A Brand the U.S. Government Would Love to Have

I think most Americans don't spend much time contemplating Canada, and when we do consider our neighbor to the North, it's mostly to talk about health care, the cold, or if you're a foodie, poutine. But a survey out of Canada has some valuable lessons for federal hiring managers and anyone concerned with human capital. According to the 2009 Top Campus Employer Brand Rankings, a survey of more than 16,000 Canadian college students, the federal Government of Canada has the best employer brand in the country. And that's not the end of it--the provincial governments come it at number two, followed by Health Canada, the nation's public health care system. That means three governmental entities beat employers like Google and Apple, which have sterling brands in the United States. I don't think that Google and Apple are less-respected in Canada, rather, that government's brand is just much, much better.

I can think of a couple of reasons for this. First, because of Health Canada, Canadians have much more direct contact with their national government than most Americans do with theirs. As a result, as long as that contact is positive, they're likely to be more familiar and comfortable with the government. Second, as far as I know, Canadian politics hasn't been dominated by pernicious scapegoating of the government. But I'd be very curious to know more about how to Canadian governments, both national and local, sell themselves as employers, and whether there are lessons the American federal government could learn from them.