Employer Branding: 4 Considerations to Convert Your Top Candidates to Employees

Successfully attracting, fostering and retaining talent is extremely valuable to businesses in today’s economy. The rising trend of changing jobs throughout a person’s career has forced employers to put a strong focus on their employer brand.

Employers are tasked with prioritizing the emphasis on finding their unique employee value proposition and connecting with potential candidates in a relatable, meaningful manner. There are numerous techniques to showcase an employer brand, but whatever your approach, be mindful of these 4 important considerations for the strategy you implement.

Authenticity

Have you noticed that numerous companies say the exact same things on their career pages? They typically utilize buzzwords such as culture, flexibility and team atmosphere. Candidates are increasingly in demand for authentic brands that are unique and tell a story that they can relate to.

A common employer branding issue is that employers speak from the voice of the company instead of using the voice of their employees. It is much easier for potential candidates or consumers to trust people rather than brands. Showcasing your employer brand through your employees helps to create a trustworthy, real and authentic employer brand.

An example of how to accurately showcase your brand is to replace the blurb on your website about your culture with a video of your employees showcasing the culture or have the content written by an employee, telling their story of how they have embraced your organizational culture.

Consistency

Similar to converting customers, it takes multiple touch-points to create trust in your company to convert candidates to employees. Create and share employee content on a consistent basis to showcase that you’re authentic to your brand values.

Create a content calendar around your company’s activities and employees.

If community involvement is a big part of your employer brand, ensure to get candid photos of your employees participating in activities (i.e. serving meals to the homeless, donating gently used clothing to a clothing drive and participating at charity events). Share content, both written and visual, for each community outreach activity. For example, if health and wellness is a fundamental part of your organizational culture, share photos of your employees participating in physical activities such as a boardroom yoga class or a team spin class at lunchtime. It is crucial to plan your content according to scheduled activities, as it will consistently showcase your commitment to your brand values and your employees.

Leadership

Having leadership involved in your employee voice will not only help with authenticity, it will resonate with candidates. Ultimately, candidates strive to feel valued and have a connection with your leaders on a personal level. Brands that find ways to humanize their leadership team, showcase their approachability and involvement, will be more effective at creating strong employer brands than those that do not.

Ensure that the leadership team is sharing their voice by participating in the creation of content, as this showcases that they are contributing to the culture and the brand values of the company.

Analytics

It is important to simply know what is working and what is not working. This will allow your organization to strategize where to focus your time and resources. Data-driven decisions are a fundamental part of marketing your employer brand. Analyzing each social post, webpage and news item that pertains to your employer brand is very important.

The ability to attribute ROI (return on investment) from candidates is just as important as attributing ROI to other marketing activities. A candidate’s journey to becoming an employee should be well documented and measured every step of the way. Using analytics will drive efficiencies in your efforts at creating a successful employer brand that converts candidates.

Concentrate on informing qualified and prospective candidates of the company values, your competitive advantage and a true snapshot of what the organizational culture looks like. By sharing content that represents these value propositions, it will also showcase your true employer brand through your employees.