Whether you’ve made an effort to create one or not, your company projects a brand to potential employees, and it plays a critical role in attracting and retaining talent. Most companies spend a large amount of time and effort creating and promoting their consumer brand, but here’s the thing: building an employer brand helps you gain great talent. In terms of hiring costs, employers with a strong employment brand can see up to a 43% reduction in the cost per hire.
A strong employer brand demonstrates your company’s culture, mission and values. Job seekers today spend a lot of time researching before applying or accepting a job offer. By making employer branding a part of your company’s marketing strategy, you will build a positive image of your company which will give potential employees a reason to want to work for you and will create a pipeline of informed and excited prospects.
How will you get started? Here are a few tips:
Know Your Audience
To find the right employees and to retain them, you need to make sure you’re hiring people that fit into your company’s culture and that will succeed in your environment. Think about what you value most in your current employees, what interests them, and what challenges they face. Write these things down and create personas of ideal employees for your company. Build your brand around these ideals and traits, and target people that fit them.
Make it Relevant
Build content to engage your audience and capture their attention. Concentrate on the values that you find valuable and that you connect to your brand and culture. By doing this, you will target the employees that fit these same ideals.
Say it with Pictures
Using imagery is absolutely obligatory in this day and age. A study by MDG Advertising found that articles with images get 94% more total views, and visuals make content more memorable. Social media is a great forum to tell your company’s story in a visually-driven way.
Tap Your Current Employees
Your current employees should be your biggest cheerleaders – so why not use them to promote your business? Collect first-person accounts of what it’s like to work for your company and use those stories to create videos, blogs, social posts, etc.
Keep Your Careers Page Current
Create a careers page on your website that includes up-to-date job openings, as well as static information about the benefits and perks of working for your company. The more information, the better – employees are looking at that site, and giving them good information will help them make the best decision in the long run.
Narrow Your Focus
If you are looking to hire specialized talent, it may be beneficial to look at specialized job boards and online groups where your job posting won’t get lost in the mix. Targeting specific employees on Facebook and LinkedIn can also help you focus your search.
Engage Directly
Capitalize on every opportunity to engage in conversations with your ideal potential hires. Social media is a great platform to hold conversations – you can speak about issues in your industry, share stories about your company and colleagues, or comment on industry-related posts.
Building an employer brand will take some time and effort, but the end-game is that you will find employees that not only fit your needs, but fit your culture which will ultimately lead to a better functioning workforce with lower turnover.
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