you want to project? Serious? Professional? Cutting-edge? Creative? Fun?

• Do the key messages you want prospective employees to absorb come through loud and clear throughout the website -- not just in the careers section?

• Is the company's community involvement program given its proper due? Most sites have a page devoted to this topic, but it's often discussed broadly, not with stories of how the company's giving has made an impact. The most recent Cone Cause Evolution Survey found 77 percent of Americans consider a company's commitment to social causes when deciding where to work.

• Are job postings easy for search engines to read so they'll be included in search results? They'll need to be included if your company isn't a household name.

• Does the site include video? If not, consider it -- video provides a vivid picture of your company, the people who work there and the culture.

Social media

After assessing those aspects of your company's message that management can control, it's time to consider those aspects that can't be directly controlled -- those within social media. Even if your organization has no official presence in these networks, it likely is represented -- by employees, former employees, contractors and customers.

These conversations often go unnoticed by company leadership. But it's essential to monitor them because they may be turning away talented hires as easily as they may be attracting them.

For example, job seekers can use websites like Glassdoor.com to research compensation for individual jobs within specific companies and get reviews from former employees. In addition, they can contact your current workers through networking sites like Facebook to find out what it's really like to work for your company. And prospective talent can form an opinion about the organization through chatter on sites like Twitter.

Once you understand what is being said about your company, you can identify people with complaints that may need to be addressed, as well as people who are enthusiastic and singing the company's praises.

Boosters and official presence

By addressing criticism within social networks, even if the complaint isn't resolved, the company's willingness to listen and to try and solve problems is demonstrated. Top talent prospects may give your organization credit simply for participating.

Going a step further, your organization can engage "boosters" -- whether they're current or former employees, customers or contractors -- who can testify to all that's positive about your company.

Companies also can create an official social media presence.

Examples of this kind of outreach include Deloitte & Touche and Ernst & Young. Deloitte & Touche created an employee video contest to showcase its staff's creativity to tell prospective employees why it's a great place to work. They used these videos on the company's own YouTube channel.

"Ernst & Young Careers" is a Facebook page that includes information about the company as well as polls, photos and videos. As of this writing, the page boasts more than 34,000 fans.

Organizations that devise a comprehensive strategy from the prospective employee's point of view will not only create more tools with which to "sell" employment opportunities but expand the pool of talent from which the organization can choose.