There’s always a company whose brand we admire. Now, each recruiter is prone to taking a sneak peek and thinking of ways to unlock the key to their success. Is it their culture and values or a secret pact with some spellcaster that makes them so magnetic? Well, the awesome truth is – with a bit of a retouch to your recruitment and employer brand efforts, you can do it too. And that’s all the hocus-pocus you could possibly need.
Every successful talent hunter is something of a sourcer and enchanter. They come up with fresh recipes, mix things up a little, and reach the ultimate goal: become a recruitment and employer branding specialist. But which steps do they take? What must they learn, adapt, and implement? Let’s see some of the best and tested practices that will ensure positive results!
What is (good) employer branding?
All things that are labeled as branding are somehow synonymous with marketing. Still, there is a bit more to it (where “a bit” is actually an understatement). Forget about spending hours brainstorming and scheduling infinite one-on-ones with a designer to make the perfect logo. Today’s market doesn’t really care that much about it. Now, the focus has shifted. So, what do you need to grasp about good employer branding?
EB is the way the world sees your company. And there are several key elements that make a company stand out from the rest. Firstly, you can tell an excellent firm by its core values and culture. Then, there’s a matter of the employee benefits they offer. Indeed, superb employee experience is something that greatly impacts how the market will perceive an organization. And lastly, honesty, transparency, and practicing what one preaches helps them stay relevant, appealing, and known as a team top talent would gladly choose.
Still, none of these perks that enable companies to be noticed and praised can become visible by themselves. All of the good deeds and excellent practices must be reflected in recruitment and talent acquisition strategies and social media presence, website, career pages, and more. So, the best way to boost a brand is to recognize what makes you unique, create a clear strategy, and promote your values, mission, and vision through multiple channels – and your own actions.
Is employer branding a part of recruitment?
Regardless of whether you choose to hire a recruitment agency or set up an internal department dedicated to spotting, enticing, and hiring talents, they will represent your company in public. And it is up to them to make it seem effortless, plus kind of down-to-Earth, with just a hint of delight and gratification. It sounds abstract, but it’s quite straightforward. And helping candidates view your company the way they do is what a great recruiter does.
Now, according to Glassdoor, 75% of job seekers would actually apply for a role if they’ve recognized a brand as well-known and respected. Also, more than 80% of recruiters can testify that their roles are more and more inclining toward marketing and EB. So, if you’re struggling to distinguish the fine line between these two areas, it’s because they’re truly inseparable.
Building and refining candidate experience starts by being completely aware of the hiring need you’re looking to fulfill. Then, it is expected that you come up with an excellently composed, brief, concise, yet captivating job description. So, these initial points of contact can make or break your recruiting efforts and strategies. And recruiters are the ones who can turn candidates into brand ambassadors! Organized interviews, pleasant communication, timely feedback, industry knowledge, and objectivity can place your business right where you want it.
What is the role of employer branding in recruitment?
Here’s another mind-blowing stat: more than 50% of surveyed job seekers and passive candidates have stated that they’d never accept a job offer from a company with a bad reputation. Now, this is the astonishing part – they wouldn’t consider it even if the offer entailed a substantial increase in pay. Although competitive salaries and financial incentives do mean a lot, their significance falls flat when there’s a negative aura around a brand.
So, the true role of EB in recruiting and hiring processes is to ensure that the best talents won’t run for the hills when you reach out to them. Or label your recruiters as spam or whatever cool kids do these days. You got the picture. On the contrary – smart firms rely on their branding to draw professional and skilled candidates and retain them. Plus, it goes both ways. A trusted and knowledgeable recruitment agency will secure your branding strategies and add a dash of freshness to them. The same goes for crafty in-house talent hunters. Choose wisely and/or educate your staff. Teach them about marketing & promote honesty, consistency, transparency, and regular skill boosting.
Basic terms: Recruitment marketing and employer branding
So, what have we learned so far? First, the employer brand stands for the way that employees and candidates see your company. Knowing that, we can tell the difference between EB and recruitment marketing. This part applies to the process of showing your company and its appearance to the target audience. In this case, your selected audience is the talents you want onboard. Therefore, you need to begin the journey by defining your brand prior to engaging in any further recruiting efforts and actions.
Recruitment marketing: Key points
So, how does it work? This section of marketing efforts and actions that enhance brand awareness can be done through various channels, activities, and means. Here are some examples of rec marketing done well:
- Writing and sharing expert blogs and dazzling articles to entertain, educate, and motivate your audience,
- Optimizing career pages and keeping them fresh, searchable, and visible to job seekers,
- Relying on social media recruiting tactics and keeping all company profiles updated, optimized, and useful to potential new hires.
The articles, news, photos, and videos you distribute can help searchers spot your firm. If the content you tend to promote suits their sensibilities – you’ve got yourself a new ambassador or two! Some tips & tricks, how-tos, and similar text + graphics you post can become a fail-proof tactic to captivate the interest of the crowd you actually seek.
Get ready: Here’s the easy way to boost your brand & enhance recruiting efforts
Now that we have covered some ways rec marketing is linked to EB and how the two influence each other, we’ll get into more specifics. Let’s get a few extra insights into each step that will secure brand advocates and attract new applicants.
Write and distribute engaging & helpful blog posts
You don’t need to become a content writer to recognize the tremendous potential well-written blogs have. These posts can help you present your team and their skills, knowledge, interests, and work. That way, you can attract eager and qualified candidates. Moreover, these blogs will validate your current employees, showing that their achievements are admired.
Start by choosing the topics carefully. Write about the things you (and the team) are actually good at. In addition, make sure that these subjects match your target crowd’s field of interest as well. Then, aim to make it both personal and professional. Don’t stray far from your company culture and masteries, but offer some amazing insights that will have your readers hooked and ready to learn more.
While you’re at it, you might develop some new skills as well. Also, it will help you form long-term bonds with candidates.
Optimize your careers page & attract candidates
Like we said, job descriptions are more than important. However, if your career page isn’t the way it’s supposed to be, you won’t succeed as planned. So, location is the first point to keep in mind. Have this page no more than one click away from the home page. Then, don’t let mobile users slip from your mind. Optimize it to enhance their experience. And FAQ is a section you will most definitely want to add. Aside from that, feel free to post photos and videos to this part of your site. Let viewers get to know your team.
Create smart and effective social media strategies
Choose your channels! You can go for the proven ones, and you can also experiment and mix it up. Detecting sources that drive most traffic and conversions is paramount. But don’t be afraid to explore and see if other mediums can help. Also, try to nail your aims by following these steps:
- Build and monitor your company’s online reputation
- Respond to comments
- Encourage employees to share posts on social media
- Join LinkedIn and Facebook groups and be active
- Share quality content of various types and formats
- Reposting others content
- Perfect your campaign by using paid ads
- Use hashtags for Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
That way, you will build a community around your company and keep them connected.
Bonus tips to turbocharge your recruitment and employer brand tactics
To steer things in the right direction, you must have a clear understanding of what you’re after. Know the perks that await on the other end and go for them! Proper recruitment and employer brand strategy and prioritizing will take you there. And so will the general concern for your teammates and prospective colleagues.
Make EB an essential part of your HR strategy
Building a rock-solid EB strategy must become a long-term agenda. And if you’re determined to succeed, you can’t see it as a temporal thought. Prioritize it with your team and make it a key component of your overall HR strategy. But first, you have to know the benefits. So, how does employer brand help recruitment? A well-established (and regularly reviewed & refined) EB helps recruiters – a lot! Are you wondering in what way? Well, it can enhance multiple fields and ease various tasks and processes. Here are the main aspects it will advance:
- Attracting more skilled applicants,
- Appealing to qualified passive candidates,
- Seeming more trustworthy and building a community,
- Affecting employee retention in the best way.
In other words – you will have a bigger talent pool and a more engaged network. The good word will follow you, which will get you introduced to even more experienced industry experts in the long run. This way, you will improve the recruitment process and its results by improving all relevant metrics. Sourcing and hiring will take less time, and their costs will also drop. And lastly, your current employees will feel better about their workplace. By enhancing the entire procedure of recruiting and welcoming new members, you will also improve employee experience and engagement and lower the turnover rate.
Keep your candidates & employees happy
And so we get back to the famous recruiter’s phrases and spheres of interest – employee experience and candidate experience. Both are immeasurably significant. So, how to nail both aspects?
Candidates seek transparency above all. Be honest, don’t oversell, and let the communication flow properly and in two ways. Personalize the process from start to finish. Be sure to send inviting and informative messages if you’re recruiting them. The same rule goes for applicants. Then, follow up, send regular feedback, and consider their schedules whenever you’re booking an interview. Also, be sure to negotiate the salary fairly early in the process so that there are no surprises in the later stages.
Now, specific benefits and development plans will make employees and potential hires happy. Promote your employees and speak up about the importance of knowledge sharing and career growth. These are just a few proven patterns to embrace. Feel free to explore and do what works best for you.
These simple yet clever recruitment and employer branding strategies can bring stunning results!
Remember: the recruitment process and employer brand are inseparable! One simply can’t work well if the other is off. That’s why you need to teach and engage an entire team of recruiters and work toward this mutual goal. And if you need a reliable and super skilled recruitment agency, you know where to find one!
