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Growing your employer brand

Your employer brand is your identity as an employer, and it can influence candidates deciding if they want to work with you or not. Here’s how you can shape your brand to attract more candidates.

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Why it’s important ↓

Planning your brand ↓

Tracking brand success ↓

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Why an employer branding strategy is important

A candidate's impression of your company is shaped by what they read online. If they don’t discover an accurate, compelling representation of your company, ideal candidates can turn away.

REASON 1

Make your company more attractive to your target audience.

Strategic employer branding can help you raise awareness and interest among the candidates you want to attract. Even if you’re not hiring right now, this can give you a head start when a role does open up.

Case study
Rolls-Royce built a forward-looking employer brand to hire the talent of tomorrow — and 60% of job seekers mentioned they’d want to work for the company.

REASON 2

Reduce your cost per hire.

A weak brand can make hiring more expensive and difficult. A strong brand brings great candidates to your door, cutting the time it takes recruiters to source — and reducing your overall costs.

Case study
By revamping its careers site, British financial institution Nationwide boosted mobile traffic by 300% and slashed its cost per hire from £3,000 to £69.

REASON 3

Attract a wider range of qualified applicants.

Your employer branding can either help or hurt your company’s efforts to build a diverse and inclusive workforce. If more candidates can picture themselves feeling welcomed at your company, then people with a wider range of perspectives might want to work there.

Case study
Atlassian replaced its male-centric employer branding with content that better reflects the diverse candidate pool it hoped to attract. As a result, women made up 57% of the global incoming tech graduate hires.

of candidates research a potential employer’s reputation before switching jobs.

Your employer brand can impact job seekers’ impressions of your company values and affect their decisions to work with you. Get the guide to learn more about growing a positive brand.

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Planning and building a strong employer brand

An employer brand isn’t something you can set and forget. To build and maintain a strong brand, you need to put some active thought behind your brand strategy.

Figure out where your brand is — and where you want it to be.

Evaluate the current state of your brand.

What do existing and former employees say about you online?
Which aspects of your brand resonate with candidates and which don’t?
Do you have existing content that could be repurposed?

Align with leaders on the direction of your employer brand.

Who is your employer brand trying to target?
What are your short- and long-term goals for your employer brand?
What is your employee value proposition?

Speak to employees about how they view your company.

What did your teammates think about the employer brand when they applied?
How would employees describe the company’s culture, leadership, and values?
What would an employee tell someone who is considering applying for a job at your company?

Map out your messaging and differentiate your brand.

Notice what your competitors are doing.

To stand out from the crowd and grab a candidate’s attention, your brand can’t be too similar to your competitors. Research competitor career sites and social media pages to make sure your messaging and content are distinct.

Create an employer brand playbook.

A style guide for your team can help all your candidate-facing content reflect a unified brand identity. Outline your overarching content goals and include examples of the tone you want to convey.

Develop candidate personas.

Based on your conversations with stakeholders, create personas that reflect the talent you want your employer brand to attract. If you know what motivates ideal candidates and which platforms they’re most likely to visit, you can tailor content for them.

Put your employer brand strategy into action.

Create a consistent experience across different platforms.

No matter where candidates go to explore your company, they should leave with similar impressions. Make sure your career site and social media presence are aligned with the unified image that you want to convey.

Encourage employees to get involved.

Content that comes from employees can be more impactful to potential candidates. Incentivize employees to tell their stories online by recognizing those who do.

Ensure your interviewing and onboarding processes reflect your brand.

Your brand should create a clear idea of what it would be like to work for you. Your interviewing and onboarding program should reinforce that idea, giving candidates and new hires confidence in your company.

of workers claim their most recent employer does not effectively communicate its employer brand.

Get tips and learn more about what your company can do to bring your brand to life, and connect to people on a human level.

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Tracking the success of your brand

Use an ongoing process to measure your results and stay aligned with your brand goals.

STEP 1

Track key metrics to evaluate the success of your branding.

Dig into your recruiting data. Has your branding resulted in more high-quality applications? Has your cost per hire gone up or down?

STEP 2

Survey candidates to gauge their impression of your brand.

Gather feedback at all stages of the hiring process. What stuck with people? What made them disinterested? This can show you whether your brand accurately helps candidates positively connect with your company.

STEP 3

Ask new hires if their expectations meet reality.

Your new hires can provide meaningful insights into the effectiveness of your brand. Survey them after they’ve spent a few months working at your company. Is this what they expected? If not, which parts were misrepresented?