Who's is handling your Employer Branding?

Why is it that there are not many folks who would exactly fit in the role of "Employer Branding" in your organization?

You can find a high-octane marketer (or digital marketer) and put her/him in-charge of recruitment marketing coz, they understand how to build an engaging brand. But would s/he understand the challenges of the recruitment world to be able to build relevant marketing strategy.

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OR

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You can make one of your Talent Acquisition Leader handle recruitment marketing coz, they know the nitty-gritties of global and local hiring game, active-passive hiring, the sourcing-mix metrics, have experience in the required HRTech Stack etc. But would s/he know how to run market research program to create personas, create digital assets/campaigns and roll it out per the integrated marketing media plan, understand the analytics of each platform in the media mix, to engage this audience with required web analytics to track performance of the media spend and optimize the RoI etc.?

Answer is: Employer Branding is a #HybridRole and it will take relevant work experience in both domains (marketing and recruitment) for a person to develop skills and maturity to fit into this role.

Here are some tips for folks who're hiring for the role and for the folks who want to make their career in the field of Employer Branding. Read on:

Person handling your Employer Branding got to be a T-Shaped Professional. Someone who's got a hold on the depth of marketing (aka branding) and breadth of talent acquisition, is your best bet. Here are some tips for the folks building career in the Employer Branding space.

MARKETING:

A) Start from the basics - Know what marketing means in the digital age, how to build brand that candidates can connect with. Start with the 'WHY' of your Marketing, the need and wants of your target segments, that's THE ONLY WAY to stay relevant. Map the whole:

• candidate journey from attraction (awareness, consideration) to engagement (interest, application) to delight (selection and hire)
• employee journey from onboarding, engagement, development, progress, till exit
• alumni engagement (post exit)

B) Then go to the 'HOW' of both inbound and outbound marketing built around customer (/candidates in this case) centricity.

C) Finally know what are the different media channels available (an integrated marketing plan) to reach the right person at the right time along with the key metrics to track and optimize the numbers at the each stage of their journey with the best of MarTech and HRTech available.

Know how:

• Design and Development of Websites/Microsites/Landing Pages: with knowledge of frontend UI/UX/CMS and backend server side (AWS/Godaddy/etc.). Gather knowhow of how CMS - Content Management Systems work (Wordpress, Joomla, Adobe Engagement Manager, Sitecore, Oracle etc.)
• Content Marketing Works - everything depends on how you use your creative brain to build campaigns. Plan the content calendar in advance and know how to measure your content's RoI.
• Search Marketing Works - SEO / SEM - Search is an integral part of the media plan. Start with KW research, narrow it down to universe relevant to your industry vertical and then create an on-page and off-page SEO strategy.
• Social Media Marketing Works: From the Big5 (LinkedIn/Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/YouTube) to Community Engagements
• Display Advertising Works: Programmatic Media Buying
• Mobile advertising works
• User Nurturing Works: Email, Re-Targeting/Re-Marketing, Lead Scoring
• Employer Review Sites work: A must (period). From Glassdoor to Kununu to Ambition Box to Indeed to a plethora of sites should be part of your online reputation management #ORM strategy. Cover it all in a phased manner, from important generic ones like Glassdoor to industry and location specific digital platforms.
• and finally, know how Web Analytics works - custom dashboards- with relevant metrics and insights. As they say, a strategy is as good as its execution. And the only way to know if you executed well is track number. What's growth hacking otherwise?

Most importantly - Know how A/B testing works. As Mr. Bezos said, "its not about what's going to change in next 10 years. It's about what's not going to change in next 10 years". Being cognizant of the direction of the change that is for sure going to stay stable. No body is going to say they would work for less compensation. Or how many would say that they'd love to work for long hours. Or how many would come and say they don't have any location preference. Hence keep challenging status quo, keep building new strategies and keep testing.

TALENT ACQUISITION:

A) Know the basics of Workforce / Capacity planning and how its aligned with business goals

B) Various talent acquisition / hiring models employed to reach the planned goals

C) The Sourcing Mix: Referrals, Recruitment Marketing (Social Media, Career Site, Career Fairs/Events), Agency Support, Job Boards, etc.

D) Recruitment Metrics (MIS) per Source and Model: Number of Candidate Sourced, Qualified Leads, Time to Hire, Funnel Effectiveness, Interview to Offer Ratio, Offer Acceptance Rate, Offer to Joiner Ratio, Quality of Hire, Cost per Hire (CPH), Diversity Metrics,

E) the HR TechStack - ATS, Sourcing, Screening, Assessment, Onboarding, Engagement

FEW OTHER 'GOOD TO HAVE' THINGS:

A) Stakeholders management - if you really want to deliver!

Employer Branding as a function has gained it's importance since only a few years now and while it evolves, it's taking its time for various internal and external stakeholders are learning the need to collaborate (and not work in silos or feel that one is stepping on another's foot). As always, the trick is honest transparency.

• Internal - Simply because the marked boundaries of these techheads (Marketing and HR/Talent Acquisition) are now merged, as an employer branding professional you need to wear both hats. As a HR guy/girl, understand that the employee advocacy programs can be the best source for content that can build the Employer Branding / Recruitment Marketing campaigns authenticating the EVP (employee value proposition) of a brand to the outside world that you aim to bring in. Hence you need to build rapport and work with multiple teams - employee engagement, internal communications team, HRBPs, CSR, D&I, Learning and Development and last but not the least, talent acquisition (your sales guys).
• External - Agencies - both marketing and staffing. Trust me it's a circus and you need to get your feet wet to manage the ups and downs of the game:

1. Marketing agencies - to work around the calendars for content, copy, creative design, digital asset development for every campaign (organic and paid) while metrics tracking and optimization is on.
2. Staffing agencies (RPO/Contingency/MSPs/Hybrid/Project/Time & Material/...) engagement to be aligned with organization's goals. This lot is an extention of your recruitment/talent acquisition team and represent your organization's brand as first touch point. Make sure they're equipped with the right assets/resources.

B) Branding v/s Performance Marketing - While you need to reach as many audiences as possible in the most relevant way, and keep brand engagement always on to win the game of cream-of-the-talent wanting to join the brand, you must ensure that you stay in the game. And that can only happen when you keep the engine humming by consistently meet the hiring numbers.

And that's where this becomes exciting. Simply because it boils down to the supply v/s demand gap. With the talent crunch that tech sector faces today, and knowing all sizes are fishing from the same pond, the need for recruiting capable talent who are business ready in minimal time and retaining them is the ultimate necessity.?

Game on!

Worth reading:

• ReThinking Employer Branding
• Employee Value Proposition (EVP) can save up to $13 million a year