Hiring Tips Series
Importance of Employer Branding
Employer branding is a vital part of recruitment.
You need great people to help your business run, so give your company an edge over the competition by having a good employer branding strategy.
What is Employer Branding?
Employer Branding is your company’s reputation as a place to work.
Ultimately, it is the way you market your company to job seekers and showcase why your company is a top place to work. It includes both internal and external factors that HR & marketing departments as well as business owners and company leaders should actively monitor and consider.
Why do you need Employer Branding?
Top candidates will research your company and it’s reputation as a place to work. Being prepared with a good employer branding strategy will raise your company above the competition.
Think about all the customer-facing news about your company – these will all influence your candidate pool. Does your company have any negative reviews? Does it have little to no online presence? All these will have an affect on your candidates so it’s important for hiring teams to actively work on some type of employer branding if they want to draw in top candidates.
Building an Employer Branding Strategy
Okay, so employer branding is important – now what?
We’ve laid out the 4 main steps to take when building an Employer Branding Strategy.
1. Set a Goal
The first step in building your employer branding strategy is determining your goal. This can be as simple or detailed as you like. Some examples of employer branding strategic goals are:
- Attract more candidates
- Attract more skilled candidates
- Increase referrals
- Increase your offer acceptance rates
- Retain top employees
- Reduce employee turnover
2. Identify your target employee attributes
The next step in building your employer branding strategy is determining who you are trying to influence. What do your (future) employees value? What motivates them? You may have a large company with a diverse population, so this section can be as broad as the whole organization or as narrow as the specific type of role you are actively recruiting. Some potential things to think about when identifying your target employee attributes
- Education level
- Knowledge/ Experience
- Job Seeking Style
- Demographics
- Location
- Motivators
3. Identify your employee benefits positioning
Now that you’ve identified your goals and target employee attributes, the next step in building your employer branding strategy is identifying and building your company’s benefits positioning.
Here are some typical categories to consider when building a company’s benefits package. Do some research on each of these and conduct employee surveys to find out what key factors are motivating your current employees.
Compensation
1) Salary satisfaction
2) Compensation system
Benefits
1) Paid Holidays
2) Paid Time off
3) Insurance
4) Retirement
Career Growth
1) Skills training
2) Stability
3) Room for advancement
4) Mentorship
5) Evaluation & feedback
Work Environment
1) Office/Workplace Accommodations
2) WFH options
3) Flexibility
Culture
1) Leaders/management
2) Support
3) Trust
4) Collaboration
5) Values
4. Employer Branding Profile
Career Sites
Top candidates will be reading about your company. One of the first places they will see your employer brand is on the top job board sites. You need to make sure your company is well represented. When you post job openings, your hiring management tool should be sending them to websites like Indeed, Glassdoor, and LinkedIn. These websites also dedicate space for companies to provide information in a snapshot or company profile. Take time to visit these sites to make sure your company’s page is branded and complete.
Some career sites also allocate space for current and former employees to review all aspects of the company. Be sure to keep up to date on your company’s reviews. This way you can address any potential employee issues in-house as well as be prepared to address them within a candidate interview. If your company has some negative reviews – you can ask current employees if they are willing to provide updated information to help job seekers know that any potential areas of concern have been addressed.
Social Media
Social media is a powerful tool for spreading company information. The company values (which should align with your employer branding), should be found on your company’s social media pages. This is also a great place to advertise job openings.
Work with your marketing department to create custom hiring graphics, or use the images provided by your applicant tracking software – like these:
One of the best places to showcase your employer branding is your company’s Employment page. This area of your company’s website should be a snapshot of everything one should know about employment at your organization.
Company Snapshot
This is where you will tell the story of your company. Be sure to tell it in a way that make people want to work there.
Here is an example of how to layout your company’s snapshot (if you don’t already have one written):
Paragraph 1) Elevator pitch about the company – 2-3 sentences that describe the company and why it’s an amazing place.
Paragraph 2) Company values, mission, and goals – what is the true purpose of the company and what is it striving to achieve. This should be both informative and inspirational. Think passionately!
Paragraph 3) Selling the benefits: Dedicated section to employee benefits and why they should be beating down your door to work there.
Signoff – make it personal/add the human touch
This passionate and compelling piece should be from someone in senior management if not from the head of the company. Add a quote or sentence about looking forward to engaging with the candidate.
Employee Referrals
Who better to share your mutual love of your workplace than other actual employees. Employee referrals are amazing sources for top candidates. Get employees to share openings on social media & social professional networks.
Following these guidelines, your company should be able to build an employer brand strategy that will help attract top candidates. 
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Happy hiring!
