What is Employer Branding

Everything is about the right image nowadays. If you want to sell something and you want to sell it fast, you need to make it alluring.

You need to shape a product or service in a way that will be memorable and unique. Even more, it is great if you can make your product or service recognizable.

When you see that little crooked apple on a smartphone, you know that’s Apple, right? Because you know their logo.

Moreover, you probably know their values and story behind their success, right? The chances are that you even know about famous Golden circles.

You see, you know about them because they shared their story across the globe in most unique ways and using most conventional and unexpected forms of communication.

Most importantly, Apple has built a brand, which everyone wants to try.

Also, everyone wants to be part of their culture and explore how they do things, how they change the world.

One of the ways to do this, to make a company recognizable is to use employer branding to your advantage.

However, to understand how employer branding really works and how it can help you boost your operations and business overall, you should know precisely what employer branding is.

EMPLOYER BRANDING EXPLAINED IN A NUTSHELL

Some companies are real badasses when it comes to hiring A-list talents. They make it look so easy. Take McKinsey or KONE for example.

They are both leaders in their industries, and they are regularly one of the students most favorite companies to work. What they have that others don’t? They have a fantastic employer branding.

Everyone wants to be in their circles, and everyone wants to say how they are KONE or McKinsey employees.

Therefore companies, regardless of their size, that attract over and over the best talent, actually do one thing right – Employer branding. They know what it is, and most importantly, they know how to use it.

This is employer branding in a nutshell:

1. Employer branding promotes your identity
2. It makes you stand out
3. Makes your company more competitive
4. Enables attracting top candidates
5. Keeps the good reputation of your company

HOW EMPLOYER BRANDING CAN HELP YOUR BUSINESS

This should be straight-forward actually. Do you want to work in a mediocre company or a good company? Or do you want to lead a good company or a bad company?

If you just opt for the second option in both cases, and you are a business owner, then you should think about changing your career.

Moreover, you should think about working for someone and getting a job. If you opt for the first option, then you know that excellent reputation matters.

Moreover, you are ready to admit that you prefer to hear good about yourself.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of globally recognized Amazon, once said – “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.”

So, if you are still here reading this – CONGRATULATION! You are on a good path of owning employer branding philosophy. Being willing to hear bad and good about your business in everything in today’s competitive market.

This is how a company develops, grows, and becomes global competitors. Readiness to change is what brings value to customers, workers, and consumers.

Still, how can employer branding help your business?

First of all, employer branding can actually help your company be seen as a fantastic place to work. You see, people want more today. Especially young professionals.

They want to work in great offices, to have a balance between professional and private life, and they want a team-driven work atmosphere, supported with great benefits and opportunity to grow.

As a reasonable next step, they expect their employees to invest in them. They hope to grow professionally because they are hungry for professional improvement.

So, if you present your company as a place where both younger and older professionals can:

• Learn
• Engage
• Solve problems
• Test their skills
• Multiple their knowledge
• Experience leadership positions, and
• Collect feedback on their work

If you can offer everything listed above and more, then your company just made a significant step in the best company to work in.

You need to place employer branding right. This means that you must optimize marketing in the service of your company’s brand.

You need to be action-driven and present your company as an employee of free choice by merely crafting a positive image, or reputation, and showing just how excellent your company is.

If you believe that your company is a great place to work in, you should confirm that.

This is even more important today, in the era of globalization and digitalization, where the local market rose to a global level.

Companies are no longer competing with the next city company. No, they are competing on a worldwide scale.

Are you selling software for customer support? You need to bear in mind that your software might be used in companies based in New York, Toronto, Montreal, Paris, Melbourne, Prague, and so on.

So, what would inspire a fresh Bachelor holder or a professional with an experience to approach your company?

• Good salary?
• Good working hours?
• Incredible benefits?
• Team-driven culture?
• Extraordinary perks and mind-blowing team building?
• Great reputation?
• Quick selection processes?
• Online presence?

The truth is – all of that. Every single thing that your company does, matters a lot. Employer branding is essential because it’s a long-standing concept.

In a way, its a long process of promoting a company, or an organization, as the employer of choice.

What does an employer of choice mean exactly? This means that your company is so well-known that people come to you. Simply said, they want you to hire them. They want you to grow together.

Most importantly, you get to choose.

Attracting talent is a difficult job. Companies are sometimes so desperate – yes, desperate, that they will hire anyone just to kick off the project.

In some rare cases, this can be a win-win situation. In other cases, it’s usually a slip for a disaster.

Are you passionate about selling products with zero plastics?

Great!

People who prefer zero waster lifestyle will hear it, appreciate it, connect with your values, and apply.

Moreover, they will tell friends who will say to their friends with exact or similar values, and so on.

In no time, you will get the best candidates. You will get people who share your vision.

That is something that no strategy in the world can do without employer branding. So, how to create the right employer branding strategy?

EMPLOYER BRANDING STRATEGY

You may have the best product in the world, but in today’s world, that means nothing.

It means nothing if you don’t have the right people to promote, sell, and overall support that product or service. Otherwise, without people, you have just an idea.

So, in order to have the best people for the best product or service, companies must compete. This means that an employee today has more options to choose from. As a result, recruiters are fighting viciously about great candidates.

Moreover, they are probably willing to cross their fists for the senior candidate and above-the-average professionals. Employer branding is not a new science, not a freshly shaped philosophy. No; employer branding has been existing forever.

The thing is that companies started talking about it just recently. No, finally, they see it as a tool, and not only as a ‘word of mouth.’

Since employer branding is so essential in the competitive world, everybody is promoting and working on their employer branding. So, how to stand out among other companies? Using the right strategy, normally!

Here is how to create, lead, and implement a great employer branding strategy for exceptional business results.

CREATING EFFICIENT EMPLOYER BRANDING STRATEGY

Just like with any other strategy, the key to this strategy is to have a clear goal.

• How many potential employees do you want to attract?
• Do you want to hire someone or only to collect contacts?
• Do you want to improve your company’s reputation, or you just want to strengthen your brand?

Whatever the reason might be, make sure that you have a clear goal set.

Did you know that HR professionals usually see employer branding as the ultimate hey to their overall strategy and goals? This is how vital employer branding is.

Now, once you know what your goal is, you need to understand that not everything, if anything, can be controlled when it comes to employer branding.

Companies can do their best, send the right messages, and use the proper channels. However, they can’t control one thing – what people think and talk about your company.

This is something that will always happen, no matter how good your strategy is.

People will always talk. No matter how good your company is, how amazing the workplace is, and how awesome your perks are, there will always be someone who is not impressed.

Besides, there will always be those who are, so have that on your mind, as well. Your only solution is to work hard and go toward high results.

TOP FIVE AREAS TO USE FOR IMPRESSIVE EMPLOYER BRANDING

There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to building a good employer branding. However, certain things can be done in every industry, and so far, they have confirmed impressive reactions and actions.

That being said, let’s see the top five areas that you should never neglect if you are serious about employer branding strategy are.

Careers Site

Millennials are hunting their jobs online, in most cases. The truth is that Millenials are great with media usage, online search, and face-to-face conversation, so you can see them searching for jobs offline as well.

Further, they are likely to ask friends, family, and relatives about any job opportunities around them. Interestingly, they are so unique that they will even pick the phone, call your company and ask directly if you have any job openings at the moment. Still, this is fading with each passing day, as Generation Z is on the rise.

This new generation, Generation Z, dominates online searches for information, and you must be ready to address that need, respectively. So, use that website well.

Your potential candidates want to see all the information on your website. They want to see you, your brand, as soon as the tab opens. Highlight your EVP or Employee Value Proposition. Every company has it, either it’s defined or not.

Tell them why you are unique and why they should join your organization. EVP can be:

• Unique programs
• Benefits
• Rewards
• Specific policies
• Amazing learning opportunities

Make sure that you provide credibility as well. Tell the stories. Have testimonials and videos. Young people are all about videos and motion pictures nowadays. Keep them interested and engaged. Give them something interesting. Simply said, share something with them.

Be mobile-friendly. People are using more smartphones than desktops to search for information on the internet. Actually, 94% of internet job-seekers will check the company’s website via a mobile phone. So, make sure that your website is mobile-friendly and fast.

Have a careers section. Keep it up to date and have an on-point job description. Don’t make the job description ‘Google fluffy.’

Make them direct, energetic, and exciting. If you made such an effort to bring a potential employee on your site, don’t scare him or her away with confusing, weak, and non-specific job description.

Create a Great Application Experience

Did you know that an average candidate will spend between 3 to 4 hours submitting a single application? On top of that, did you know that an average company spends less than one hour going through a specific application? Even more…

Did you know that average recruiters spend about 6 seconds scanning one resume? So, if you tend to do everything so quickly, and tend to miss on something, why would people apply to your company?

Think about potential candidate experience while applying. Make it short, engaging, and enjoyable.

This must be said – don’t make job applications super long. The chances are that more than half of potential employees will quit in the middle of filling out online job applications. We are living in a world of fast information. Use that to your advantage.

Think about the application process and create it as an opportunity to keep candidates interested and engaged, and not as something to terrify candidates.

If you strongly believe that your job application is the best out there, take it. Fill in your own job application and give yourself honest feedback. Putting yourself in your candidates’ shoes is the best way to see what’s missing and what should be improved and how.

Use Social Media

You can’t survive in the digital world, without using social media. Moreover, social media is the best way for your company to be seen. Even more, it’s the finance-wise way to promote your company via social media.

A significant number of job seekers will use social media:

1. to search for a job
2. to explore the company
3. to see how products are presented on various platforms and to read other people comments

So far, social media is the best friend to the HR sector. That’s one of the reasons why companies are using LinkedIn more and more.

Current and future professionals are on that platform, and they are using it to share their thought on business, to search for a job, or to promote one. From an employee’s view, this is the best and the safest option for them to interact with companies on a daily level.

This way, they can directly interact with your brand and employees. For them, this is a unique window into your business. One more reason why you should be on social media is that people will trust you more.

Create Appealing Content

You need to give something to get something. That’s just how the world works.

So, when a candidate comes to your site, it’s expected to see something, to examine some content.

No matter if you have the best-designed site or the fastest one if you don’t have something valued to present. Content matters.

Thanks to your content a consumer will make a decision to stay on your site or not.

If they come to your site eager to apply and they don’t see any content, they will hit that small x in the right corner in the speed of thunder.

They want to research. They want to be engaged. So, enable that experience and improve the candidate journey. Explain what you do, what you stand for, what are the mission and vision, why they should choose you.

Last but not least, thank them for coming to meet you, to explore your story.

Tell them how they can grow with you and at what time.

Don’t forget to make that ‘apply’ button easy to spot. Have a good and direct call to action. Encourage people to hit that APPLY button.

Employee Advocacy

This may sound scary, but in reality, it’s just a well-organized approach.

Your employees are those who represent the company. So, when they tell someone that they are working for you, they don’t see them anymore, they see your company.

If your company is fighting against pollution, and your employee is the one throwing trash on the streets, who do you think they see? An individual or your company? They see your company.

So, it comes as no surprise that employees are actually a kind of a window into the true nature of your organization. Your team is essential.

How they present the company is important, and how they talk to potential candidates is everything. So, empower your employees all the time.

Push them to be proud of being a part of your company. Encourage them to share their stories.

Ask them to write their experience or record a short video with three things that they love about their job. Try short testimonial forms such as:

1. Features – day in the life
2. Stories – why I applied
3. Texts – what I have learned so far, working as…

You may be amazed just how much these things are practical. This is a win-win situation. How? You will show new candidate true stories, and show your employees that their experience matters to you.

Don’t forget that no matter how organized, passionate, and goal-oriented, you are there is always something that you just can’t control. However, you can be familiar with them.

With that on the mind, have someone from the HR or Marketing department responsible for weekly visits to platforms such as Glassdoor and see are people talking about your company. In a world of fast information, this is often the candidate’s first check-point. They want to know your company’s reputation.

Remember: you can’t hide. Poor treatment of employees, an excellent treatment of employees, a great candidate to awful candidate experience, everything is there and available. Trust us, the world knows already how good or poor your business is.

THINGS THAT YOU CAN’T CONTROL

As mentioned earlier, there will be some things that you can’t control, no matter how great an employer branding you are showing. In business and life, there are specific things that you can’t control. We usually call them internal and external factors.

With employer branding, you can control how you present your company, how well your employees are trained, how informative your site is, and so on.

However, some things are just harder to influence. Such as:

• Media: you need to have someone to check media frequently to see what the world knows about you. Otherwise, you won’t be able to track any media mentions.
• Friends and family: you can never actually know what a candidate’s inner circle knows or thinks about you. They may easily inspire or drag off your perfect candidate because of the rumors they have heard about your company.
• Consumer experience: unless you have a well-built and loyal customer database, willing to respond to your surveys, you may never know what you mean to them.
• Consumer marketing: do you really know what are different approaches or messaging? Do you know every single action step? This is something that you can’t affect directly.
• Word-of-mouth: this is something that you can’t control at all. Don’t waste your time on how to stop gossiping. It’s NOT POSSIBLE. However, this is fine. You can’t control these factors, but again you shouldn’t.

These factors are what drives the change and make the people innovate and search for unconventional solutions. These factors are pushing you to be better and to think strategically about your brand.

Care about your brand, manage a good business, be kind to your employees, and engage them in your vision. All in all, these factors will affect your business positively!