Employer branding strategy – essentials in 10 minutes
It’s everything that makes your company different, everything that makes your company stand out – nothing new, but something worth having.
Employer branding has made the transition from a NICE to have to a MUST have. In today’s highly transparent workplace, nothing is more exciting for candidates than to understand the company they want to work for insight out. They usually research a company for an average of 2 hours before applying for a job that means: going to your careers page, checking out your social media, reviews, jobs descriptions, asking your employees for feedback, etc. If the values are aligned with theirs, then and only then a company has the potential of becoming an employer of choice.
The changes in the past few years make employer branding strategy essential to your company’s overall recruitment process. Therefore, investing in your company’s employer branding efforts to attract the professionals needed to drive growth and to keep them happy should be a priority.
What is it?
Your employer brand is your company’s identity and reputation, is what employees say about your company and what collaborators, clients or partners think of you. Basically, your company should be the talk of the town, the heaven for the best in the industry.
Let’s create a context to understand the concept from inside
Every company has a culture: some are serious, some are casual; bottom line, whether you shape it deliberately or not, a culture exists. By doing a parallel, this is how an employer branding strategy works. If culture is the heart of your company and your employees keep its beet, employer branding has the same idea in its center, replacing employees with potential applicants. The catch is to be able to control the narrative and to build it beautifully, but at the same time to keep it faithful to the reality of the company.
Let’s dive in even more
Every company seeks to be effective in its employer brand communication strategy. That is why you have to understand the audience you aim to attract and hire. Employer branding goes beyond choosing the right office candid; it’s strategic and complex. In order to get the most of your strategy, you have to start from the root: the target candidate.
Far from telling recruitment agencies how to find their candidates, we figured that it can’t heart if we review some of the basic practices needed to attract and find the best candidate for any job:
1. Understand and document the challenges and outcomes you want your employee to be motivated and engaged by
2. Know your ideal candidate
3. Review all typical ‘pain points’ for people in this position that your company has solved which you can use to attract their attention.
4. Engage your current employees
5. Implement and use employee referral programs
After diving into the types of people who will bring your company success, it’s time to create a strategic employer value proposition, which will make the best professionals want to work for you.
DON’T FORGET, first, you have to start to convince your employees of your position as an employer of choice because there are your best candidates. Armed with a clear picture of the candidate, the company will be in a much stronger position to write a compelling ad that will attract high caliber candidates.
That Seems Already Like Too Much Work, isn’t it?
Bear with me. Building your employer brand doesn’t happen overnight, and we only scratched the surface.
Getting that employer branding strategy out there
If you’ve built an amazing culture, it’s time to shout it from the rooftops, from the top of your lungs! Employment branding can be a huge competitive advantage for your company because is part of your unique value proposition. Also, it encapsulates your core values and it’s one of the most important reasons why people come to work for your company.
Be strategic, yet realistic, with your messaging to ensure that applicants get the real picture of what it’s like to work for your company and that the right applicants will want to learn more.
Why you need it?
With the competition for the best talent getting fiercer by the day, employer branding is, as pointing it earlier, a pressing matter. There is a saying ”Better late than never.” You may agree with it, or you may not, but in this case, it will work for you and your company. Why is that? Simple: with the fast changes, everyday requests, increasing expectations and an upbeat that sometimes seems to fast to keep up, you have to catch up in order to stay in line.
Brand strategy in numbers:
- 78% of people will look into a company’s reputation as an employer before applying for a job
- 88% of Millennials believe that being part of the right company culture is very important
- 79% of job seekers are likely to use social media in their hunt for their next job
No wonder that over 59% of employers say that employer branding represents one of the key components of the organization’s overall HR strategy.
Look, is in the stats
A strong employer brand leads to 50% more qualified applicants; you can see it as a matchmaking platform for you and the best candidates. Thus, you must be visible, be present, always proactive everywhere your candidates might be. The first step you can take in this direction is:
- Careers site – help your candidates find the job they want easy and quick on your website
- Application experience – don’t overcomplicate their lives and don’t make them press that X button. A complicated application can destroy your chances with the best candidates
- Social media – all day, every day. Build your employer brand on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn as an access point for candidates to get to know your company better
- Content is king now and forever. Content is your best friend, is the one who helps you hang out with the cool kids – in this case, with the best in the field. It has the power to build a relationship and to befriend a skeptic crowd. It’s central to the marketing process and now involved in the HR work. Creating appealing and engaging content is not an easy task, but imperative for your employer brand
- Your employees are your gold mine. Your employees will make wonders for your employer brand with their shared story.
Now everything is about people and for people. Keep this in mind when you are working on your employer brand strategy. Last, but not least, don’t overlook the fact that you must blend the technologically optimized journey with the personal touch.
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