Employer Branding: What, How and Everything in Between

There is a change of preference in the sources of reviews of the best talents. Employer branding has prevailed over how candidates prioritize their dream companies. Candidates now prefer Glassdoor reviews and social media sites over Amazon reviews to learn the essence of the company.

The employer brand is here to stay for a long time.

Imagine this, you are a highly talented and experienced professional, and you know your worth. So what would be your first step while looking for a new job? You would probably end up doing a Google search for the best companies to work for in 2020, or something like that.

Has no sense? With talented millennials entering the workforce, a generous salary isn't the only criteria you should consider as an employer. They want a great place to work and the associated brand image needs to be high too.

In fact, 86% of job seekers would not prefer to work for a company with bad reviews, regardless of salary.

What is Employer Branding?
 
In short, it is about projecting and differentiating the image of your company as desirable to the main job seekers.

In a more simplified version, it is marketing. It is not about products or services, but about your company to job seekers and internal employees as well.

A positive brand image helps you recruit the best talent in the industry and helps you retain your current employees.

But employers often make the mistake of correlating the employer's brand with the brand itself, the brand associated with products or services.

Suppose a job seeker asks an employee of a company about the work culture. Will she talk about the brand's products and services?

Definitely not!

Instead, you would delve into company culture, work-life balance, company core values, and so on. A great story would help to ensure a strong employer brand.

But it goes far beyond ordinary narrative and superficialities. It would be helpful if you sat on the ground. Telling potential talent or general job seekers that your company is a great place to work because providing free food is not going to carry the message home.
Instead, you would delve into company culture, work-life balance, company core values, and so on. A great story would help to ensure a strong employer brand.

But it goes far beyond ordinary narrative and superficialities. It would be helpful if you sat on the ground. Telling potential talent or general job seekers that your company is a great place to work because providing free food is not going to carry the message home.

Employer branding strategy

A good employer branding agency strategy is crucial to your business. It helps you lower your hiring costs, reduce attrition, and get the best practical talent. The way it works is simple: attract, engage and retain.

The first step should be to create a unique but effective employer branding strategy.


  1. Company culture


There have been countless examples in the business world where extraordinary marketing fails.

Take the example of Snuggie (supposedly an inferior and outrageous product), which was endorsed by various marketing campaigns. They ended up selling more than 20 million blankets in 2009. But this story doesn't have a happy ending.

People finally understood that they had a very inferior product. Soon its sales figures plummeted.

Good marketing can only take you so far. The quality of your products or services must live up to expectations.

Before you get seriously involved in employer branding, you must first develop a superior company culture and an engaged workforce. A strong employer brand is meaningless unless you have something substantial to back it up.

It would be helpful to check all the boxes when it comes to great company culture.

Employee rewards, proper recognition, employee value proposition benefits and perks, medical benefits, and proper leadership are some of the areas in which you want to excel.


  1. Values and mission of the corporate brand


This is a great place to start and effective too. People are now more aware of how their work will affect the general public.

Now more than ever, investing in identifying and developing your company's mission statement, values, and culture is essential.
People want to work in an organization whose brand inspires respect and positively impacts its environment.

It also helps your company understand your business needs.
Through this, you can connect the dots by looking back by identifying the type of talent required. It makes the onboarding process so much easier when you can recognize the right talent.

Take the example of Tata Steel's mission statement: "We aspire to be the global benchmark in the steel industry for value creation and corporate citizenship."

A compelling statement for employee experience design like this tells a fascinating story for job seekers and employees as well. They are also selling the idea of the experience of working for a global company and continuous learning.
In addition to mission statements, having an active blog post on your domain helps a lot. Your brand gets visibility and also helps attract potential customers and clients.


  1. Brand surveys


It is essential to have a clear idea of how your brand is perceived among job applicants and your internal employees.

This will give you a rough idea of the amount of effort you require to put into your employer branding campaign. In addition to that, you will get to know the particular cultures that people appreciate.

The key here is to conduct surveys, both internal and external.

These surveys can be done on social media sites or by emailing candidates directly.

Also, you should check websites like Glassdoor to monitor reviews.
If the surveyor's research results are not satisfactory, you can employ outside help in the form of a company that manages proper brand monitoring.


  1. The career page


Think about the last time you wanted to change jobs to the company of your dreams. What official website was the first thing you did?

Of course, you checked their racing section!

Therefore, it is quite evident that the career page for candidate experience design of your website should be fluid and easy to navigate. Besides that, you need to optimize your website for mobile device users.

94% of job seekers first check the job listing on their phone.

50% of job seekers complete their applications on mobile.

47% of top talent have difficulty navigating the website on their mobile phone.

The best time to optimize your website for the smartphone was 8 years ago. The next best time is now.

In addition to having a great corporate culture, people want to work for a tech-savvy company. Facilitates the acquisition of talent. Don't hesitate to make this investment for the long term.


  1. Value proposition for the employer / Value proposition for the employee


An extension of the previous point, the employer's value proposition must be clearly mentioned on your website.

What is an employer value proposition you ask?

EVP (Employer Value Proposition) simply stands for the benefits and rewards you bring to your employees.

It is just the answer to the question "Why should I choose our organization?"

Most companies make the mistake of not showing enough of their employer's value proposition in their conversations and follow-ups. Some companies don't even mention their EVP on their website! This


  1. Delete JD


No, we are not talking about Jack Daniels here!

A clear job description is imperative for efficient hiring. An unclear JD often leads to a frustrating onboarding process and increases employee turnover.

Just think about employer brand workshop, all the effort to bring superior talent on board will be wasted if you end up losing the employee due to an unclear job description.


  1. Provide testimonials and credibility


Everyone can write about your stellar employer value proposition, benefits, and perks. But do they mean anything without the testimonials and the credibility of the statements?

Stories about employees and their experiences regarding design campus programs culture present your company in a really great way. This helps get the message across that your company is a great place to work.


  1. Application interface


60% of job applicants quit in the middle of the application process due to the complexity of the form.

Companies think that completing an application form takes less than an hour. 60% of job applicants take more than 3 hours.

Do you see what we are trying to say here?

These are outrageous statistics! Just think of the effort you're putting in to onboard top talent, only to lose more than â…” of applicants. That too in the preliminary stage!

The key here is to make your application process as simple as possible.

Let's take Bain and Company as an example. Not only is his career page very attractive, but also his application process, for a role as complex as a consultant, is very simple.

But let's talk about the elephant in the room!

Won't dedicated job seekers be motivated enough to go through a demanding application process? A difficult application process will weed out the insincere.

Actually, that doesn't reflect the main problem here. The creamy layer of talented candidates has a lot on its plate and checklists. They often have more than one option ready to explore.

Top talent won't even bother exploring a difficult application process.


  1. Blog posts


When Seth Godin said, "Content marketing was all the marketing that was left," he was largely right.

Blog posts act as a medium for exchanging ideas and educating consumers about your area of expertise. It is also becoming a very crucial area for talent acquisition.

Candidates generally view a job as another great financial investment. They want to investigate it, know the trinkets and everything else.

Having blog posts about your area of expertise ensures that a business is well suited to that domain. It gives job seekers a sense of pride to be associated with the industry expert.

Finally
All said and done, there is a crucial part that you should know. That is having a human touch in all the endeavors you make.

Anything that is mechanical and forced will not be effective for your satisfaction.

Personalized follow-up emails and onboarding work wonders for attracting top talent. What are your opinions on it?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *