Your employer brand is more than just a logo or a catchy slogan.
Rather, it’s how candidates perceive you as a potential employer.
It’s their perception of your workplace culture. Your mission and values. The employee experience. Glassdoor reviews. Your reputation as an employer.
And it contributes a lot more to attracting top talent than you might think.
Here are some of the key reasons your employer brand is so crucial for attracting today’s top talent.
As well as five ways to build yours.
How does your employer brand help you attract top talent?
Your employer brand is crucial in helping you attract today’s top talent. Here are six reasons why.
- Attract more high-quality and qualified talent – Companies with a strong employer brand get 50% more qualified applicants than those that don’t. Building your employer brand is a great way to attract the right people—and filter out the wrong ones.
- Gain a competitive advantage – When a candidate is faced with two very similar job offers, more often than not, employer brand is the final deciding factor. In that way, building your employer brand can give you a significant advantage over your competitors.
- Build your employer reputation – A huge 78% of candidates will look into your company’s reputation before even considering applying for a role. So, you need to make a great first impression before you’ve even met with your potential candidate.
- Showcase your company culture – 88% of millennials believe it’s “very important” to join a company with the right culture, while 79% will examine your mission and purpose before they apply. So, show them what your company values and believes in.
- Decrease cost per hire – Spend less time and money on recruitment, as candidates already know who you are and want to work with you. In fact, a great employer brand can decrease your cost per hire by 43%.
- Attract passive candidates – Building your employer brand is a great way to capture the attention of passive candidates who aren’t actively looking for a new role. If you can raise awareness of your company and get them interested in working for you before a relevant role comes up, they’re then more likely to apply when one does.
5 ways to build your employer brand
You can’t build your employer brand overnight. But you can take small and consistent steps towards building it over time.
Here are five actionable ways to start building your employer brand.
1. Define your culture
If you can’t define your culture, you can’t share it.
So, the first step to building your employer brand is defining who you are, what kind of employer you are to work for and what kind of workplace environment you can offer.
This involves a mix of internal brainstorming with core departments and surveying your employees to ascertain:
- Key brand attributes
- What employees think of you as an employer
- Your company values and mission and how they manifest in everyday operations
- Desired attitudes and behaviours
- Work environments and styles
Once you’ve put these together, you can start to outline who you are as a business and what it’s like to work with you.
The great thing about this exercise is that not only does it give you the tools to attract the right people, but also a definition of your culture that you can now measure and assess candidates against to determine cultural suitability.
2. Develop an employee value proposition (EVP)
Your employee value proposition (EVP) is a unique set of benefits and values that you offer to your employees that go beyond just a paycheck.
This includes elements like:
- Career development opportunities
- Hybrid, remote or flexible working
- Commitment to work-life balance
- Recognition and awards programmes
- Perks like unlimited holiday and paid gym memberships
- Community engagement opportunities
- Company culture
If you want to build a compelling EVP, surveying your existing employees is the best place to start.
Find out what makes them tick. That is, what they value the most about working with you. What motivates them. What they want or need from you as an employer that you might not currently offer.
From there, you can build an EVP statement that’s tailor-made for the candidates you want to attract.
3. Communicate your brand
There’s no point in building your employer brand if nobody ever sees or hears about it. So, you should consistently communicate your brand in your interactions with the general public.
That includes communicating your brand not only on your website, job descriptions, and direct communications like emails, but also on social media platforms like LinkedIn.
In fact, a huge 79% of people use social media in their job hunt, so it’s the ideal platform to build your reputation as a great place to work.
Start by sharing employee testimonials, accomplishments and success stories, as well as work you’re doing in your community and behind-the-scenes content that showcases what it’s like to work with your company. And above all, be authentic.
4. Provide a first-class candidate experience
An essential part of solidifying your company as a great place to work is by providing an exceptional candidate experience.
That means each candidate’s journey needs to be a positive one from start to finish—from their initial interaction with you to their final interview and onboarding.
Here are a few ways to achieve that:
- Write a compelling and informative careers page on your website that highlights your career development and progression routes
- Make the initial application stage as easy and seamless as possible (nobody wants to spend hours filling out their education and job experience sections)
- Highlight your EVP and company culture in all job listings
- Be transparent and outline what candidates can expect from the process
- Consistently keep candidates informed about their progress
- Provide feedback at each interview stage
- Respond to questions and concerns quickly and positively
- Always give candidates a date and time that they’ll hear back from you
- If you choose not to progress and application, take the time to explain why
The real value in providing a positive candidate experience is that you make it as easy and seamless as possible for the right people to apply to work with you.
5. Encourage employee advocacy
Finally, your most trustworthy broadcasters are your employees.
Candidates are always going to believe the words of your employees over your carefully curated marketing copy. That’s why employer review sites like Glassdoor are so popular during the job search.
So, encourage employee advocacy by asking them to leave honest reviews on sites like Glassdoor, Indeed and The Job Crowd, as well as share authentic updates on their day-to-day roles, accomplishments and career development successes on social media sites like LinkedIn.
This will help candidates connect with your company and get a real taste of what their day-to-day lives would look like if they worked with you.
Nurture employee advocates and retain top talent long-term with Talent OS. Learn more here.
Build your employer brand with Talent OS Attract
Talent OS Attract is a specialist recruitment service designed to help you understand and define your business culture, build your employer brand and consistently attract high-quality, qualified applicants.
So you can find and hire the talent your business needs to grow.
Image source: Adobestock By MP Studio
