In a year where a significant number of employers have laid people off, employer branding has taken a hit on platforms where new recruits go to learn more about the company. Glassdoor scores are bound to suffer and LinkedIn pages may reflect dwindling numbers of people.
As 2021 rolls around, there is hope that organizations will emerge from the reaction phase of the pandemic response and begin to recover to be in a better place by Q2. Some of that may include restarting the hiring process. For others, particularly those in essential services, hiring never stopped, but it will become as competitive as it has ever been.
A key strength in the practice of finding and acquiring the best talent is having a developed and polished employer brand, and where that brand is often seen by candidates is on career sites such as LinkedIn and Glassdoor. So before you go posting open positions again, here are six tips to get your employer branding in the right place to ensure you are putting the company’s best foot forward with candidates.
1. Maintain Consistency of Social Channels
Any marketer worth their salt will tell you consistency is the key in engaging an audience and building a reputation. It is the same whether you are talking about a product, a service or your reputation as an employer. Your message has to be consistent across channels and address the wide variety of concerns candidates hold about potential employers. It should show your culture, your commitment to people and your value to the broader external community.
READ: Recruit Like a Social Media Influencer
In 2020, if your social channels are not consistently reflecting the work, aims and people of your organization, you are more likely to lose control of the narrative around your brand at some point. Teach recruiters, marketers, executives and hiring managers how to speak to the company’s values and work in a consistent fashion.
2. Find Employees to Serve as Brand Ambassadors
While highlighting your successes and people initiatives is important and useful work, perhaps nothing is more powerful for a candidate than hearing from other people within the organization on their experience and how they feel about the company. Be sure to highlight current success stories and encourage people who have positive feedback to share their stories via LinkedIn and Glassdoor. These people can also be key players in the onboarding process as they can provide another perspective and welcoming presence to complement direct managers and team immediate team members.
3. Work on Your Branding Elements
Your employer brand is seen and heard, experienced just like any other product brand on the internet. Having good visual elements, consistent use of logos and a diverse range of authentic content will make your brand more impactful. Avoid the use of stock photography in social media posts. Instead, use photos of employees and video of what actually goes on in the working environment. Authentically representing your brand and employee experience shows a level of pride in the company’s identity and lends greater credibility to the value of the work that employees do.
4. Share Your HR Successes
Innovative HR practices are alluring to top talent. When an initiative or policy is successful in improving the lives of employees, be sure to share those stories on the company LinkedIn page and any other social media platforms the company uses to attract talent. Begin to think of how those successes can be positioned and distributed to reach a broader audience and plug into the candidate experience at the same time.
5. Identify an Employer Value Proposition and Validate It
Knowing your employer value proposition and how to wield it as a recruitment and retention tool is central to the success of your employer brand. Engage with current employees to gain feedback on how the company’s actions are furthering the goals of that value proposition and where the company can do better. Get them involved in the conversation and take action to show that you are addressing any issues they have. Once you’ve done so, get them involved in conversations about the issues that are important to them on employment sites.
6. Polish Your LinkedIn Company Page
Your LinkedIn company page may seem like little more than an information portal, but candidates may interpret what goes on there as a key indicator of the company identity. Many of the people who will visit that page are not candidate prospects at the time of their visit, but having a well-developed company page can help put you on the radar of top talent when they do decide to move on to their next challenge. It is an important asset in communicating your employer brand.
To do this effectively, be sure to share media about what life is like at the company, whether that’s through a blog post, video from the Christmas party or pictures of a fun virtual meetup. Highlight any positive employee testimonials on your company page. Lastly, do not be afraid to express the company values by weighing in on current issues and showcasing any solutions to workplace challenges the company has found. Doing this keeps the page from feeling overly promotional and shows off the human side of the organization.
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Photo Courtesy of Stock Photo Secrets