If you’ve been following our blog you will already know how important employer branding is to a company. A strong employer brand means that you have a good reputation among employees and will allow you to attract high-quality candidates, can be more selective in who you hire and potentially have a lower cost-per-hire for each new employee.
How do you get a good employer brand?
Well building a good employer brand means doing what employees want, and most employees don’t want free snacks, ping pong, or a pool table. Well they do but not as much as the idea of job security and development opportunities.
In essence, employer branding is about perception and how you as a company communicate your company’s culture and values to candidates.
So, with this in mind here are five tips that you can use to ensure your employer brand is effective for you.
Put Employees First
It may sound obvious but treating the people who work for you with respect is crucial to how your employer brand is projected. Finding and retaining good quality staff isn’t easy or cheap and what your current employees say to potential candidates about your company is key to their perception of it. Bad word of mouth is a killer for any brand but if you have employees who readily extoll the positives of your company then you have a free and effective resource for improving how people view your company.
Development and Education
Companies that build education and development opportunities into their brands will be better positioned to not only hire but keep the best candidates. One of the keys to building a strong employer brand is explaining to candidates what your company can do for them. Nobody is going to accept a position that they feel is a dead end.
Social Media Awareness
So, anyone who read my previous article on employer branding will already know how important a good social media presence is for your company. Just as you as an employer might check the social media of candidates, many candidates will now check your own social media channels before submitting an application.
It doesn’t matter which social media platform you choose or how many followers you have, what is important is that your company’s social media presence represents a type of work environment that will entice potential candidates
Be Respectful to Failed Candidates
You can’t hire everyone that applies for a job at your company but you can at least give them an experience that encourages them to reapply in the future. How many times have you interviewed say a dozen candidates for a single position and cut loose two or three that you thought might have been able to do the job just as well as the person you hired? If you are respectful to those you cut loose by sending them polite emails thanking them for their time, assuring them that you will keep their information on file, and that they will be notified if other opportunities arises in the future, you are keeping them invested in your company and making it more likely that in the future they will apply again.
Have a Referral Program
A referral program is an easy way to find good quality candidates cheaply. If you incentivize your current employers to find quality hires then you are cutting out the expensive and time-consuming process of advertising and the odds are the referred candidate will already be invested in your company based on what your current employee has told them.
As we mentioned at the top of this article, employer branding is an important factor in hiring staff and if you follow the five tips above you will find that not only do you improve your own employer branding but you attract better quality candidates in the future.
WRITTEN BY
Meery Reisi
Recruiter and client success manager. Meery’s experience in organizing talent across different industries has helped many employers and businesses improve their recruitment and hiring.
