Meet Talent Brand Summit Attendees: Allison Dunsmore and Chelsea Saake at Banfield Pet Hospital
Imagine yourself gathering around for fireside chats with 75 other talent brand practitioners nerding out over employer branding. How about learning hatchet throwing and archery and participating in an iron chef competition together? Or sharing with one another your biggest employer brand successes, failures, ideas and inspiration. What kind of event could this possibly be?
This is Talent Brand Summit. And it’ll be unlike any conference you’ve experienced in HR.
Talent Brand Summit is an immersive, interactive two-day event where talent brand, HR and recruiting practitioners get together to share, learn and help one another build out their company’s employer brand strategy. But it’s much more than that. You’ll connect, make new friends and build a network of peers, mentors and coaches who can help grow your talent brand career and success.
Meet one of our Talent Brand Summit attendees, Banfield Pet Hospital. Allison Dunsmore is the Senior Specialist of Employer Brand and Chelsea Saake is the Talent Acquisition Specialist at Banfield. Learn more about their employer brand work, story and why they’re coming to Talent Brand Summit.
Banfield's Employer Brand team, Chelsea Saake (left) and Allison Dunsmore (right)
Tell us a bit about Banfield and what you do there?
Owned by Mars, Incorporated, Banfield is a network of more than 1,000 small animal preventive care hospitals focused on defining the future of pet health and wellness. We’re committed to helping make better lives for pets, while extending the careers of the people who care for them.
As members of the Employer Branding team, our role is to promote careers with Banfield through digital and print advertising, social media channels, vendor partnerships, and events. We work closely with our Talent Acquisition and Leadership teams to create positive candidate and employee experiences.
What made you decide to attend Talent Brand Summit?
We had been looking for an experience that not only allowed us to learn new ways for evolving our branding strategies, but also encouraged an environment for networking in a truly unique way. After a lot of research, Talent Brand Summit seemed to be just what we were seeking.
With an impressive lineup of big brand names, we know we’ll learn a thing or two from those companies we truly admire. The future of our business depends upon us connecting with the right audiences in a meaningful way and improving our styles of communication. We’re hoping to get new ideas and so much more at Talent Brand Summit.
Why is it important to be aligned on employer branding with your manager?
Consistency is key. Making sure we are aligned on all employer branding related initiatives and messaging allows us to better serve our stakeholders. Our brand guidelines not only allow us to create meaningful content for our audiences, but provides room for collaboration, helps keep us organized with delegating tasks, and lets one person pick up where the others left off.
What benefits do you see in bringing your manager and team to Talent Brand Summit?
So often, one team member will attend a conference and bring back the new knowledge they’ve gained. This isn’t always engaging or beneficial for the rest of the team who didn’t have the opportunity to attend. By experiencing Talent Brand Summit together, we’re looking forward to generating new ideas on the spot and getting our creative juices flowing while we network and hear from experts.
Let’s talk employer brand. What does employer brand mean to you?
Employer branding is your image, your reputation, and your voice. Through employer branding initiatives, we have the power to influence our industry and find ways to reach the people who want to hear more from us or didn’t realize they wanted to know us at all.
What’s your company purpose, and how does that translate into employer branding?
We’re devoted to making a difference in the lives of pets and the clients we serve while helping the pet care industry evolve. Through our advertising, collateral, campaigning, and messaging, we have the power to communicate this vision to prospective candidates and speak for our incredible employees on a larger scale.
How does your employer brand impact your recruitment marketing messaging?
As of late, we’re committed to connecting with our audiences in a deeper, more meaningful way. It’s important for us to know who they really are before we create messages because we want to speak to what they really want, not what we think they want. Our messaging is getting edgier and more focused on the positives AND the challenges of this industry.
Want to join Talent Brand Summit with fellow employer brand practitioners from companies like Banfield, Whole Foods Market, Blizzard Entertainment, Groupon, and Southwest Airlines? We only have a handful of tickets left! Don’t wait and register yours today.
Grace Chiu is an employer brand and communications strategist. She's worked with Fortune 500 companies such as SAP, GE and Hilton as well as startups like Anaplan. Grace loves helping companies find new and better ways to engage their employees, build the company culture and inspire meaningful relationships with their candidates, communities and beyond. You can connect with Grace on LinkedIn and Twitter.