
Today’s job seekers are looking for more than good pay and work-life balance. If you want to attract, hire, and retain top candidates, your company should have a strong employer brand reputation as well.
It’s important to brand your company as an employer, so that your differentiators as an employer are clearly understood and conveyed to job seekers. You have customers who purchase from your brand, but a job seeker is a kind of customer as well. Just as customers do comparison shopping, job candidates do comparison job hunting.
Employees want to belong to a company they can be proud to work for, and your employer brand reputation communicates what your culture is like, what makes you unique, and what the work environment is like.
In fact, 75 percent of job seekers consider an employer’s brand before they even apply for a job. Not only do strong employer brands reduce the costs of hiring by 50 percent, but they have lower employee turnover, higher employee engagement, and better recruiting success.
Let’s take a look at how you can build your employer brand for more effective recruiting.
Related: How to Find the Right Person When You Need to Hire Fast
Discovering Your Current Employer Brand
It’s not unusual for a company to have only a partial understanding of their employer brand. Because you see your company from an employer’s perspective and from an insider’s viewpoint, you inherently have a set of filters when you view your organization. That’s why it’s tremendously valuable to go through some exercises to understand what your employer brand truly is.
Start by asking a series of questions and talking with your current employees about why they like working at your company. Also conduct exit interviews to understand why people leave. This gives you an opportunity to discover what your culture really is like and to make changes so that it more fully aligns with your mission and values.
Go to Glassdoor and survey the reviews from past and current employees. These ratings can be a treasure trove to learn what employees value, and to understand what your public brand looks like. In my experience, it’s the best way to understand what the market thinks about your company.
A significant component of your employer brand is based on the workplace environment. I’ve worked with clients to help them understand their culture, their values, their style, and the kind of people who are the best fit — and then to use this information when crafting recruiting messages that will resonate with their ideal candidate. I help them think through the challenges and opportunities they have regarding improving a negative brand. For example:
- What kind of talent do you need?
- What kind of people do well here?
- What kind of turnover have you had?
- Why have people left your company?
This exercise can be tremendously valuable to understand what your culture is like and what type of job applicant is the best fit at your company.
Improving Your Employer Brand
When you identify what your employer brand currently is, you will probably have several things you’re proud of as well as some things you want to fix. This gives you the opportunity to strengthen your brand and to make your company more appealing to your ideal job candidates.
You may need to make internal changes to your processes and policies, your work environment, or the way you communicate with employees.