Employer branding are you prepared?

We are seeing employment continuing to rise as the regularly published unemployment figures reduce, this can lead to the real question of employer branding and are you prepared? Today’s candidates use multiple channels of communication moving between mobile, tablet, desktop and even smart watches to receive and send information. How your company is perceived can positively or negatively impact your hiring process and hiring success.

The wrong employer brand

Having the wrong employer brand positioning with potential candidates can be very damaging to the hiring process. A lot of companies in Ireland may be completely unaware of the online profile and reputation that they may be creating. Every job application, every candidate response, every interview and every successful or unsuccessful hire leads to a brand perception about your company.

Your hiring process

How candidates and sourcing partners find dealing with you in terms of your hiring process can often speak volumes about how you operate as a company. Your company may have an existing talent management process internally, it may be discussing or have an employer branding strategy, but ultimately it is owned by the end the users perception of your company. How you communicate can really impact this.

In a lot of cases simply delaying feedback for candidates can be a very large source of frustration. Everybody is in a different position when applying for a job. A candidate may be desperate for employment or simply seeing what opportunities are available in the market. Candidates may be looking to increase the earning potential or looking to improve their career ladder opportunity.

If you can provide timely, accurate, clear and honest feedback to candidates it can go a long way in improving and enhancing your employer brand.

Be seen as an employer of choice

Ultimately employers want to be seen as the employer brand of choice for the people they want to attract. What can you do to improve your employer branding? A good question to ask is if it clearly understood what the company objectives are ? Do team members and existing management understand and importantly demonstrate the employers strategic positioning / objectives?

Have you considered what your employer value proposition is? Have you clearly set out your EVP, a clear set of employer offerings that you consider to be of value for new hires. Does everyone know this?

Communication

How are you planning to communicate and market to the type of talent that you are looking to attract to your company? Are the type of roles that you are hiring for difficult to find the right type of candidate for? Are you working closely with specialist experts in an external capacity to help you source correct talent? How are you testing and tracking the effectiveness of your employer brand promotion?  Do you have KPI’s in place?

In summary being a brand and employer that candidates want to choose and importantly want to work for can take a combination of research, effective communications, working with recruitment partners and ensuring a clear concise hiring process while clearly communicating true values.

In a growing market attracting the right talent can get harder and harder. Putting in the effort to improve and clearly communicate an employer brand can help with the overall process of attracting the right talent.

Your employer brand

To enhance your employer brand journey you may want to consider the following questions:

• What are the real reasons you can put forward to the potential candidates on why they would want to work for you? What makes you different, unique, a good place to work?
• What do the current employees feel and communicate about your current brand as an employee?
• Are you building up an employer brand that attracts talent and candidates on an ongoing basis?
• Would you recommend your company as a great place to work?
• What steps can you take to improve the overall employer brand image?
• How can you better communicate the EVP?
• Is your employer brand considered / part of an overall talent management process for attracting training retaining and growing key staff members within the organisation?
• How can you effectively deploy your employer brand strategy?
• What digital / communication tools can help improve your processes?
• Are you making use of data within your hiring process
• Are you looking in new places for talent?

A few short years ago employer branding was something that some companies had but it is becoming so important in attracting the right talent in so many industries. To truly deliver an employer experience that is consistent, joined up and delivers on what was promised by your organisation an effective employer brand strategy will really help you to attract the right talent and enhance your overall company culture.

Your employer brand and employer engagement can really help you to attract specific talent and senior talent and it is now a very important piece of how a company demonstrates its authenticity.

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A post by Aisling Turner, Merrion Recruitment Ltd, ‘Recruitment the Right Way’

www.merrionrecruitment.com