By Lauryn Sargent
I’m really excited to speak at recruitDC on December 7th where I’ll talk about three different story-based recruitment marketing campaigns for Dell, Sodexo and CVS Health.
Over my thirteen years in the DC talent space, I’ve seen our local employers care more and more about giving positive work experiences to their team… and they have the proof (employee stories) to back it up. In this post I want to celebrate them! Here are two DC companies who use stories to showcase their unique culture.
Visionist is a government contractor in Columbia, Maryland that’s unlike any other. When we interviewed their team, we were struck by how being on “the bench” between projects is actually an opportunity to stretch professionally. And one team member asked to continue the training he started in between projects:
“I was on the bench for about a month before going on program. In that month I was working on R&D projects at Visionist HQ and I really enjoyed it. I was learning every single day and it was amazing. Once I got on program I was working with entirely different technology. I wanted to stay sharp on what I was working on at Visionist HQ as well, so I asked the leadership if I could come back and they said, ‘Absolutely.’ I was really appreciative that I could learn two different things (simultaneously).”
Even though the employees we interviewed couldn’t talk specifics about what the team actually does every day, we were able to get a clear sense of culture because we heard so many stories about what the organization does for their employees. Three themes emerged based on the stories told from people in analyst to executive levels: a sense of purpose in the work they’re doing to defend our nation, a strong culture of innovation, and how they put employees first (even before clients). The first story in this video is a personal story from one of the founders about why Visionist:
Even though they are a small government contractor with a modest budget, Visionist bought targeted Facebook ads and each video was viewed over 5,000 times. Even better: candidates in and outside of the industry told the CEO they only applied because they were looking for a company with a strong culture and felt they found it after watching the videos. One candidate said they never even considered working in government consulting before learning about Visionist.
Frontpoint is a Virginia-based company dedicated to the safety and security of people and their homes.
When we sat down with the Frontpoint team, one thing was very clear: values from Day 1 still show up in Year 10. One of Frontpoint’s core values is building trust. In this video, Aaron, one of the founders, tells the story of how he treated their very first customer:
Stories Inc has been lucky to not only work with, but learn from, DC-area companies like The Motley Fool, The Menkiti Group and Keller Williams Capital Properties, Visionist, Frontpoint, MBP and New Light Technologies… all companies who care immensely about building strong cultures and have the stories to back it up. And these are just the ones we’ve worked with — not representative of all the great DC area companies providing great growth experiences for their employees. Are you working somewhere you love? Leave your own story in the comments! And I hope to see you in December!
Lauryn Sargent is a cofounder at Stories Incorporated, a recruitment marketing content creation agency based on employee stories. Along with the Stories team, she has collaborated with some of the most people progressive companies in the world to develop powerful and authentic employer branding and recruitment marketing content. She has spoken at NACE, Social Recruiting Strategies, and Employer Branding Strategies conferences, instructing audiences on how to create story-based content to educate and engage potential candidates.
Prior to starting Stories, she was a talent acquisition manager for a publicly traded company and recruited for Fortune 500 companies as well as growing entrepreneurial environments.
