Employer Branding : How to Win The War For Talent in the Age of Job Hopping
Is your potential talent aware your organization exists? How do you introduce your organization to candidates? Does each member off your hiring team use a different narrative? This is where employer branding comes in; it is a vital part of your recruitment strategy, but it can be hard to figure out how to do it. We are with you on that , especially if it’s your first time.
In this article, we’ll look at what employer branding means, why it’s so important, and the best ways to implement an effective brand strategy.
Table of contents
What is Employer Branding?
Employer branding is the process of building a positive image of your company (marketing and branding) in the minds of potential candidates and employees. It includes: employee experience, candidate experience, DEI experience, recruitment marketing.
Employer branding is the narrative of an candidate and employee’s journey as told by the employer. It’s not just about advertising your company, but also about creating a consistent brand image and message in all the interactions with candidate/employee as an employer.
It is a long-term process that requires a consistent message and strategy across all channels (i.e., email, social media posts, websites). In addition to having this strategy in place, you must also be able to execute it effectively at all times—especially during busy recruitment season like after a funding round when there are many applications coming through each day!
Employer branding is not just about marketing your company. It is how and what you say about yourself as an employer to stand out from other companies.
Challenges in Employer Branding
There is no gold standard or standard procedures when it comes to employer branding.
Companies have experimented with strategies that solve the problem of filling in roles.
The primary challenge is employer branding is seen from the lens of recruitment marketing or one that would aid in talent acquisition efforts.
The need is to have vision of a long term people-focused initiative.
Statistics on the importance of Employer Branding
Employer branding is important to attract and retain talent.
- 76% of employers say their brand is important, while only 27% disagree with that statement.
- 53% say it’s important for them to consistently communicate their brand message throughout the year, while 40% say they don’t do this often enough.
Make your Employer Branding strategy human & personal
Employer branding is a crucial element of attracting and retaining talent. It’s not just about creating an attractive workplace—it’s about making sure your company is attractive to the right people.
Employer branding is all about creating a positive perception of your organization, so you need to make sure it matches up with everything else going on in the market. For example, if you’re looking for someone who has experience building mobile apps, they may have no interest in working at a company whose website looks like something from 1992 (you can imagine how many people would).
Here are some tips while you work on your employer branding strategy:
1) Focus on what makes your company unique. What makes your company stand out? What do you have that others don’t? The more unique and special features you can point out, the better chance you have of attracting quality candidates.
2) Be clear about why people should work for your company. What motivates them? What do they get out of it? What makes this job better than other jobs they could have taken?
3) Be truthful about what it’s like to work at your company (both good and bad). You don’t want to hide anything from potential hires – don’t sugarcoat anything! Share everything up front so there are no surprises once they start working for you!
4) Make it human: if you make it only about money and perks, the next time someone comes along with a better offer, employees will be quick to grab it. Build an organization where people feel they belong, and have a reason to come to beyond the work – a fulfilling atmosphere.
Look beyond engagement surveys and FGDs
Focus group discusssions (FGDs) and employee engagement surveys are common strategies to determine if a company is a great place to work. The problem with these is that they are typically annual exercises that reveal less about the actual pulse of employees in an organization.
It’s discrete, and not continuous.
Questions to think about for an effective employer brand strategy:
- how frequently are you talking to employees and candidates?
- what are the questions you are asking them and how effective are they?
- who does these surveys?
- what is their source of influence in staying at the job
- what kind of relationships do they share with their coworkers?
Have you checked our free templates?
We hope this article has given you a good understanding of what employer branding is, how it works and why it’s so important. To recap, an effective employer branding strategy looks like these four things:
- An identity that people can connect with – whether as employees or consumers;
- A clear message about your company culture and values;
- A compelling offer for new hires (like flexible work hours or a great training program);
- and the ability to adapt and evolve over time as the needs of your organization change in response to external factors (such as changing consumer trends). We wish you all the best in implementing these strategies today!
FAQs
Are Employer Branding & Talent Branding the same?
No, they are not. Employer branding is a conscious effort by an organization to create an image of the company in the minds of its audience - potential candidates and employees.
While talent branding is how candidates perceive your organization based on the narratives and experiences of past candidates, present employees and alumni.
Who is responsible for Employer Branding : HR or Marketing?
This is a question we often get. The short answer is employer branding is not solely the responsible for HR or marketing. It is collaborative effort of HR & marketing.
The functional expertise for employer branding initiatives comes from HR while creating and distributing the content that gives shape to ideas comes from marketing. The ultimately responsibility for driving employer branding, though, lies with HR. Head of HR in an organization should be the custodian of employer brand.
Are employer branding and recruitment marketing the same?
Recruitment marketing is advertising and promoting the jobs in your company - so that the talent you want to attract is aware and applies to the roles.
Recruitment marketing is part of employer branding. Employer branding is the overall strategy (because of positioning employee and candidate's journey) that makes your brand attractive to talent.