The Evolution of Employer Branding: Candidate First

Employer Branding has been around for a number of years. It is recognised and practiced to varying degrees by the majority of organisations. In fact, 65% of Global Talent Acquisition Leaders say Employer Branding is a top priority for their organisation in 2016 (source: LinkedIn Global Recruiting Trends 2016).

However, just as organisations are getting comfortable with Employer Branding, the practice of Employer Branding is evolving.

Let me explain.

Power has shifted to the candidate. This is not a short term trend around the economics of demand and supply, but rather, a fundamental, long term trend. In the twenty years or so since Employer Branding became a recognised practice, candidate behaviour and expectations have shifted greatly (for an overview of some of these consumer trends, read this article).

Most organizations focus employment branding efforts on becoming better known as a great place to work. In essence, many organizations have applied marketing principles to their employer brands to be as appealing as possible.

But ‘branding for appeal’ is not enough.

When applicants look to organizational communications to decide where to apply, appealing branding tells them that many organizations are great places to work. 

- Corporate Executive Board (CEB), Branding for Influence (2014)

In other words: similar selling points across employers make them almost indistinguishable from one another.

But organisations naturally want to ‘put their best foot forward’. Branding for appeal is a natural progression.

So what is the solution?

An introduction to Candidate First

The first step is to ask yourself, “Are you a Candidate First business?”

Company First is a top down approach. You put up a ‘help wanted’ notice and people come and apply and prove to you that they are worthy for the role. We have all heard the interview question: “Now tell me, why should I hire you?”

Candidate First flips the model on it’s head by equipping potential candidates to make more informed decisions. In essence, it gives applicants the trusted guidance they need in today’s information-rich labor market in order to make better decisions about whether to apply. This is especially relevant for passive talent.

This quote captures the essence of Candidate First:

Today, employer branding is a perception index of people inside the company that projects to the outside and says, ‘Check this out. This is how it looks here. If you think it looks good, join us. If not, we’re not for you.’

- Matthias Malessa, Chief HR Officer, Adidas

A Candidate First approach will stimulate self reflection about fit. You are essentially creating more trust when you allow people to self select and in turn get higher quality applicants as the more appropriate people apply.

There are tangible benefits from underpinning your employer branding with a Candidate First philosophy. The CEB Branding for Influence study found that shifting from appealing branding to "influential branding" (their term for taking a candidate first approach) brings you almost four-times the improvement in applicant quality than you receive by moving from unmanaged to appealing branding:

• 24% - average % of applicants of high quality at organizations that do not manage their employer brand.
• 28% - average % of applicants of high quality at organizations that brand for appeal.
• 43% - average % of applicants of high quality at organizations that brand for influence.

Examples of Candidate First Employer Branding

Many organisations are applying Candidate First to the candidate experience once the individual has applied: look no further than the Candidate Experience Awards for great examples. In other words, many organisations are focusing on the bottom of the recruitment funnel only. It is necessary to search harder to find good examples of the Candidate First philosophy applied to Employer Branding.

PwC has large businesses in consulting and other services. Yet many people still see them as purely an accounting and audit firm.

The Career Advisor is place where potential candidates can go to have an experience with the firm without having the focus on the firm: PWC don’t want the first interaction they have with individuals in new talent pools to be about having to explain who the company is. They want people to have to have a generally valuable and engaging experience before they talk to them. It’s not about pushing a job or sourcing from this platform - the goal is to provide as useful and authentic of a tool as possible, which people will have a genuinely good experience with.

Also key to their idea is that they are very cognizant of the fact that the folks who use this site won’t all become employees at the firm, but they could potentially become clients to the firm or referrals for the firm.

The Career Advisor is a bold investment by PWC.  The same ethos and philosophy that underpins this site can be brought into all of your communications.

I encourage you to check it out and have a play.

InMobi is a performance-based mobile ad network that is based in India, but has offices throughout the world. Towards the end of 2014, the company went from a strictly business-to-business model to a business-to-consumer model as well, meaning they needed to attract new talent to meet the new challenges.

Their "Teams at InMobi" web page is a simple example of how an organisation can help guide potential candidates to the best job fit for them.

Sydney based mobile app development company Alive has 40 employees who operate out of their middle harbour base.

Alive use a variety of communications - including video - to explain what they do and what it is like to work there.

 Potential candidates, who may be considering working for Alive, can get a real sense of what it would be like to work there.

Candidate First Communication

In order to bring the concept of Candidate First to life and make it more tangible, the following are tips and guidelines for employing a Candidate First philosophy in your communications. 

1. Be authentic - This is the cornerstone of candidate first. Have an ‘open book’, no secrets. Authenticity must come from within. People want to, and can, see behind the veil. The difference between reality and what you communicate is harder and harder to hide.
2. Be Helpful – Continually ask yourself the question – “how can we help you make the best decision?”
3. Allow staff to tell their story - Let candidates hear a variety of voices / perspectives, including the people doing similar jobs. Many studies have shown that trust in brands and companies has eroded. Just as consumers are no longer relying on the carefully crafted brand messages coming out of organisations, candidates similarly are getting most of the information that informs their career choices from sources other than organisational communications. The CEB looked into the relative influence of information on applicant’s decision to apply and found that official communications account for just 20% of how candidates learn about today's employers. Traditionally Talent Acquisition may have acted as a kind of ‘gate-keeper’. The opportunity here is to act as a portal and facilitate introductions to relevant people in the organisation.
4. Provide a balanced view: help candidates understand both the good and the bad – “This is how it is. It’s not perfect, but we are proud.”; and “This may not be right for you”. You will gain trust by showing both sides of the coin.
5. Describe a Day in the life of – people want to have a realistic job preview and hear what it might be like to work in your company from the view point of an employee.
6. Personalise the organisation’s purpose – how can you communicate the purpose of the organisation so it resonates with individuals.  There is a fabled story about a janitor’s exchange with President Kennedy during the early days of NASA: “What do you do?” the president supposedly asked the man with a broom during a visit to Cape Canaveral. “Well, Mr. President, I’m helping to put a man on the moon.”  Whether or not this exchange actually occurred, it illustrates the idea that a workforce motivated by a strong sense of higher purpose is essential to engagement.
7. Demonstrate the company’s culture – don’t tell me about your culture, show me – illustrate through employee profiles of people who live and breath your values. Let your employer brand personality come through in all your communications.
8. Show how you’re competitively  positioned – When less well know, associate yourself with better known companies.  Or, use comparison to explain who you are better than and why you are better. An example might be a small tech company saying they are more nimble and creative than big tech rivals.

As already noted, it has become popular for Recruitment teams to focus on producing an excellent candidate experience at the bottom of the recruitment funnel.  In essence,  I am encouraging you to extend this philosophy across the full funnel. In other words, to infuse your Employer Brand with a Candidate First mindset.

As Talent Acquisition teams struggle in the digital age with increasing volumes of applications, a Candidate First approach will help to filter out unwanted applications while simultaneously encouraging better suited candidates to apply. This is a progressive approach to employer branding.

Candidate First will build trust through the full funnel. Candidates will self select.

Persuade the best, deflect the rest.

I'm a "Talent Brand Consultant" with LinkedIn, based in Sydney, Australia.  I post articles about LinkedIn Strategies, Employer Branding, Content Marketing and Social Media. Follow me by clicking on the 'Follow' button at the top of this post if you would like to receive my articles right in your news feed as they are published.