Generic platforms are not effective

“Branding” is a common term used in the marketing world, but it doesn’t just apply to selling products or services to consumers. In the world of work, your brand is how you attract and retain top talent, humanize your organization, and set your company apart from the rest. Simply put, your employer brand reflects the qualities that make your company a special place to work—and it comes to life in how you and your employees tell your story to create a lasting, positive impression. Your employer brand is more than just your values, mission, and goals. It’s the way people at your company find motivation, work together, communicate, celebrate successes, resolve problems, and even create office traditions.

In today’s recruiting landscape, candidates aren’t just asking if they’re a good fit for a company—they’re considering, “Is the company a good fit for me?” They want to know everything they can about the culture, their colleagues, the office environment, various paths to success, and what their lives will be like if they show up there every day. Often, the decision to choose one company over another (or even apply to one company over another) comes down to how much they understand and relate to an employer brand. Companies that invest in employer branding not only have higher offer acceptance rates, they also enjoy more traffic to their website and career pages, more positive ratings on review sites, and increased employee fulfillment and retention.

The first (and most crucial) step in assessing and strengthening your employer brand is to tap into your internal resources. Ask questions, seek candid opinions, and listen to stories—these will serve as the foundation of your employer brand. Once you’ve defined exactly what makes you stand out from other employers in your industry, it’s time to share that message everywhere. From a video on your career page to recruiting events, your social media accounts to your profile on The Muse, if you clearly and authentically communicate who you are, you’ll be more likely to draw in applicants who know they identify with your culture. And don’t limit your employer brand to what people “expect” from your organization! 

A great way to raise brand awareness, boost your reputation, and attract talent is leveraging your employees to tell your story. While candidates can certainly learn a lot about your organization from your career page, there is no substitute for an employee’s storytelling about their own experiences.

Original content is one of the most effective and engaging ways to tell your culture story. Hearing employees share what gets them out of bed in the morning, the projects they’re passionate about, and favorite company traditions could be the hook that turns passive candidates into future employees.

Employees who love their jobs and want to share it with the world are ideally suited to attract new talent and help your company grow. (Junior and mid-level employees can be especially helpful in providing insight on what’s important to their peers when seeking a new job opportunity.) To facilitate internal referrals, you should regularly provide links to the latest job openings to employees (which makes it easy to copy, paste, and share via social media) so they can tap into their networks and connect with high-quality candidates. Most people wouldn’t recommend someone that they know personally if they aren’t a good culture fit.

Today’s professionals treat the job search the same way they treat a major purchase, and they react to a negative candidate experience as they would to a poor consumer experience. 70%+ candidates report that candidate experience is an indicator of how a potential employer values its people. That means they’re evaluating you as a possible employer at every step—including the period before they start actively looking for a job, when they interact with your organization as customer, client, or casual observer. Once people go into the early consideration stage, the impressions they get from your job description and careers site are key, as is the information they discover online. The foundation of a great candidate experience is effective messaging, and to be effective, it needs to be honest and transparent. Job seekers can smell inauthenticity a mile away. Transparency is one of the top concerns of the National talent.

60+% of candidates report that they’re rarely—or never—notified about the status of their application. Keeping your talent pool updated throughout the recruitment process can help set you apart from the competition. So make a plan for what gets shared when, and determine who’s responsible for sharing it. With the ability to have multiple admins per requisition, responsibilities can be allocated.

Telling a candidate they aren’t progressing to the next stage is a tough part of a recruiter’s job and even harder for the applicant. A rejection will never be good news, but it doesn’t have to discourage an applicant or keep them from applying to other openings. That means giving them the news as soon as you’ve made the decision, no matter where they are in the process. If you can’t offer the job, give them objective feedback so they can walk away with something tangible to improve their chances down the road. At the very least, you have built a relationship and left them with a good feeling about your organization.