Employer Branding: What, How and everything in between

Companies that consistently attract the best talent get one thing right: Employer branding.

The term “employer brand” is a long-standing concept which was first publicly introduced to the management audience in 1990, and defined by Simon Barrow, chairman of People in Business, and Tim Ambler, Senior Fellow of London Business School, in December 1996 as “the package of functional, economic and psychological benefits provided by employment, and identified with the employing company. (source Wikipedia)

Three decades later, especially when the job market and talent landscape is different, this definition still resonates quite a bit. While there are multiple ways to define employer brand, to put simply, it is, “the reputation a company has in the marketplace as a place to work. It is how a company is perceived by both current and future employees. This employer reputation is often created from numerous sources-:

·  Your company culture

·  Comments and ratings on employer rating sites

·  What you say about your employee value proposition on your website

·  What your company chooses to post on their social media sites

·  What current employees say about the company

·  Your hiring process and what kind of experience you give to the candidates and more

What Is the Value of a Positive Employer Brand? Why does your company need employer branding? Let the stats do the talking here.

-When making a decision on where to apply for a job, 84% of job seekers say the reputation of a company as an employer is important (Source)

-9 out of 10 candidates would apply for a job when it’s from an employer brand that’s actively maintained (Source)

-50% of candidates say they wouldn’t work for a company with a bad reputation – even for a pay increase (Source)

-A strong employer brand can lead to a 50% decrease in cost/hire, 28% increase in retention and new hires are 40% less likely to leave after the first 6 months.

-To make up for a poor employer brand, companies must offer a 10% pay increase to attract top job seekers.

-Organizations with strong employer brands saw a 20% increase in revenues and 12% growth in the workforce

 Now that we have established credibility around the importance of Employer Brand and how it impacts your ability to hire and retain top talent, would you still want to leave Employer brand to chance?

 So, what can we do to create a compelling and effective Employer Brand? Where to start

There is no secret sauce for creating a stellar Employer Brand but no matter what your team size or budget or resources available, creating an employer brand could be overwhelming . Usually, the hardest part is determining a plan of action.

 This infographic here takes you through the step by step approach of building the Employer Brand. Each step in this process is worth a separate article on its own but I will be covering STEP 4 and Step 6 more in detail in this post.

HOW TO PROMOTE AND SHAPE YOUR EMPLOYER BRANDS.  WHAT ARE SOME KEY ELEMENTS THAT ONE NEEDS TO CONSIDER

Building your employer brand doesn't happen overnight. There is a number of different moving pieces involved and there are many things that impact employer brands that are harder to influence. Things like

• Media: how to different outlets talk about you?
• Friends and family: what does a candidate’s inner circle think about you?
• Consumer experience: what experience do people have when they buy from you?
• Consumer marketing: what is the messaging and approach of your marketing department?
• Word of mouth: what’s the word on the street?  are harder to influence:

The good news, many of these factors are impacted by the things that you can directly influence

For companies thinking about their employer branding strategy, there are a few areas that it's critical to focus on

1.Career website and social media channels

A)Careers site

The company careers site is one of the first places that interested candidates go to learn more about your company. Everything that candidates encounter on your website, reflects back on your brand. Make sure your career website is

· It is easy to navigate and lets people learn more about your company, mission, and jobs.

·  Is mobile-optimized,94% of smartphone job seekers have browsed or researched jobs on smartphones - you need to be ready for them.

B). Social Media Channels

With over 3 billion people on social media networks, it’s the easiest way to start building your brand. Ensure your organization is present wherever your target audience is. These channels provide an opportunity for potential prospects, buyers, clients or candidates to directly interact with your brand and reinforce your identity. Show them what your organization is all about what’s it like to do business with your organization. Start with channels like Linkedin, Facebook, Glassdoor and Instagram, etc. Having company presence on any one or all of these platforms is virtually free of cost

Here is some proof which shows that proactively managing your social media presence and having a well-defined career website pays off -:

· 25% of all the job seekers use social media as a primary tool for job search

· 7 out of 10 18-34 year old said they found their last job through social media

· 70% of people look at reviews before they make career decisions

Make sure your career website and social media channels -:

·Showcase your company culture by highlighting your employee value proposition.EVP is nothing but why people would want to join your organization. Post and promote employee-generated content, or any company event outside your business like a team-building activity, fun activities, retreats or any award /recognition /certification your organization has received

· Share videos and photos of your office environment or workspace

· Feature blogs, videos or testimonials of your existing employees. *(will write about this more in another article)

·Highlight the perks and benefits of working within your organization

·Create and share specialized recruiting content and advertise job openings by using clear job descriptions

·Don't ignore sites like Glassdoor and indeed. By proactively engaging candidates or former employees that have taken the time to write a review (positive or negative) shows everyone that you care(*more about this in my next article)

Here are a few examples of companies that are winging their social media handle and career website pages for building their Employer Brand

Microsoft uses the Twitter profile @MicrosoftJobs to share content about their employees and company culture. Their Tweets include brief stories and video clips about specific employees. This approach to social media humanizes their employer brand and provides candidates with a specific channel where they can always find new content and information

Please note that there is no magic formula for choosing the right type of content and communication channel that is guaranteed to work for every position and every company. What will work best for you depends on your candidate persona. Based on your candidate persona, you will be able to define the right type of content and the appropriate channels to distribute it.

2.Employees as Brand Evangelist

We all know that people tend to trust peer to peer reviews overpaid media channels like celebrity endorsements or company adverts. Your employees are your unofficial recruiters and marketers. They’re essential allies in making your employer brand more compelling and well-known. If you encourage employees to share their own stories, either in written or video form, it can be hugely valuable for your employer brand. Give them guidance around a social media policy of dos and don ts, or a sample post, tweets or hashtags that they can use rather than a strict script to follow otherwise the content can appear forced or stilted.

Here are a few more examples of narratives that can be effective:

· "Day in the life" features that walk candidates through someone's daily routine

· "Why I applied..." features where employees explain what prompted them to apply to your company

· "Why working at your company is different..." features that showcase an employee's opinion on what makes you different from places they've worked before. You can also pinpoint employees' personal brand by including a segment on “what allows you to do your best work here.

Encourage employees to share corporate content that they most resonate with. Some can choose to share a project they worked on, while others may share job listings or the latest blogs. There is nothing authentic about your prospect seeing four employees posting the same canned message and link in unison across social platforms.

Also encourage employees to post reviews on Glassdoor, remind them they can articulate the brand value on these platforms too.

Here is an excellent blog around how Hootsuite grew its global advocate community seven-fold in 10 months.

 https://influitive.com/how-hootsuite-grew-its-global-advocate-community-seven-fold-in-10-months/

3. Candidate experience

 From the moment a candidate first sees your job ad or opens that first inmail from a recruiter – they are starting to form an opinion about your employer brand. Believe it or not, it may take a candidate roughly about 11-12 touchpoints before they ultimately decide to apply and therefore the way the company handles itself during the recruitment process will leave a lasting impression on the candidate. Map out the current candidate journey and touchpoints and see if there are areas where you can add value.Sometimes this might mean removing steps and other times it might mean adding things that will leave a lasting impression on candidates. Here a few things you can do add value

 A) Job application process

Ensure your job application process is neither cumbersome nor lengthy. As per a report, 60% of candidates quit their job application process in the middle because of length and complexity.

·  Be transparent about your hiring process. Do candidates know how many steps are there in the process, how long will it take between different steps, and who can they get in touch in case they have questions.

· Do everything that you can do make the process short and brief. The current benchmark is one-click application process or mobile optimized application.

·Offer resume parsing options or allow applicants to upload their resume from various sources.

· Offer an email confirmation link once the candidates submit the resume.

A great example is Google’s HOW WE HIRE a transparent and detailed look into their process

 B) Communicate, communicate and communicate

Ensure you are communicating with the candidates at every stage of the recruiting process. Even if they are unsuccessful, telling them that they are not qualified for the role is the least you can do. Usually, 3 -5 business days is an acceptable time frame to get back to the candidates. Create email campaigns or personalized emails based on different stages of the hiring process. Nurturing your candidates can be fun and easy and needn’t be time-consuming.

 C)Interview process

The interview is a pivotal point in a candidate’s journey. Getting the interview right is really important as according to a report by LinkedIn, 83% of the talent says the negative experience can change their mind about the role or their mind about the company. Ensure you are asking the candidate right questions, keep interviews short, and give candidates a chance to learn about your company culture. Besides that, giving prompt and constructive feedback to your candidates will further boost your interview experience

 D) Forge relationship with the candidates

Maintain relationships with the candidates. Relationships don’t have to end with the candidates if you decide not to hire them. Candidates who do not seem a perfect fit for some role may be a better fit for a future opening. Add these candidates to your talent pool and recruiting email campaigns. Nurturing and engaging the silver medalist will shorten your hiring cycle and on top of that, wouldn’t it be great to have a candidate every time a new position opens!

4.) Create great content

 Create great recruitment content that provides useful information about your organization. Content is the medium through which the brand educates and builds a relationship with candidates. You got to remember that it’s not (just) because of the jobs you have on offer that hook prospects in. Rather they are searching for valuable content that solves their problems and gives a resonating answer to their questions. Valuable content comes in many shapes and sizes but is typically educational, entertaining, fun, and engaging. Creating content that can be easily consumed by the candidate is a good place to start. Few examples of recruitment content can be career advancement tip to interview tips to surveys to infographics, white papers, videos and much more

 How to measure (so that you can manage) your Employer Brand

Employer branding is an ongoing process: you need to continuously monitor your progress and make improvements. There are no cookie-cutter KPIs that you can use but it would ultimately depend on your employer branding goals. If your goal is to retain employees, your measure of success will be retention rate and promoter score but if your goal is primarily recruiting based such as reducing the cost of hire then cost to hire, time to hire and quality of hire is what you should be tracking.

Here are some key metrics that you can measure

Wrapping up

Modern job candidates have more power over the hiring process than ever before. It’s no longer enough for companies to post jobs and hope the right candidates come to them. Businesses must prove they are worthy employers—and to do so, they must make their employer brand an ongoing priority.

Remember—honesty is the most important element of your employer brand. The best branding can’t make up for a lackluster culture or unsatisfied employees. Don’t try to make your company seem like an amazing place to work—strive to actually make it an amazing place to work for your current employees. If you can do that, a big part of your employer branding will take care of itself.