Attracting Top Talent with an Enhanced Employer Brand

 In today’s increasingly challenging environment, high competition for top candidates makes finding the best talent harder than ever. While organizations spend countless hours, financial resources and effort on social media tactics and job distribution, one of the best long-term strategies is to enhance the company’s employment brand. A strong employer brand differentiates the company from its competitors and encourages the best candidates to apply for your company’s positions.

Many recruiters are unsure how they can improve their employer brand, particularly if management isn’t onboard with making such changes. In those cases, how can the individual recruiter make an impact?

While there is no one-size-fits-all approach, there are certain steps that are universal for any organization or individual seeking to energize the sourcing process by improving their employer brand :

1. Understand current employer brand positioning

To revamp or enhance the employer brand, it is necessary to research the company’s current positioning with ideal candidates. It is also helpful to examine the brands of your competitors, which will enable you to see how they compare and how to further emphasize the differentiators. With this information, it will be easier to determine the game plan using data, rather than recruiting instincts, to guide the employment brand to the desired state.

2. Get internal buy-in

In developing the plan to enhance the company’s employer brand, it is helpful to get key decision- makers on board with the plan. Recruiting internal leaders who can vouch for the need of an improved employer brand will be helpful in overcoming any skepticism or resistance from the C-suite. Also important is to set realistic expectations of what you hope to accomplish (such as improving the number of qualified candidates by X percent) and explain the next steps that will lead to that goal.

3. Develop the Employee Value Proposition (EVP)

A major aspect in improving employer branding is to highlight the unique Employee Value Proposition (EVP) your company can offer. The EVP reveals insights into the reasons why an employee chooses to work at your company. The best way to do this is to interview high-performing employees about what makes the company a great place to work and then include those factors in all recruiting campaigns, communications, job descriptions, job preview videos and more. Those customized messages will resonate with target candidate audiences.

4. Utilize the latest employment branding tools

Today’s recruiters can benefit from the ever-growing number of solutions that can be used to create, amplify and promote the employer brand. A variety of solutions exist that help connect with candidates over social media, reach them on their mobile devices or by building robust talent networks. These tools allow for increased engagement over time with a talent pool through consistent, career-branded communications.

With an enhanced and accurate employer brand, it will be easier for the company to stand out from the competition by giving more insights into what it will be like to work there, as opposed to a text-only job description. Whether you have company-wide buy-in or the support of a couple of colleagues, these steps can help any recruiter begin the process of improving their company’s employment branding, and in turn, enhancing their ability to recruit top candidates.