Top 15 Tips For Building a Winning Employer Branding Strategy
Competition is fierce for awesome talent. More and more companies are hiring and it’s getting increasingly hard for your company to stand out and attract super-talented people. So how do you do it? How can you get the best people in your company and build a winning team?
The answer: Employer Branding. An employer branding strategy helps your company stand out from your competitors. Employer branding helps you attract better candidates that fit with your organization, allowing you to build an amazing team.
Let’s dive into 15 handy tips and tricks to give you an edge in recruiting!
1. Figure out your culture
Culture can be a hard thing to determine, but it’s instrumental in boosting your employer brand. Culture is more than open-concept offices and work-from-home Wednesdays. Culture is your company’s DNA. It’s what makes your company different from everyone else in your industry and it makes up everything that you do. Make sure you’re steadfast about your company culture is before you start building an employer branding strategy. Otherwise, you could spend a lot of time going in the wrong direction.
2. Company Perks
After you nail down what your culture is, make sure whatever perks you have align with that culture. The perks you give employees should represent what you want to be known for in a high-level sense. Do you want to be known for caring about employee health? Then having fruit and vegetable snacks available throughout the day might be a good way to do that. Do you want to be known for a trusting atmosphere? Letting your employees pick when/where they work, as long as the work gets done, is one way of doing that. Deciding what people get when working for you will be the foundation for your employer branding strategy. After all, that’s what people talk about the most.
3. Survey to find out more
Surveys can be a great tool when used wisely. Getting your employees to do a quick survey can help you find out if the perks you give out and the culture you want to achieve are congruent. Surveys can also help you find out other ways to boost your employer brand by finding out what employees really think about your company. The more information you have, the better you’ll be at adjusting things internally to ensure that the employer brand you want to project to the world is the same one they find when working for you.
Make sure to keep any surveys short and to the point and let people know the benefit from it. People will be more inclined to answer if it doesn’t take a lot of their time and they know how important an employer branding strategy can be for everyone.
4. Provide mentoring
If you’re not doing it already, mentoring employees should be one thing that you should seriously consider doing.Mentoring new employees, especially young employees, will pay off huge in the long run as people will feel a stronger sense of loyalty to your business. It’s already been proven people want to work for companies that invest in their future and development. Once your company is known for providing these opportunities you’ll notice that a lot of people will want to work for your company, because the value you’re providing them is more than just a pay cheque; you’re building their skillset.
5. Take a hard look at your Career Page
Your Career Page is usually the best place to show off and stand out from competitors when trying to attract top talent. If you don’t have one, no worries, most Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) have the ability to create a Career Page. You need to take a hard look at this page and think about what you put on it. How do you want to portray your company to those who are considering applying for your jobs? What elements of your culture do you want to focus on? What can you do to encourage the right people to apply? These are the questions that need answers. The next two tips can help you plan out your Career Page.
6. Get real team photos
Ditch the stock images! At least for your Careers Page that is. Get photos of your actual team at actual events. Snap some nice pictures of your team having fun or celebrating or working hard/together. The key here is to give potential candidates a small glimpse into what people are like at your business and what kinds of things you celebrate. This is an easy way to amplify your employer brand to people. It gives them a good idea if they’ll enjoy their life at your company.
7. Use video to bring things to life
Building on my last point, adding videos to your Careers Page can bring potential candidates that much closer to your company culture. These videos don’t have to be lengthy, but should capture the essence of what your company is about. Just remember to keep things as candid as possible. The videos should reflect your company’s culture in a fun and engaging way. This is why it’s important to nail down your culture so that you can easily communicate it!
8. Get your team involved
Get your team more involved in your employer branding strategy than just a few pictures and videos. Get them excited about your employer brand! Get them hyped! Make it a team goal that everyone works towards. Give them some responsibility in building your brand. The more people that feel like they have an important role to play in your employer branding the more you’ll have to help you.
9. Find your brand advocates
As you start building out your strategy you will probably see people who are eager to help you work on it. You may have already identified some people in your company that genuinely love your brand and your culture. You need to get the people who want to help and channel their enthusiasm into your employer branding strategy. Talk with them and let them take some creative control on how best to do some recruitment marketing. Get some testimonials from them and throw it up on your Careers Page. If you do recruitment events, make sure that they can be at your booth to talk up your company. Their authentic love for the company will help attract great people to you.
10. Leverage Social
Social media is probably the best tool for standing out to potential candidates early on. That’s because social media is generally where a lot of people go when doing initial research on your company. Although you will need to decide which platform you choose to focus on, the general idea is the same: show the world why working for your company is awesome.
This is where your brand advocates from the last step can come in especially useful. For example, the marketing mogul HubSpot has a great employer branding campaign called #HubSpotLife. Here, employees can share all the cool things they get and do at HubSpot. This lets everyone see what fun they could have if they worked there. Go check it out and try not to look up if HubSpot has any openings…..
11. Check out Glassdoor or other online review sites
Most people will read some online reviews before heading out to a new restaurant. Well, candidates can do this to you too before they go apply for your positions. Glassdoor, and other sites like it, allow your employees, both past and present, to write reviews on how things are like inside your business. This can be great for you or could shipwreck your employer branding strategy. Unfortunately, not everyone can have a fantastic employee experience. Sometimes the culture and the person just doesn’t match (that’s why it’s key to attract the right people). The best thing to do is to watch these employee review sites, so you know what things are being said about your business.
12. Plan out your Candidate Experience
Candidate experience and employer branding often go hand-in-hand. Although social media is usually the first touch point a person has with your brand, once they decide to apply and become a candidate, they get a glimpse at what your processes are like and how you treat people. You don’t want all the hard work of getting someone to apply to be down the drain so quickly. Make sure that you have a solid plan for your candidate experience. If you’re worried about your candidate experience, you can check out this helpful guide. Giving a great candidate experience boosts your employer brand in the long run, so don’t skip out on this one.
13. Onboard new employees with your culture
You’ve done it! Your employer branding strategy attracted a great person, your candidate experience was awesome and they took the job! Now you need to keep that momentum going. When you onboard, make sure you try to grow the next brand advocate. Think about what can you do with your new hire that reflects your culture. Is it a lunch out with the team the first day or a branded t-shirt? Regardless of what you do, make sure to check in to make sure they’re adjusting well.
14. Give office communication a boost
People talk about everything, so why not get them to talk about things they find interesting? I know that Inter-office communication can be challenging, especially with big or remote teams, but there are some things you can do to help. Tools like Slack and other instant messaging apps can help you out. You can have designated spaces for your people to talk about things they like and do work-related stuff at the same time. This creates an atmosphere of togetherness and can help make people feel welcomed and heard in the company.
15. Keep the feedback loop strong
Managing your employer branding strategy isn’t just a one-time thing. It’ll no doubt need some work and revision as time goes on. This means that you will need to keep checking in on people, ensuring the culture you want is reflected in the things you do, and if you’re attracting the right people or not. Keep the surveys going, but don’t flood people with surveys. Once every 6 months or once a year is probably good enough to keep track of what people think about the company’s employer brand.
And there you have it! You are now armed with 15 great tips to help you attract awesome people to your company. You might not have the big brand name recognition that Apple or Google has, but with these tips, you can compete for, and win talent. Good luck and happy hiring!
Let us know what you think or if you have any tips of your own in the comments below!
