Gone are the days when businesses and organizations just think of how good their products or services are. With today’s competitive job market, employers also need to up their game to attract and retain top talent.
One way to help organizations become an employer of choice is through a strong employer brand. Since job seekers are getting more meticulous and intentional in finding an employer that will fit their values, goals, and professional growth, you need to take this into consideration to improve your overall efforts and systems.
With that, your recruitment and hiring processes have to adapt and cater to the ever-changing job market needs. However, you must know more about how you can establish your employer brand and why it’s important to your organization. Heed the tips we outlined in this guide!
Why Do You Have to Build a Strong Employer Brand?
Most reputable employers have one thing in common: great branding and identity. As building such a reputation requires long-term efforts, it’s important for you to accept that it doesn’t happen overnight. Nonetheless, starting early in making an effort to present your company as a trustworthy one will help you overcome certain challenges along the way.
Why is employer branding important, you ask? In a nutshell, these factors contribute to the overall impact your organization can experience and offer:
- Helps attract and retain top talent
- Reduces recruiting costs
- Encourages your employees to become your brand ambassadors
- Boosts employee engagement
- Reiterates your brand value
- Showcases your unique company culture
- Helps you build a world-class reputation
- Strengthens online brand visibility
- Improves customer service and experience
If you find it challenging to achieve these or you want to tick all factors in this list, read on to know what you can do to make these possible for your organization!
Tips in Building Your Employer Brand
Apply these to improve your efforts that can help you create a strong employer brand.
1. Conduct a competitor analysis.
One way for you to know how you’re doing as an employer is to assess your closest competitors. Check your recruitment efforts and see if job applicants go to your job postings before your competitors’. Also, if your competitors’ job ads are performing well, note their best practices and see how you can integrate them with yours.
2. Align your efforts to your values.
To further reiterate your company values and let job seekers know more about where your company stands, your online presence, hiring process, and other efforts should reflect what values you aim to embody. You can start with having a dedicated page on your website that showcases your corporate culture. Remember, your employer brand is highly affected by your visibility and clarity, so it’s really important for you to be open to changes and compromises from the start.
3. Recruit and hire for culture fit.
Now, you might be wondering: What is the role of employer branding in recruitment?
Instead of strictly basing your hiring requirements on resume qualifications, always consider candidates’ culture fit before their skill set. You can do this by creating an ideal candidate persona that can serve as your guide during your recruitment efforts. Make sure that you have different personas depending on the role you’re hiring for. On the other hand, it’s a best practice to have the most crucial set of characteristics and requirements outlined so that you have a general overview of your ideal candidates.
Furthermore, the HR department can team up with the marketing department to promote the company brand, most especially during the hiring and onboarding processes. As mentioned earlier, having an optimized website featuring more details about your company culture significantly helps in showcasing your edge as an employer of choice. This is where the efforts of your marketing team come into play. They must be able to produce engaging stories, blogs, and webpage copies to attract more qualified candidates who want to work with an employer like you.
4. Revamp your job postings and descriptions.
This might be one of the most overlooked tips when it comes to building and maintaining an employer brand. As your HR and marketing teams collaborate, they can work on improving your job postings by being strategic with writing and posting such job ads.
Veer away from template-looking job descriptions, too. You may add your company’s branding in how you list the qualifications you’re looking for so that your job postings stand out from your competitors as well.
5. Be intentional in understanding generational expectations.
With more and more Millennial and Gen Z professionals joining and staying in the workforce, it’s important for companies to have updated systems in place to understand their expectations as well as those of the other generations. Having an employer brand that speaks and resonates with the individual and overall characteristics of each group helps you improve your reputation as an organization that fosters a diverse workplace.
6. Encourage employees to be your brand ambassadors.
Of course, this is going to be a two-way street. You can’t convince or encourage your employees to advocate for your company and employer brand if they are not encouraged enough nor compelled to do so.
If done right, having employees are your brand ambassadors can also result in these advantages:
- Reduced marketing costs
- Access to a larger pool of talents
- Enhanced employee engagement and retention rate
7. Provide opportunities for employee training and growth.
Another thing that job seekers and candidates consider in the companies they apply for is the availability of opportunities for personal and professional growth. For others, this also becomes a major deciding factor whether they’ll stay in a company for a long time.
You may offer mandatory and optional training programs to help your employees learn new skills and enhance their abilities. Aside from that, you can also provide opportunities for advancement within the organization as well.
Lastly, don’t forget that while informing your employees about such opportunities is a great practice, you also have to inform job candidates about this benefit.
Now that you know more about the importance of having a strong employer brand and how you can build one, it’s now your duty to recognize the fact that the job market gets more and more transparent than ever before. If you want to build a sustainable organization with a competitive brand as an employer, make sure you try out our practical tips to get started!
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