5 Reasons to use Employer Branding in Your Talent Attraction Strategy
If the post-pandemic years are revealing anything about recruitment it's that a sense of "community" and what it means to your organization's hiring efforts is more important than ever.
Culture is the new currency when it comes to securing top talent.
Employer branding is central to your company's reputation and image as being a great place to work - by both current employees and prospective ones looking to join. In a recent study conducted by LinkedIn, over 80% of talent acquisition managers believe that Employer Branding has a significant impact on the ability to hire and retain great talent.
With digital nomads to hybrid workers - not only has the way in which we collaborate changed, but also how we search for our next job.
Conveying an authentic hiring message showing how your company fits into a person's life and their professional development is necessary during every stage of the recruitment process.
So, the challenge for companies today is how to deploy an authentic employer brand message that moves the needle from a talent search model to one that encompasses a full talent attraction strategy.
Getting this process right will boost staff retention, engagement, and, most importantly, serve as a scalable process for bringing new talent into your hiring ecosystem.
Here are 5 reasons why an employer brand strategy should be part of your recruitment process:
1) Starts the process from the inside out
One of the common misconceptions is that the same formula used for marketing an external brand - one aimed at attracting new customers - can be used to attract new hires to work within your organization.
This is not the case and so distinguishing between the two early in the recruitment process is vital as it allows your company to define the ways in which your product/service; people and customer satisfaction can all work towards creating a talent attraction message.
An Employee Value Proposition (EVP), therefore, becomes an essential part of the recruitment messaging and the ability to retain your existing hires over time and market cycles.
As Brett Minchington describes, "The EVP is an employee-centered approach aligned to workforce planning because it has been informed by existing employees and the external target audience. An EVP must be unique, relevant and compelling if it is to act as a key driver of talent attraction, engagement and retention".
2) A better candidate experience
It's not uncommon for candidates to say that they got one impression of your company from a job ad or during the interview stages, and a completely different one once they started in the role.
A disconnect between what your company says versus what it does can lead to distrust in applicants and screening the wrong type of talent into your organization.
When a unique and authentic employer brand narrative is clearly defined and evident at multiple touch points during the recruitment process, candidates get a clearer sense of who your company is and what you're all about which improves the quality of recruitment conversations.
3) Every stakeholder level gets involved
Employer branding involves every department, at every level which gives your company a chance to focus on the candidate perspective and build your hiring processes around that.
A strategy like this takes time and typically involves a combination of short term initiatives and long term campaigns.
By engaging your own people through programs such as brand ambassadorship; access to leadership thoughts & updates and employee incentive programs, getting every level involved provides a more well-rounded snapshot to candidates of your company.
In a LinkedIn article, author Jennifer Goad Cuthbertson explains how: "Engaging your employees as brand ambassadors does require ongoing effort, but the rewards are worth it. Attracting and hiring the right candidates becomes easier. Recruitment costs go down. Employee loyalty and engagement go up – and companies with high employee engagement have nearly four times the earning potential of companies that lack it."
4) Unifies your hiring message
Having a sense of ownership over your hiring narrative and what is being said about you as an employer is important - particularly, if your organization is spread across different countries and business units.
A recent study from Glassdoor revealed that 86% of HR professionals report that recruitment is becoming more like marketing as 86% of job seekers are researching a company before applying.
Having a consistent message across all teams, platforms and processes means that candidates get a clear sense of your brand through various sources and it avoids the mixed-message scenario.
5) Encourage effective employee use of social media
With work lives and personal lives becoming more important than ever, and for different reasons, your company's people and their presence on social media play an ever-increasing role in your employer brand strategy.
Encouraging the targeted use of social media by your brand ambassadors with a unified message can enhance your authenticity, timely relevance and honesty to a pool of talent looking to apply.
Laura Moss at Everyone Social explains that: "Regardless of their position — whether they’re an intern or an executive — employees on social media are a more trusted source of information than brand social accounts. This is because people are naturally more inclined to establish an authentic connection when there’s an actual human on the other end of a social post".
Developing people within your company as a trusted extension of your recruitment plans adds another layer to your hiring strategy and ways to connect to the candidate market.
Jonathan Rebeiro, Director
Waterbridge Solutions
P +44 (0)7547 166060 E info@waterbridge-solutions.com
Interested to learn how Waterbridge can help with your recruitment and branding?