How to Build a Successful Employee Branding Strategy

Many organizations spend a lot of time and resources developing their company brand and neglect their employer brand. However, both are equally important. A company brand is how a company is perceived in general, whereas an employer brand is a company’s reputation in the labor market. 

How current employees and job seekers perceive you as an employer can impact your company brand. After all, employees are a company’s biggest asset. Therefore, it’s crucial to work hard to create great employer branding.

We’re going to discuss the steps for building an employer brand that attracts and retains top talent so you’ll have the tools to gain a competitive edge in the talent marketplace.

How to build a successful employer branding strategy

Understand your target audience

Make an effort to identify the characteristics, motivations, and preferences of the talent you want to attract and retain. 

To do this, gather insights from focus groups, surveys, social media, and so on. Then create detailed candidate personas. Candidate personas are fictional representations of your ideal candidates. They help you understand their values, skills, and career goals. 

A practical approach to creating a candidate persona is assessing your current employees. Consider:

• Their generation
• What they want most from their career — for instance, higher pay, professional development, or job flexibility
• The platforms they use to search for jobs
• Whether they spend time on social media
• What type of content they enjoy
• Their status — active or passive job seekers

The outcome of this assessment will inform your employer branding message and the channels to promote them. 

For example, if you have a Gen Z workforce, you know they value work-life balance and social causes. You’ll also know that video content resonates more with this group. With this out of the way, the next step is auditing your brand. 

Conduct an employer brand audit

Consider how current employees and job seekers perceive you as an employer. You can accomplish this by conducting an employer brand audit. Send out internal surveys, search social media, and monitor career sites. You may also partner with a company that monitors reputation. 

Through these efforts, you should get an idea of what employees think is great about your company culture and highlight it. This will also reveal what they aren’t impressed with so you can fix it.    

Define your employee value proposition (EVP)

An employee value proposition comprises your company’s mission, values, and culture. It gives employees a compelling reason to join and stay with you. EVP describes what your business corporation offers employees in exchange for their talent, skills, and experience. 

When defining your EVP, be realistic. Many companies oversell their value proposition to attract top talent. For instance, they may exaggerate the modern work practices they offer. Instead of being transparent about offering video conference options for only certain meetings, they imply their workplace is fully remote-friendly. 

Of course, candidates who join them based on this misrepresentation quickly discover the truth and leave. This further contributes to the organization’s high turnover rate and hurts its brand reputation. 

Bring leadership onboard

When you have C-suite support, your employee branding strategy has financial and moral backing.

To gain leadership buy-in, present the facts. Make the business case for implementing this initiative, such as the savings on hiring costs and the prevention of employee turnover. 

Organizational hierarchies are always looking for ways to reduce costs without compromising quality or efficiency. If your proposal meets this need, they’ll likely support it. 

Engage your employees

A recent survey revealed that just over half of job candidates trust the organizations they’re applying for jobs with. Instead, they trust the company’s employees. No wonder many candidates flock to career sites to review prospective employers’ ratings. 

When employees have positive opinions of your workplace, it puts you in a positive light to prospective hires. 

As a result, you must carry your current employees along throughout your branding campaign. This can be achieved when you listen and act on their feedback. By doing so, they’ll produce organic employee-generated content (EGC) like “A Day in My Life As an X At ABC Company” or behind-the-scenes videos. 

Promote your employer brand

Promotion is a major part of any type of branding. You can promote your employer brand using several channels, including your corporate business website, social media platforms, and job boards. Ensure your messaging is consistent and visible across all touchpoints.

Ensure positive candidate experience

A good candidate experience encompasses timely communication, clear job descriptions, and respectful treatment throughout the hiring process. 

According to a PWC study, 49% of candidates declined a job offer due to a bad recruiting experience. The report further revealed that 56% of respondents will discourage others from applying if they have a bad recruiting experience.

Therefore, you need to re-evaluate your candidate relationship management strategies. If you don’t have one yet, formulate it and ensure job seekers have only positive things to say about your company.    

Create a strong diversity and inclusion initiative

A study shows that 63% of job seekers prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. DEI isn’t just a buzzword or a box-ticking initiative. It’s a key part of building a successful employer brand that attracts diverse talent and fosters an inclusive workplace. 

So, work toward building a workplace where everyone feels accepted, respected, and recognized. This doesn’t happen overnight. It starts during recruitment. 

Reconsider your screening factors and requirements, increase the number of diverse candidates on shortlists, and leverage technology — for instance, consider using diversity recruitment software like Oleeo. This program can help you build a more inclusive hiring process and eliminate unconscious bias in recruitment decisions.  

In summary

Employer branding is a powerful tool to help you stand out in the competitive talent marketplace. Like any kind of branding, it begins with telling a compelling story. But beyond that, you must be able to walk the talk by delivering on your promises. The tips above can help you get started.