"Branding" is a common term in the marketing world, but it isn't only about selling your products or services to consumers. You should place just as much emphasis on promoting your Employer Brand - the qualities that make your company a special place to work - to set you apart from the competition and humanize your organization.

Why does Your Employer Brand Matter?

In today's recruiting landscape, candidates aren't just asking if they're a good fit for a company; they're considering, "Is the company a good fit for me?" They want to know everything they can about the culture, their colleagues, the office environment, various paths to success, and what their lives will be like if they show up there every day. Often, the decision to choose one company over another - or even apply to one company over another - comes down to how much they understand and relate to an Employer Brand.

Whether it's time to give your long-standing values a fresh look or you're starting from square one, let's walk through how to develop, strengthen, and nurture that brand - so you can attract the right talent.

What does Your Brand say to people?

Every company is a community with its own unique culture, and your Employer Brand is your opportunity to show the world what it's like to be part of that community. But, and this is important - the story you tell can't be faked. It has to match what people actually think and feel about your organization.

Where do you start?

The first, most crucial step in assessing and strengthening your brand starts internally. To see where you stand, gather feedback on a regular basis. Ask questions, seek candid opinions, and listen to them - these serve as the foundation of your Employer Brand.

• What attracts people to your company?
• What keeps them there?
• Where can you improve?

Making an Impact throughout the Candidate Journey

These exercises uncover eye-opening suggestions to foster a happier work environment - things much more aligned with your values than "free snacks." They help you define your Employee Value Proposition - the reason to work for an organization, which should be consistently infused in all your communications.

Explaining your company culture doesn't mean emphasizing your perks. Perks such as a well-equipped on-site gym keep people happy during the day - they don't keep them at companies. People choose an organization to work because of the purpose, colleagues, management style, and opportunities to grow. Today's job seekers expect employers to be specific about their culture so they can determine if the company's mission is worth their time and energy.

Look for common themes

These exercises uncover eye-opening suggestions to foster a happier work environment - things much more aligned with your values than "free snacks." They help you define your Employee Value Proposition - the reason to work for an organization, which should be consistently infused in all your communications.

Explaining your company culture doesn't mean emphasizing your perks. Perks such as a well-equipped on-site gym keep people happy during the day - they don't keep them at companies. People choose an organization to work because of the purpose, colleagues, management style, and opportunities to grow. Today's job seekers expect employers to be specific about their culture so they can determine if the company's mission is worth their time and energy.

Making an Impact throughout the Candidate Journey

Phase 1: AWARENESS

Employer branding comes into the picture long before people become active candidates. Defining, sharing, and living your Employer Brand means that the right candidates will want to learn more - even if they're not yet thinking about making a career change. If they start to engage with your Employer Brand, you'll be top of mind when they're ready.

Connect with the people who are good culture fits, but not necessarily a role fit. So when the right roles do come around, you have a network you can reach out to.

Employee Referrals

Employee Referrals are also a great way to lure in new talent. Regularly provide links to the latest job openings to employees (which makes it easy to copy, paste, and share via social media) so they can tap into their networks and deliver pre-vetted, high-quality candidates. Most people wouldn't recommend someone that they know personally if they aren't a good culture fit.

If the hiring process is taking longer than anticipated, encourage the referral sponsor to stay engaged with the applicant to keep things "warm." Especially with referrals, a high degree of communication throughout the recruiting process is a strong way to stand out and show candidates you care.

Campus Recruiting

When it comes to Campus Recruiting, fostering connections between students and a company's employees often helps seal the deal. One-on-one conversations with employees really resonates the best. Students can see themselves doing what that person does, and it really gets them excited about working here.

Ways to build awareness

Here are a few ways to build broad awareness so that potential candidates have a positive impression before they search for new opportunities:

• Host panel discussions or networking meetups at your office
• Promote your executives as thought leaders (online or off line such as events)
• Publish content from your employees on third-party sites
• Be present in the press

Phase 2: CONSIDERATION

Once people go into the early consideration stage, articulating your Employer Brand can cement your company in someone's mind. That includes everything from the information about you they discover online to how your customer-facing teams treat consumers. Be sure to create a great experience for job seekers on your website. They'll probably also scope out review sites like Glassdoor and Social channels.

Phase 3: APPLICATION

Don't underestimate the value of showcasing your brand throughout the application process. Every step of the application process, every email you send, every interview question you ask is a chance to show what working with your company is all about.

Rally Your Team

Virtually everyone in your organization can play a role in evaluating, strengthening, and promoting your Employer Brand. Aside from HR, Marketing, and Senior leaders, you'll need creative thinkers, web developers, social media and digital marketing strategists, content creators, Google Analytics gurus, and more.

Once your messaging is ready, a great way to raise brand awareness, boost your reputation, and attract talent is leveraging your employees to tell your story. People who love their jobs want to shout about them from the rooftops and help their company grow. They're your best, most authentic cheerleaders.

Optimize Your Website

Often, your website is someone's first impression of your company culture (and not just the careers page). It's a platform for top talent to gauge who you are and how they might fit in.

A well-designed, user-friendly site will score you big points with job applicants (and a lame or outdated site can be a turnoff, as it raises questions about how much the company cares).

Create content that candidates actually care about

Original content is one of the most effective, engaging ways to tell your culture story and get the right candidates to care. A well thought out Content Strategy can play a big role in your talent acquisition efforts.

A Content Strategy:

• Aligns your hiring goals and employer brand with tailored content
• Unifies your communications under a unique, value-driven identity in a crowded digital space
• Uses insights from your research to create meaningful content that supports user behaviors, values, and goals

Go back to the stories gathered during your research phase. Uncover common themes and bring them to life through content that complements your Employer Brand and really connects with job seekers.

Your brand should be infused through all of these channels

Once you've defined exactly what makes you stand out from other employers in your industry, it's time to share that message everywhere.

From a video on your career page to recruiting events, your social media accounts to your profile on LinkedIn, your emails to job postings, if you clearly and authentically communicate who you are, the more likely you are to draw in applicants who know they identify with your culture.

Amplify reach on Social channels

Most candidates check out a company's social profiles - and often - so make sure they're updated frequently. If there's radio silence, you'll look out of touch, and they'll be turned off.

On the flip side, don't bombard your followers with links to job openings. Create a content calendar (a simple Excel sheet works just fine!) that helps you plan and schedule your posts over the course of a week or month. This way, you'll have a bird's eye view of how you're pacing content and the types of things you're sharing.

If you can, invest in social advertising, which allows you to target posts by interests and geography. By putting money behind your posts, you'll be able to reach your audiences more predictably, and with much greater accuracy. Experiment with different platforms to see where you get the most engagement.

You don't have to build your Employer Brand single-handedly

Find moments when your co-workers can share their pride in their company by sharing social posts of their activities at their workplace, including the line "We're Hiring!" in their LinkedIn headlines etc.

Measure Employer Branding success

You've done all this great work, but is it working? Track these key indicators of Employer Brand success:

• Traffic to your website, career page, and related content goes up
• Increased positive engagement on your company's social channels
• Increased positive ratings on company review sites
• Increased number of relevant applicants to your jobs
• Your offer acceptance rate goes up
• Internal surveys confirm your employees feel fulfilled and proud of your company as a place to work
• Employee retention increases

Reach Us

Drop us a note on arindam@autumnglobal.com for an in-person discussion on how we deliver extraordinary value to our clients, helping them attract top talent to fulfill their strategic business objectives.