How Your Employer Brand Speaks to Candidates

Most of us aspire to social acceptance — so much so that we tailor our personalities in order to be seen as ‘likeable’ by select audiences. We wear certain styles of clothing, speak a particular vernacular, and act in specific ways to fit in where we’d like to fit.

Job seekers take similar approaches to their job opportunities: they want to be employed by companies where they fit, companies that have strong, attractive employer brands that appeal to their senses of themselves. This is why 83 percent of job seekers use company sites  to evaluate employers before they apply. If the company site is poorly branded, a candidate will likely move on quickly. After all, it only takes one-tenth of a second to form an opinion about a person, according to research conducted by Princeton psychologists. It’s probable that job seekers would give employers a similar amount of time to either impress them or be cast aside.

Establishing a strong company brand to appeal to candidates’ needs isn’t impossible. Try using the following tips to boost your branding game and grab candidate attention:

Social Media

Create social media guidelines for your employees to follow inside and outside of the organization in order to keep a consistent message throughout your social sites. According to Forbes contributor Jeanne Meister, employees should remain transparent, responsible, and respectful on their work-related social sites. Doing so will create the strong, reliable employer brands that candidates want to see.

Email and Candidate Interactions

Adding visuals — even simply company logos — to emails can boost click rates by up to 60 percent.  Maintaining a consistent color palette and visual personality creates a sort of “muscle memory” in people. They’ll learn to recognize your brand quickly. Become a familiar face to those who you want to target and recruit.

Even if candidates are only skimming your newsletters and emails, they’ll be able to quickly recognize who and what they are reading about if you have a unique, consistent brand.

Interact with your candidates and subscribers frequently to let them know they are valued. Give your candidates the time of day with a simple email response, and you’ll show them you are an attentive employer. Job seekers want to know their employers will pay attention to them, rather than placing them in cubicles and ignoring them for the remainder of their career.

Job Listings

Sixty-three percent of millennials believe companies should have “positive social impacts,”  so it is important to create job descriptions that speak to this belief. Workers want to identify themselves with companies that have strong brand, positive brands, and job descriptions are a great way to communicate such brands.

Remember: when you hire new employees, you are strengthening your company’s brand. It’s a mutual benefit. Your new hires bolster your employer brand while your powerful company image helps their personal brands.