Getting and maintaining the interest of potential new hires is essential to the success of your company. If you want the business to grow, thrive, and adapt easily to change, you need to find the talent that perfectly fits the company’s goals. This is essential for improving an employer brand.
In the current job market, this is easier said than done. Job hunters know they have options and are quick to move on to new opportunities that better fit their values, preferences, and long-term career goals.
To keep candidates interested and engaged in the hiring process, HR managers need to build a strong employer brand. Voluntary turnover is expected to reach 35% in 2023 so companies need to start paying attention to this now.
As with any branding, the goal is to keep the target audience engaged and inspire them to take action. Having a strong employer brand means your candidates will be waiting by the phone for you to call them, instead of looking for better opportunities than the one in front of them.
In this blog post, we’re going to outline some of the best ways HR Managers can build a strong employer brand. By implementing these steps, you’ll be able to keep candidates engaged and excited about the prospect of working with you, giving you your top choice in talent.
Researching and Analyzing Your Current Employer Brand
Before diving into a new brand strategy, the HR team should take the time to research and analyze your current employer brand work.
The research and analysis of your current employer brand can be done by:
Conducting surveys with current and former employees
Analyzing exit interview notes
Conducting feedback sessions with employees
Reviewing the company’s social media presence (like LinkedIn)
Analyzing online review sites (like Glassdoor)
By doing this research, you should already be able to identify some clear areas for improvement within your employer brand.
Researching your competitors’ employer brands should provide even more clarity on how you can stand out as a company among candidates. Be intentional with analyzing where candidates are interviewing for positions similar to yours.
Your goal in analyzing your competitors should be to:
Identify strengths and weaknesses in competitors
Find areas for differentiation (how can you stand out?)
Capitalize on a unique selling point that separates you from your competitors
Developing an employer brand should be as thorough and intentional as the rest of your company branding. You wouldn’t embark on a new branding project without doing research, analysis, and planning, so don’t ignore the data when it comes to crafting your employer brand.
5 Ways to Build a Strong Employer Brand
Once your research and analysis are completed, you should have a clear idea of what changes need to be made in order to attract your ideal candidates. Follow these steps to create a flawless brand that keeps candidates engaged.
1. Creating a compelling Employee Value Proposition (EVP)
Creating or updating your Employee Value Proposition should be a priority in enhancing your employer brand. After researching your competitors, you should have a clear idea of how you can go above and beyond in communicating your EVP to candidates.
Defining the company culture, values, and key benefits of working for you can help reduce employee turnover, improve profits, and provide a satisfactory work experience.
Keep in mind that, while you’re looking at your candidate’s hard and soft skills, your EVP needs to offer the same variety of benefits as well.
A strong EVP should outline offers like compensation, benefits packages, healthcare, etc. You should also include information about employee satisfaction, career growth trajectory, and cultural satisfaction from working at your company.
Creating an in-depth and user-friendly EVP is a crucial aspect of keeping candidates engaged during the hiring process because it can help them visualize what it’s like working with you.
2. Develop Consistent Brand Messaging
After you’ve created a thorough Employee Value Proposition, get creative and consistent in communicating it across all channels.
This means that your messaging is consistent across all job boards, social media, websites, and recruitment channels. By consistently communicating your EVP, you can ensure that your message is reaching your target audience and resonating with them.
Consistency in messaging helps create a sense of trust for your candidates. When they know they’ll be guided through the hiring process with ease, it makes it easier to keep them engaged with your company.
This is a great opportunity to create a style guide for your brand as well. A style guide will help you create strong and consistent wording, messaging, and advertising when you’re recruiting for a new position. Following a strong style guide will also help your listing stand out among a sea of generic listings for similar positions.
3. Build a Strong Online Presence
Building a strong online presence is essential to have an edge in today’s competitive job market.
One of your top priorities should be developing a user-friendly career page on your website. This page should easily guide interested candidates to which positions are hiring and additional resources to get to know your company better.
Additionally, HR managers should be using social media to share company news, showcase employee success stories, and promote job openings. By posting engaging and informative content, you can attract potential candidates and keep your current employees engaged.
Leveraging the experience of your current employees online is a great way to strengthen your online presence. Share the experience of your current employees on social media through text, video, or testimonials.
If you want to take it a step further, you can offer incentives to employees who want to consistently engage with platforms like LinkedIn, and help improve their own profiles. This is a great tactic in case any potential candidates reach out to current employees for referrals.
4. Foster Employee Advocacy
Your current employees are your company’s most valuable asset, and they can be powerful advocates for your employer brand.
HR managers should strive to make sure current employees are strong brand ambassadors. For this reason, be sure you foster a positive work culture and provide opportunities for professional development and growth.
By investing in your employees, you can create a culture of engagement and loyalty that will easily translate into advocacy for your company. Thorough training for the HR team is the root that will inspire this positive change in your company.
HR managers should provide consistent training and resources around your company’s brand and values. This can be accomplished with a workshop or retreat at least once a quarter. Online training has made it easy to provide training that will help make teams stronger or build a positive work culture.
By investing in employee development, you can ensure that your employees are sharing consistent messaging.
Be sure to include guidelines around communicating your company’s mission, vision, and values, both online and offline. By providing this messaging regularly, you’ll ensure that your current employees are living testimonials of your employer brand.
Social media can be a powerful tool for employee advocacy as well. HR managers can provide guidelines for their employees on sharing their experiences on social media. This can include sharing photos and stories about company events, highlighting accomplishments and milestones, and providing insights into their day-to-day work.
To encourage employees to share their experiences, you can provide incentives or done-for-you messaging to make it easy for them to participate.
5. Partner with Relevant Organizations
If you’re ready to outperform the competition in developing your employer brand, bring other relevant organizations into partnership with your company.
By partnering with industry organizations, local schools and universities, community initiatives, and nonprofits, you’ll be able to get your brand in front of more potential partners and candidates.
The organizations you choose to partner with will be an extension of your values as a company. By showing how you’re involved in your industry and community, you can further strengthen the trust in your brand.
This can also be an extension of internal partnerships you bring on board, such as professional development training, DEI initiatives, and employee resource groups.
Similar to how reviews are important for promoting the work your company does, partnerships with relevant organizations help build a strong sense of trust and authority around your employer brand.
All in all, building a strong employer brand is about creating an emotional response within your candidates.
As is the case with traditional marketing and branding, people buy your product because you are meeting a need. In an employee’s market, their needs go beyond simply getting a paycheck. Employees want to align themselves with a company that matches their values, offers them growth opportunities, and provides incentives for exceptional work.
A strong employer brand will be able to create an emotional response for candidates around your company. When candidates are able to see their future with you, trust that they are taken care of, and are aligning themselves with a larger vision, they’ll stay engaged and interested throughout the entire hiring process.
This helps your company bring in a steady stream of quality candidates who are ready to align with your company and your mission.
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