Brigham Group founder,after 25 years, adviseswork on ‘recruiting brand’
To celebrate Brigham Group’s 25th year in business, founder Jennifer Brigham hopes to contact as many temporary employees as possible that her company has placed over the years.
“I would say between 15- and 20,000,” Brigham says, when asked to estimate how many people that is. “We’re trying to figure out a way to re-connect.” She plans to post an invitation on her company’s Web site, inviting all clients to stop in and get a gift.
At first she never expected to hit such a milestone. Brigham Group has three offices, the original in Red Wing, then Hastings and most recently Apple Valley, and eight full-time employees.
“I was a college dropout, and I rented a typewriter and got a phone,” to start her business at age 22. She had been a legal secretary and a medical secretary, and thought she’d specialize in placing those employees.
“There wasn’t a huge market for that in Red Wing, but they wanted secretaries.” So she changed her focus to placing all types of office workers, from executive assistants to receptionists to bookkeepers.She advises clients to spend time working on their brand as an employer, not just as a provider of goods or services. “Your recruiting brand is something you have to think about, just like your product brand,” she says. “We spend a lot of time helping companies with that.”
Too many companies pour resources into their product marketing, only to show prospective employees “nothing but crappy copies of their employee benefits,” Brigham says. Employers should “create a story about what that company has to offer employees.”Jennifer Brigham, Brigham Group Inc.: 952.432.6060; jb******@**********up.com; www.brighamgroup.com