JULY 16, 2005

Employment Branding, Front And Center, Thanks To .jobs
By: Joel Cheeseman

The image in this post is fictional. OK, so Apple isn't fake, but the logo was created to represent any employer, and what could-be.

What does working at Apple mean to you?

Most impressions of them as an employer come from their all-encompassing corporate brand: Cutting-edge, high-tech, a touch of Birkenstock culture, artsy, entrepreneurial. These are mine. Yours might be similar, might not.

However, few companies are Apple.

Most employer brands are relegated to what the company's Web site looks like and says. And frankly, most corporate sites blur together.

One bank's site from another is pretty much the same. One software company site from another is pretty much the same.

Employment branding has very little opportunity to breakout from the confines of its dot-com albatross. Fortunately, the dot-jobs domain changes the game.

For companies who take advantage of a dot-jobs URL, there's an opportunity to totally control the employment brand without being tied to the look-and-feel of the company homepage. One that's separate, while remaining consistent, to the company line.

Who will be the first company to create a separate logo / brand like the one above? Who will create a vibrant dot-jobs homepage and Web site that perfectly relays the employment brand in a way the dot-com never could? Who will establish their dotjobs as a force to be reckoned with in the marketplace and spur other employers to follow their lead?

That's really the question, isn't it? Who will lead? Maybe Apple? Why not Apple? Why not you?