We Are Akamai: What Led Us Here
About Akamai and the blog
We are the people at the heart of the internet. Every day, we work together to protect our customers, deliver ultimate experiences in the digital world, and connect people from far corners of the planet. There are over 50 Akamai offices around the globe with inspiring people who are a constant source of knowledge, expertise and innovation. Naturally, we have a lot to talk about, and we want to share it with you!
About me, the branding team and what we do
I recently (well, is 8 months recent?) started working at Akamai on a new and small branding team (4 people) that sits within Talent Acquisition. In a nutshell, my team and I are creating our employer brand, employee value proposition, brand awareness and presence for Akamai. We use social media and other marketing channels to market why Akamai is a great place to work. And, not to toot our own horn, but Akamai is a great place to work!
I cross paths with people in all areas of our company and see first-hand what makes us unique! We have so many cool opportunities for people of all backgrounds. As a woman, not only do I get to work with many amazing women with great stories, but I get to help show the world that there are companies out there, like Akamai, who invest in women, and giving us opportunities that we may not get elsewhere. Our employee resource groups and programs are dedicated to not just women, but other areas like diversity and inclusion. I work with our recruiters to market our jobs and what we look for in candidates - skills, interview techniques, passions, personalities, etc.
I've been on the job-hunting end, and it's not easy or stress free. My team strategizes how to improve the various candidate touchpoints and the overall candidate experience. Whether you get the job or not, we want you to walk away feeling like you had a great experience through the process. There are so many great things we do, and I want to tell you all of it, but it might make this blog post too long for today. You'll just have to follow this blog to learn more about us! And hopefully, you will.
Back to branding.
What is branding?
if you're not familiar with the various forms of brand, I'll explain: Firstly, Employer Brand communicates and amplifies the value of a brand to a company's target audience as a great place to work. Secondly, Talent Brand is the highly social, totally public version of a company's employer brand that incorporates what talent thinks, feels, and shares about a company as a place to work. Thirdly, Consumer Brand is the attributes and values that associate with a company's products and services. Along with the various types of brands, there are Brand Ambassadors, which is a person or employee who represents a brand to a targeted audience in order to increase awareness, elicit the brand image, and generate and engage candidates, while building an employer brand presence.
If you're looking for a job, what are the first few steps you take? If you visit a job board, have an employer in mind, or have heard great things about a specific company from friends etc., you will likely visit their website. These days visiting the website is nice, but it's not enough. You want to get an idea of what it's like to actually work there and get real employee perspectives, good and bad. You want to be able to see yourself working at that company. You want to know if they are representing themselves authentically, or is it just talk.
To visualize a day in the life of an employee you will likely visit their social media channels. Here you can see videos and pictures from employees- REAL employees, about what it's like to work there. The teamwork, projects, activities, fun, and other things that make you envision working there. All of this helps drive the employer and talent brand.
For employers
As an employer, there are a few best practices. Continuously seek feedback from your current and new employees. What made them come work for your company? If they've been with the company for a long period of time, what made them stay? What do employees like/dislike about the role or the company? Does the company care and invest in their employees? Is the company and/or managers helping employees succeed and encourage them to have a life outside of work? More importantly how does the employer help the employees do that - Is it a flexible working schedule? Unlimited time off? Once you really know how your employees feel overall, you can focus your Employee Value Proposition and messaging. Then that information can be used to help create that real authentic brand presence.
How We {at Akamai} Feel About Branding
At Akamai, we don't want just anyone to come work for us, and we don't want to just throw the marketing kitchen sink at everyone and everything to get our name out there. We want to work with people who can feel at home here. As a company, we focus on the things that make us unique, the things that make Akamai home for our employees around the globe. We focus on OUR top priorities and what we strive to continuously do better. We don't just mirror what our competitors do. . We want our employees to shape our story, keep us honest and authentic to our values, and help us be aware of changes we may need.
Now is a great time for this blog
My small team has accomplished many big things in a short amount of time. As we continuously seek feedback and hear the many stories from our employees, we realize we have endless diverse talent who bring so much to the table. It's only fair to share it with all of you. With our continuously growing company and our fairly new branding team, it's a great time for us to share what really makes us Akamai and the wealth of knowledge we hold here at Akamai. This is what led us to our newly launched careers social media channels, and this blog.
Our intelligent, technically-talented folks have a blog dedicated to technology itself. However, the "We Are Akamai" blog focuses on all things that shape our story:
What we do AND Who we are:
I think you'll find there's something for everyone in this blog. I'm constantly thinking of all the great knowledge we have and how that could be helpful to you. I hope and encourage you to collaborate with us-- I'm looking forward to it!
