Why Employer Branding Should Be At The Centre Of Your Recruitment Strategy

Enhancing the hiring process has become a challenge for many small businesses across the globe. With so much competition from industry rivals, finding new ways to make your company appear desirable for recruits is essential. 

In a modern-day hiring landscape, brand reputation is important for more than 86% of women and 67% of men, making it a critical factor job seekers search for when applying for a new role. 

To stay ahead of the hiring curve, small business leaders should consider 'employer branding' as a key recruitment strategy moving forward. Not only does it help showcase a company's exciting culture, but it can significantly improve a brand's reputation across hiring boards and social media for a returned influx of recruitment. 

Don't just take our word for it. Let's jump into the ins and outs of employer branding and see how it could improve your company's recruitment success. 

What Is Employer Branding?

According to experts at Hubspot, "Employer branding is the reputation you have as an employer among your employees and the workforce. It's also how you market your company to job seekers and internal employees."

Did you know that 69% of current employers believe employer branding is important in recruitment? 

Businesses that prioritize their employer branding attract more talent on average simply by defining their culture and values to potential candidates. Whether you promote your brand identity via social posting or through the words of current employees, the more insight you give your new hires, the more likely they will be to engage with your brand's career options. 

Could Employer Branding Enhance Your Recruitment Strategy? 

It's no secret that today's job market is highly competitive. Hiring strong and effective talent should be at the top of the priority list for small businesses building a team from the ground up. 

Therefore, finding new ways to make your brand appear more desirable could be the difference between a surge in applications and a recruitment dead zone. 

Is employer branding the key to success? If you want your potential applicants to know that your company is a great place to work, positive employer branding is the way to go. Advertising everything from salaries to benefits, training opportunities, and company culture, employer branding is a simple yet effective marketing tactic.

A whopping 9 out of 10 candidates are looking for a position in a company that actively maintains its employer branding, as these companies tend to be well-known and appear as authoritative leaders within a niche industry. 

Poor employee reviews, a lack of social media presence, and a recruitment process needing more detail and career information/opportunities are signs of lousy employer branding.

Here are some of the key benefits associated with making a positive impression on your recruits:

• Profitability: If you prioritize a positive brand reputation, you'll be sure to see the top talent coming your way. Hiring the best job seekers who are passionate about their work helps reduce attrition, saving on rehiring costs and allowing profits to be reinvested into company growth.

• Industry Reputation: If your organization has a visibly strong employer reputation, i.e., great reviews and testimonials and constant employee coverage, you're more likely to attract industry-wide job seekers. Better still, if you have a high reputation across several platforms, job seekers may even present themselves to you before you advertise a position. 

• Inspiring Loyalty: Employer branding is only positive when a company pours effort into keeping its current employees satisfied. Treating your employees to benefits, learning opportunities, and treats is an easy way to inspire loyalty, reduce attrition, and encourage current employees to speak positively about your brand. 

A brand that introduces positive employer representation to its recruitment strategy can reduce turnover by a staggering 28% and cost per hire by a profit-changing 50%. If that's not an incentive to introduce an employer branding strategy, we need to know what is.  

“Interim Healthcare SLC needed HR technology, and we’re pleased with the results we’ve gained from HR Cloud’s solutions for recruiting, onboarding, and employee engagement. Yet it’s an opportunity for all Interim franchises. It would be so great if each franchise owner could implement similar solutions to replace legacy systems that might not work as well as they should.”

Michael Hawkins Franchise Owner of Interim HealthCare SLC

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How To Boost Your Employer Branding In 4 Easy Steps 

Now we've learned about the benefits of employer branding, it's time to learn how to implement it into your current recruitment strategy. 

Here are four ways to get the ball rolling with employer branding.

What Are Your Current Company Values?

Before engaging with an employer branding strategy, it's time to strip back your current branding and start reviewing your foundations. What are your current values? How do you promote them to current and future employees? 

These should be some of the key questions you ask yourself before moving forward. Focusing on your company's vision, values, and culture makes it much easier to curate a campaign that attracts your desired talent. 

To start, complete a brand audit, send out internal feedback forms and surveys, and conduct social media searches for data on your ideal candidates and your competitor's branding strategies.

These are all great starting points for a branding strategy that will stick. 

Leverage Your Current Employees

Most job seekers are eager to hear from the monkeys rather than the organ grinder. Positive employee reviews and success stories could differentiate between an application and a miss for top talent seekers. 

According to experts at Edelman, employers are up to three times as credible as a company CEO, so having their voices at the center of your branding strategy is crucial. 

Take SoulCycle as an example of a company that leverages its employees well. This fitness brand uses company benefits and incentives to encourage its employees to speak positively about their experience working there. 

For example, employees can take ulterior SoulCycle classes for free and use their fitness centers for fun - not just work. 

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Prioritize a Positive Onboarding Process

Instilling a competitive company brand image all starts with the onboarding process. Studies show that if new hires are unsatisfied with their first impression of the role, they are twice as likely to seek a new opportunity. 

Therefore, providing a revolutionizing onboarding approach to new employees is important, especially if you're looking to reduce your turnover rate. Give your recruits a chance to explore their workload creatively, offering them new development opportunities from the beginning. 

Optimizing onboarding may be timely, but the positives outweigh the negatives. All areas of a new hire's first impression should be enhanced for the best experience possible. 

Why not create your website with interactive video content, documents, and training materials that new team members can access anytime? Or organize a team-building activity that introduces new employees organically to the company culture? Getting creative with onboarding is a fun yet crucial step to improving your employer branding.

Get Stuck Into Social Media

Last but not least, it's time to think about your social media presence. Did you know that 90% of applicants find their dream role on either Facebook or LinkedIn?

Taking the time to advertise your brand across social platforms is a great way to inspire excitement around your workplace. Document company and individual employee achievements, and remember also to showcase the fun stuff, like work outings and summer parties.

Starbucks knows how to use social media to their advantage when it comes to employee branding. Referring to current employees as 'partners' instils a sense of equality between staff members, especially in an online world. 

Better still, after creating their own @StarbucksJobs accounts on social platforms, they regularly share employee stories and show appreciation for their workers. 

Source: (Instagram: @Starbucksjobs)

What's Next For Employer Branding?

As the recruitment market heats up again post-Covid, the competition to secure the best talent is back in full swing. 

"By focusing on employer brand, leaders have an opportunity to deliver tremendous strategic impact to their organizations," says Celia Fleischaker, CMO at Verint. "As companies continue to face shifting dynamics in the workforce, the value of employer branding has never been greater."

The finishing question is, when will you start your employer branding journey? 

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Author Bio:

Neve Wilkinson is an experienced content writer at Solvid Digital. She writes well researched marketing and business content, and has previously been featured on HackerNoon, TestingTime, and The Future of Commerce.