Your Employer Brand is a crucial part of the candidate attraction puzzle - get it right and not only will more candidates find your business, but those that do will be more likely to apply and ultimately accept an offer.
This article provides some easy to implement frameworks for Employer Branding that will make an instant impact on your hiring.
Talent Magnet matrix
Before starting to think about your Employer Brand - the external perception of what it’s like to work at your business - you first need to consider your Employer Value Proposition (EVP) - the reality of working in your business.
This isn’t a case of fake it until you make it - the External Perception needs to reflect the Employee Reality, otherwise you’ll quickly be found out.
If you don’t have a strong Employee Reality we firmly suggest working on your Employer Value Proposition - your culture, vision, values and benefits, before thinking about your Employer Brand.
If you have a strong EVP, the aim is to hone your Employer Brand to become a Talent Magnet .
Employer Brand
(Improve Your EVP)
(The Goal)
(Improve Your EVP)
(Improve Your Employer Brand)
IMPROVING EMPLOYER BRAND:
Step One- Easy Wins
At Instant Impact, we believe that there are 6 easy wins that every company should take to improve their employer brand and help them attract top talent:
1. Careers Page
Candidates should be able to apply for roles directly from your website and register their interest even if there aren’t any suitable roles currently available. The site should be linked with your ATS so that applications come through automatically.
2. Culture is key
Outline what it’s like to work at your company (your EVP) and any perks on your job descriptions and careers page. Candidates want to know about it and if you’ve got a great culture you should want to shout about it. To put your best foot forward you might want to share information about your:
- Company vision and values
- Approach to learning and career development
- Diversity and inclusion strategy
- Socials and work-life balance
3. Glassdoor Reviews
Top candidates will check your Glassdoor reviews. If you’re completing employee surveys and doing well, ask your employees for testimonials. If you could be doing better, work on your EVP.
4. Use your existing resources
If your company has a social media presence with active followers, potential candidates are likely to follow you so you should absolutely advertise all your roles for free online. We often find that marketing teams have a wealth of resources (e.g. webinars and whitepapers) that can be easily repurposed for building employer brand.
5. Referral scheme
Having a referral scheme is a really easy way for you to attract top talent. If your current employees love working for you, it’s likely they will tell relevant contacts in their network about opportunities to join. Having a small incentive and/or your business leadership recognising successful referrals in company-wide communication can be highly effective.
6. Job board reviews
Are you being versatile with your job postings? You should be reviewing the job boards you are using and analysing whether they are working to bring you the right type of candidates..
Once you have your easy wins in place, it’s time to take a deeper look into Employer Branding and Attraction to see if your business would benefit from any strategic investments.
Step Two - Strategic investments
As the word investments suggest, the six steps below will cost significantly more time and money than the easy wins but get them right and they can have a huge impact.
Not all investments will be right for your business so consider the return on investment (ROI) and be data driven in your approach to ensure the best chance of success.
1. Video Content
A Glassdoor report found 75% of respondents would consider a company’s culture before applying for a job and videos are a great way to put your best foot forward. You can put high quality videos content together for your careers page and share them on social media to increase your reach.
2. Social Media Campaigns
Social media is one of the most effective ways to build your employer brand with around 80% of job seekers using some form of social media in their searches. That said, it won’t produce any results without effort and attention. We recommend investing time into LinkedIn by publishing posts, joining groups, instigating interesting discussions, and networking with those already in and outside of your network. We’ve also seen Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat used to effectively build Employer Brand if you want to take it further. This is most effective when combined with Proactive Recruitment.
3. Careers Fairs
Recruiting Graduates? The traditional wisdom has always been that you need to attend careers fairs. With so many online tools to attract talent, that’s no longer the case but, if you’re recruiting a high volume of graduates, careers fairs can still be a great way to drive brand awareness. There is no need to attend every recruitment fair, so we strongly advise you to be targeted in your approach.
4. Thought Leadership
Compelling content that conveys your businesses expertise can be a powerful recruitment tool and really set you apart from your competitors. To become an informed opinion leader and the go-to people in your field of expertise takes a lot of hard work. It won’t happen overnight and it could take several years before you reap the rewards.
5. Traditional advertising
If you’re running mass market hiring campaigns such as frontline retail, it might be worth considering more mainstream forms of advertising - TV, radio, newspapers, billboards etc. There are some good deals to be had if you want a large reach. Equally, if you want to be incredibly targeted, is there any industry press or publications that could represent a good ROI?
6. Get creative
When looking for their next professional lego builder, LEGO ran a three stage knockout competition in front of a live audience - the winner was offered the job on the spot. Swedish retailer Ikea hid job descriptions in every piece of flat pack furniture sold which resulted in 4285 applications and 280 new hires. To compete with top software companies Red Studio 5 sent their top 100 dream employees iPods with personalised messages from the CEO. They received a whopping 90 responses and made three hires! This type of recruitment isn’t going to work for every hire, but run well, out the box advertising can really help tap into top talent for harder to fill roles.
Regardless of your approach across the Easy Wins and Strategic Investments, it’s crucial that your Employer Brand remains an accurate and up-to-date reflection of your EVP. Continue working on your approach to become a Talent Magnet and get in touch if there’s anything that we can help with.
