How often do you see a queue of great candidates gathering under your office or bombarding you with applications via email?

Most probably, your employer branding strategy fails to make the best professionals chase your company. If that is true, this article is definitely what you need. It fully explains the role of an employer brand in attracting top talent and reveals some sure-fire ways to make it stand out in the crowd of other hiring companies.

In fact, 69% of job seekers would not take a job with a company that had a bad reputation, even if they were unemployed. Let’s learn more about the importance of employer branding.

How a Powerful Employer Brand Can Help You Attract Top Talent

According to this study, 78% of global leaders consider employer branding a top priority and a critical area of investment when it comes to recruitment strategies. Why should you prioritize it too? An employment brand has tremendous potential to compel job seekers to pick your company over others. The main three functions it performs for effective talent attraction are:

• Differentiation
• Reputation
• Competitiveness

Let’s discuss them one by one.

Differentiation

What makes your company special and differentiates you from the rest? Your employer brand can highlight your unique identity. It shows how you differ from other employers and what exactly you can offer that others cannot.

Reputation

Branding yourself as a good employer contributes to your reputational capital. It helps you improve your brand image in the eyes of people who consider your job offers. The better you position yourself in the recruitment landscape, the higher your reputation will be. And therefore, you get higher chances to lure the biggest fish in the candidate pond.

Competitiveness

If you’re struggling to win in a competitive hiring market, employment branding is a go-to solution for you. It’s virtually the key to outperforming your competition. With a consistent employer brand, your strengths and competitive advantages are brighter than ever. Therefore, they attract the best talent to your company rather than to your competitors.

Employer Branding Strategy That Lures the Best Ones: 5 Key Things to Do

Increase your attractiveness to prospective employees by following these five tips from business leaders.

1. Make your website and social media profiles inviting

What if we told you that 79% of job seekers would view your business website and social media first before they decide whether to apply for a position or look for another employer? So, while managing your employer brand, make sure you shine bright like a diamond. On both – your website and social media platforms.

Website

“A website is the face of an employer,” says Anthony Martin, Founder and CEO of Choice Mutual. “It should be appealing and inviting. It’s also crucial to make your career page go from okay to great. Engaging and informative career pages have a greater converting potential. You can engage job applicants with persuasive call-to-action buttons Apply Now or Get Started or interactive submission forms,” he suggests.

Social media

Are you using social media to communicate with future employees and send them your cultural vibes? If not yet, well, you should be! A successful presence on social platforms is one of the things no one tells you about employer branding. It’s high time to scale up your social media game

2. Tell a compelling brand story

Jonathan Elster, CEO at EcomHalo, states “Everyone loves great stories. The art of storytelling gives you a chance to turn your brand story from good to great. Here’s what you should do:

• start from the origins of your brand;
• highlight personalities behind your company with their passion and their contribution;
• humanize your employer brand by telling more about the founder(s).”

Why not create a video story? You can use video for recruiting top talent and showcase your company’s best side. Note: a recruitment video alone can boost an application rate by 36%.

3. Create an attractive benefits package

“By designing a solid employee benefits package, you can reach a larger number of first-class candidates,” claims Eric Mills, Owner of Lightning Card Collection. “Typically, the most desirable employee benefits are health and family-related benefits, flexible hours, work-from-home options, career development, and free perks (like food and drinks),” he notes.

Consider the top five companies with alluring employee benefits:

• Netflix – paid parental leaves, fitness stipend, employee stock purchase plan, etc.
• Google – health insurance, tuition reimbursement, paid volunteering days, pet-friendly office, etc.
• Microsoft – flexible work schedule, 401k program, relocation benefits, egg or sperm freezing coverage, etc.
• Facebook – free intern housing, cancer care program, legal support, etc.
• Salesforce – well-being reimbursement, banking + mortgage discounts, new parent gift bundle, etc.
  
  

4. Invest in DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion)

According to the research by Harris Poll on behalf of Yoh, employees seek more diversity and equity in the workplace.

However, Stephan Baldwin, Founder of Assisted Living, claims “It’s not enough to just announce that you follow the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in your company. To create an attractive and authentic employer brand, you should illustrate that with some examples so that your prospective employees could see your DEI strategy in action.”

Stephan Baldwin names a couple of things you can do to cultivate DEI in the workplace:

• Create a DEI awareness program with DEI training sessions for employees
• Commit to diverse and inclusive hiring practices
• Build an inclusive office space
• Celebrate diverse holidays
• Promote mentorship and coaching
• Start ERGs (employee resource groups)

5. Let your employees become your brand ambassadors

An employee brand ambassador is a motivated employee who represents and promotes the company both externally and internally and serves as an advocate for it. Need an example? Employee brand ambassadorship is what makes Flipkart a great employer brand. The company regularly measures the eNPS aka the employee Net Promoter Score and encourages existing employees to generate the best word-of-mouth about the brand.

Before You Go to Build a Stronger Employer Brand...

Read more about employer branding, create a positive image of your organization, and go on a hunt for the best talent with Yoh. Find candidates by industry and recruit highly-skilled professionals in any field you need. Looking for a unique talent? Yoh can help you fill any vacancy quickly and easily with your employer brand in mind. Give it a shot!

About the Author: Jesse is a professional writer whose aim is to make complex concepts easy to understand. He strives to provide quality content that assists people in everyday life.