With an increasing demand for filling positions and a short supply of qualified candidates, companies are closely examining all aspects of their recruiting strategies. Employer branding is an essential element of attracting and hiring premium talent. Many people default to thinking of consumer branding, the narrative surrounding your products and services. Although your products/services may be stellar, it doesn’t tell a candidate why they want to work for your firm. Employer branding encompasses the full employment experience and answers the question, “Why Join Us?”
What is Your Organization’s Current Reputation?
According to LinkedIn, 75% of job seekers consider an employer’s brand before even applying for a job. So start by asking the question, “How do potential hires see your company?” To gain insight, discuss with recruiters feedback about your firm from candidates. Closely examine exit interviews for recurring themes amongst former employees. Also, monitor trending comments on social media platforms, including Glassdoor.
Once you have a clear understanding of your placement in the market, you can set a vision for the standing you want to establish in the future. Generate a survey to employees and meet with senior leadership to discuss, What makes your organization unique? What are your corporate values & behaviors? What is your company mission?
The responses to this exercise will lay the foundation of the principles of your Employee Value Proposition (EVP), which will serve as the cornerstone of your employer brand.
Creating a Strong Employer Brand
Develop an authentic & enticing EVP & Employer Brand Story.
Your EVP can address topics such as work-life balance, growth philosophy, inclusion and well-being. The values candidates are emphasizing as priorities have shifted post-pandemic.
According to Glassdoor, 92% of employees would consider changing jobs with no salary increase if the opportunity was with a company that had an excellent reputation. Additionally, 86% of job seekers say they would not consider working for a company with bad social standing. Your EVP contributes to your Employer Brand Story, which illustrates how you want to make candidates and employees feel. It highlights the differentiators between you and your competition.
Also consider segmenting your messaging based on the role you are recruiting for. What is important to a Senior Engineer may differ from what is appealing to a Director of Software Engineering. So be mindful of which points of your EVP to accentuate in communications surrounding specific positions.
Amplify Your Employer Brand
Now that your EVP and Employer Brand Story is finalized, blogs, videos, photos and case studies are powerful ways to share it. Strive for a consistent tone and voice across all platforms including your website, external job portals, social media and HR correspondence. Additionally, it is crucial that your messaging be aligned from senior leadership down. Your employees can be your best company advocates!
Execute a Solid Onboarding Process
After you’ve spent all this time and energy to hire the best and brightest talent, their initial experience as an employee is critical. By establishing a smooth transition and welcoming environment, you will confirm your firm’s reputation is accurate, immediately gain a certain degree of trust and inspire their best efforts. We recommend your recruiting team be an active part of the process.
Benchmarks for Your Brand
Once you’ve implemented an engaging employer branding strategy, how can you evaluate if it is positively influencing your talent acquisition and bottom line? Companies with high scores in this category, see 50% more qualified applicants per role and a 50% cost-per-hire reduction. We’ve compiled the below metrics as a way to assess the strength of your employer brand:
- More traffic to website career portal
- Higher percentage of applicants per role
- Higher acceptance rate of offers
- Better quality of hires
- Lower cost per hire
- Reduced time to recruit
- Higher retention rate
- Higher engagement with Linked-In page & social media profiles
- Improved reputation on social media
- More positive feedback from recruiters
Averity & Your Employer Brand
Consistent and honest communication with your recruiters can benefit your branding efforts. Our team sees the importance of sharing candidate feedback with the companies we partner with. It shines a light on an outsider’s perspective when interacting with your company and provides information about your reputation in the marketplace. We are here to support all the firms we work with and encourage open communication on a regular basis. Let’s discuss how we can help and connect with us here.
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