"A word is a word, and a picture is

worth a thousand… but a brand is

worth a million."

Tony Hsieh
A Brief Introduction

Finding the right people is a daunting enough task. As a recruiter, you

know that your organization’s long-term success depends on hiring
candidates who are not just highly qualified, but well-suited to your
company culture-but what is it that attracts top talent to a
company in the first place?

More importantly, what causes businesses to struggle and fail at

finding strong culture fits for their organizations?
The answer to both questions is the same: employer branding.

A strong employer brand is a complex mechanism, consisting of

multiple elements, from company culture (mission, vision, and core
values) to candidate experience and employee engagement, to
name just a few. It’s a rich story you tell employees and candidates
alike about your business and its unique place in the market.

To put it more concretely, your employer brand is your company’s

perceived image and reputation as a place to work—your organi
zation’s corporate identity filtered through employee experience.

Many business don’t place enough value on creating and promoting

a strong employer brand. As a result, when company’s can’t find and
retain top quality hires, a weak employer brand is one of the most
likely culprits.

The facts listed above are just some of the reasons we felt that
employer branding deserved its own eBook. Here are a few others:
Employer branding is an excellent way to define and promote
the kind of value you have to offer future employees.
It will help you differentiate yourself from other organizations
competing for the same talent.
Your organization's chances of attracting talented job seekers
and retaining valuable employees will increase.
You'll control the online conversation about your brand.

"If there is a lack of communication, people

fill in the blanks."
Peggy Frazier VP Global Talent
Acquisition, Blackbaud (Formerly Microsoft & Apple)

Perhaps the most important fact about employer brand, however, is

that your ability to build an all-star team and retain top talent
depends on it. In such a highly competitive talent market as the one
we’re experiencing now, it may be time to re-examine your talent
acquisition strategies with an eye towards the importance of
employer branding, and to ask yourself if you’re focusing enough on
developing and promoting a message that will attract new recruits.

If you’re not sure how to answer this last question, fear not! We’ve put
together a comprehensive guide to developing and promoting a
strong brand narrative that speaks to your target audience. Think of
this as your playbook for effective employer branding.

As the competition for high-quality employees heats up, it may be

time to re-examine your talent acquisition strategies and focus more
on developing and promoting your message as a brand.

Next page: Here's What You’ll Learn

Here's What You’ll Learn:

How a Strong Brand Helps You Attract Top Talent

Evaluating Your Employer Brand Awareness and Reputation

What Makes a Brand Stand Out?

Defining Your Employee Value Proposition

All About Sourcing

How to Use Social Media to Amplify Your Employer Brand

What Does the Candidate Journey Mean for Your Employer

Brand?

Conclusion
1. How a Strong Brand Helps You Attract
Top Talent

A recent LinkedIn survey found that 83% of nearly 4,000 corporate HR

leaders polled believe a strong employer plays a crucial role in an
organization's ability to hire, retain, and motivate quality
employees.
But why do so many HR professionals place so much value on
employer brand?

For starters, and perhaps most importantly, it can significant

influence a candidate’s decision on whether or not to engage with
your company.

Another LinkedIn study revealed the following:

75% of job seekers consider an employer’s brand before even

applying for a job.

The #1 obstacle candidates experience when searching for a

job is not knowing what it’s like to work at an organization.

What does this mean for recruiters?

First off, it means that the time to consider your company's

reputation and status is long before you post a job ad. The best
employees will want to work for reputable companies that are
perceived as being among the best in their industries. If your
business doesn’t have that kind of cachet it’s time to make a
concerted effort to change the narrative around your company.

You need to provide a well-defined message about the benefits of

working for your company that will attract top candidates who will
easily mesh with your company culture.

To accomplish this, you need to start thinking about your employee

value proposition (EVP), and ensuring that it is clearly
communicated to candidates throughout each stage of the
recruitment process.

It might some like immediate benefits such as pay, work hours,

bonuses, and lifestyle fit are the only things that matter when
attracting new, high-quality recruits. But in point of fact, the kinds of
employees who can make substantial contributions to your
company are interested in things other than money.

To put it simply, these non-monetary rewards comprise your EVP.

Some examples of these intangible value propositions value
include:
Alignment to company core values
Making a difference in the world or a particular field
Professional development and exciting growth opportunities
New learning opportunities
Career stability and company growth
Creative and intellectual challenges
Working for a company with a strong reputation.
The Benefits of a Strong Employer Brand
Increase employee engagement

Reduce your cost per hire. 2,250 corporate recruiters in the U.S.
found that average cost-per-hire is more than two times lower
for companies with strong employer brands (source: LinkedIn)

Attract workers from other companies. 84% of employees

would consider leaving their current jobs if offered another role
at a company with an excellent reputation. (source: Glassdoor)

Gain a competitive advantage by targeting passive job

seekers

Grow your company. Quality employees support your organi

zation's ability to deliver high levels of customer satisfaction.

Next page: Evaluating Your Employer Brand Awareness and

Reputation
2. Evaluating Your Employer Brand Aware-
ness and Reputation

In the previous chapter, you got a glimpse of some of the benefits

that make a strong employer brand an essential asset. But what
exactly does a strong employer brand look like, and how do you
measure its effectiveness?

For starters, there a few key metrics that will give you a sense of
how healthy your employer brand is:

Retention Rate: What percentage of new employees still work

for your company after three months?

Employee Productivity: Are employees more engaged and

more determined to give you their best effort?

Quality of Hire: Are you noticing an increase in quality appli

cants?

Cost Per Hire: Have you managed to reduce the cost of your
average hire?

Talent Pipeline: Has your strategy resulted in a more robust

talent pool?

As you strengthen your employer brand, you should see noticeable

improvements in some or all of these categories. Internally, you can
also create brand awareness studies, gather existing employee
testimonials, and conduct new-hire surveys. These will all help you
form a better understanding of how your brand is perceived in terms
of reputation—and what you can do to improve it.

Branching out, you might also research your company's reviews on

popular job sites like Glassdoor, as these often weigh heavily in a
candidate's decision to apply for a position at your company or not.

Once you take the time to assess your current employer brand
awareness and reputation, you may discover that it requires some
strategic tweaking.

In the next chapter, we’ll start to lay out the techniques that
companies use to optimize their public image and communicate
their value to prospective employees. Let’s dive in!

Next page: What Makes a Brand Stand Out?

3. What Makes a Brand Stand Out?

These days, in-demand applicants have plenty of options to choose

from, so your brand needs to convince job seekers that your
organization isn’t just another 9-to-5, it’s the place to work. How do
you do that? By differentiating yourself from the competition.

At its simplest, this process can be boiled down to two steps:

Step 1: Defining your employee value proposition (EVP)

Step 2: Sourcing

Step 1: Defining Your Employee Value Proposition (EVP)

" At the core, an effective brand has a clear,

compelling, and consistent promise so that in
acrowded and noisy employment market, a
meaningful message of differentiation
can be heard."

Rob Silzer and Ben E. Dowell

If employer brand is the story you tell potential recruits, EVP is should
be the main character. Everything that follows should revolve
around it.
EVP is the foundation of a strong employer brand, and the key to
carving out a reputation as authentic, trustworthy, and engaging. A
distinctive, well-defined EVP will bolster your ability to attract
high-quality candidates and can even reduce compensation
premiums for new hires.

So, how do you define (or re-define) what your value proposition is?
For starters, ask yourself two questions:
What do your employees get from your organization in ex
change for their time, loyalty, efforts, and ongoing engage
ment?
How is what you’re offering distinct from that of your
competitors?

Your answer can take the form of anything from obvious career
benefits like a clear career trajectory and new learning opportuniies
to things like cool office spaces, challenging or intellectually
engaging work, and flexible hours.

A clear, attractive EVP helps create alignment between your

company’s goals and those of its current and future employees,
offering job seekers in particular a memorable distillation of the kind
of experience they can expect working for your company. Not only
can this make the employee retention process easier, it can inspire
increased employee engagement, resulting in improved ROI for your
company.
As you work to define your EVP, here are a some best practices to
keep in mind:
 Make sure that your EVP aligns with the overall goals of your
organization.

Search for any disconnect between the benefits you offer and
what your employees actually want. Do this at least once a
year.

Define a specific EVP for each group of employees, as different

positions often come with different needs.

Clearly communicate any changes in your EVP as soon as pos

sible.

If possible, try to anticipate any of your employees’ future

needs in your EVP.

Every stage of an employee's lifecycle at your company puts a brick

in your employer brand. That includes every organizational policy or
procedure, every conversation about your brand among
colleagues, every opinion, every testimonial, every individual and
collective experience that is in any way related to your company.

More than that, if you don't define your brand as an employer, there
is the risk of others doing it for you. Online platforms have given
power to employees who can now use them to share their
experience of working for your company, and these reviews are often
an important part of applicants’ research practices.
That’s a lot of factors, and at this point you may be wondering how
it’s possible to take control of them all as you shape your brand.
Luckily, there are strategies and tools you can employ to craft expe-
riences that align with your core mission and values. For example:
Internal company training for continuous learning opportunities
Corporate culture programs
Company networking events
Public relations strategies

That said, it’s crucial to be honest with honest. Be sure that your
stated brand values and EVP should align with the reality of your
employees' daily experiences in working for your company.
Otherwise, you could risk disappointing new employees, leading to
low levels of engagement and poor retention rates.

Employer brand is the creative expression of your EVP. Ultimately, all

these tactics are meant to help you create a standalone brand that
is truly memorable.

Step 2: All About Sourcing

Once you’ve developed a brand that incorporates a strong EVP, the

next step is to get your message out into the world so you can start
attracting the candidates with whom your brand will resonate.

This is the step that finally puts the “awareness” in “employer brand
awareness.” You want to promote your organization as a top
employment destination across as many channels as possible. This
way, you remain top of mind and reaffirm a positive reputation with
candidates who encounter your messaging repeatedly.
Consider leveraging these opportunities to build and promote your
employer brand:

Your career site. Try to make it as personal as possible, with

relevant company info as well as photos of the team, employ
ee quotes and testimonials, and so on.

Your LinkedIn company page. Your social media profiles are

prime real estate for repackaging the information on your
career site in a more streamlined way.

Employee referral programs. Building a strong internal brand

that stimulates referrals is as just important as external
branding.

Employees’ profile pages. Encourage your employees to share

company news and updates on their personal LinkedIn pages.

Job boards and job descriptions. Job advertisements are a

prime example to communicate your brand to applicants who
are looking for new opportunities.

Social media channels. Social media is one of the most powerf

ul tools in your arsenal. So much so that we’ve devoted the
entire following chapter to it.

Next page: How to Use Social Media to Amplify Your Employer Brand
4. How to Use Social Media to Amplify Your
Employer Brand

Social media has brought changes to every corner of the global

economy, and the world of recruitment is no different. Case in point,
one of the first things potential candidates will do is look up your
company on social media.

This can be something of a double edged sword. On the one hand,

your employer brand and company history are now highly public. On
the other, social platforms now offer exciting new opportunities for
hiring managers to generate goodwill and provide job seekers a
first-hand view of life at the company—meaning that if you're not
leveraging social media, you are missing out on an excellent
opportunity to engage and attract outstanding candidates.

One of the most significant advantages social media has provided

recruiters in the past few years is the ability to reach potential
applicants in different stages of the recruitment process. Even if the
desired candidate is not actively looking for a job, a strong employer
brand can stick in her mind and increase the likelihood that she will
eventually consider your company as a place of employment.

Once these first points of contact have been accomplished, there

are numerous strategies you can use to amplify your employer brand
on social media:
 Use your company's LinkedIn page to communicate informa
tion about your core mission, brand values, and goals.

Mentor, advise, share relevant blog posts, and respond to que

ries on your Facebook profile. This will encourage engagement
and make your employer brand more personal, genuine, and
authentic.

Generate passion and excitement for your organization's mis-

sion and goals. Use content on social media to demonstrate
your brand expertise and to create an ongoing discussion
about your company culture.

Join in the conversation on forums and online communities

where you don’t control the message about your brand.

Encourage and make it easy for your employees to share posi

tive brand messages on their personal social media accounts.
Job seekers are more likely to trust an employee's review or
comment than ones from the company itself.

PRO TIP: Use recruitment marketing automation tools to attract

passive candidates on social media and other online platforms. Even
thought these candidates are not actively looking for new
employment, many of them would gladly switch jobs if the right
opportunity presented itself. By reaching these candidates early and
often, you get them excited about the prospects of working for your
organization and prime them for an eventual application.

Only 20% of candidates are on traditional recruitment platforms.

Automation technology offers you a chance to reach the other 80%,
many of whom are present on the most popular social media
platforms.

Next page: What Does the Candidate Journey Mean for Your
Employer Brand?
5. What Does the Candidate Journey Mean
for Your Employer Brand?

As we’ve been discussing your employer brand, we’ve consistently

considered the impact that your decisions will have on the people
you’re hoping to attract into your talent pipeline. That’s because
employer branding, in addition to being an important concept in its
own right, is inextricably linked to both candidate experience and
the candidate journey.

Typically, your branding acts as the first touch for both candidate
experience (which refers to the user’s perspective for each step in the
application process) and the candidate journey (which is essentially
the recruitment funnel from the perspective of the applicant), acting
not just as an invitation to discover more about your brand but as an
initial chance to delight your audience

Just as employer brand impacts candidate experience, candidate

experience can have a big impact on your employer brand. Social
media and review sites have empowered modern candidates to
speak their minds and share their experience with possible
employers, and any past applicants who were put off by your
applicant experience won’t be shy about telling others.

In this way, ineffective management of your candidate experience

can have serious, long-term consequences.
A Possible Scenario:
Let's say a candidate is treated poorly during the interview phase, is
frustrated by the application form on your site, or encounters other
hurdles along the hiring process. Nothing stops her from going online
and sharing her bad experience with the rest of the world via social
media, forums, and review sites.

This is why it's crucial to treat candidates like companies treat their
customers: with strong attention to detail and a high level of concern
for their overall experience.

To improve a candidate's journey, make sure to:

Deliver the best possible user interface for online applications.

Provide a clear framework for the hiring process to help
candidates gain a sense of control.
Set clear expectations from the start.
Allow candidates to express themselves freely and listen
care fully to what they say.
Give examples that reinforce fairness and transparency at your
company.
Provide some form of closure once all the recruitment steps are
completed.
Demand accountability throughout every step of the
candidate's journey.

With these steps, you can work to preserve the employer brand that
you’ve worked so hard to create and further cement your status as
a top employment destination.
Next page: Conclusion
6. Conclusion

As competition for high-quality talent gets stiffer, companies need to

take a proactive approach to differentiating themselves from the
competition. Organizations that successfully develop, market, and
maintain an attractive employer brand image put themselves in
position to win the race for attracting and retaining top talent in any
economic climate.

That said, your employer brand is established in real-time, and it

requires maintenance, upkeep, and continued attention, even when
things are going well. Slack off, and you could lose control of your
brand narrative, and lose the attention of your target audience in the
process.

Perhaps now more than ever, every organization needs a

comprehensive, long-term strategy for attracting high-quality
recruits and developing a robust talent pipeline—one that can help
create and maintain a culture of success and productivity within your
organization. To that end, you ignore employer branding at your own
peril.
Do you want to reach more, better
candidates?

SmartDreamers is dedicated to answering today's most pressing

questions about recruitment.

Here are a few areas of expertise we’d love to discuss with you:
1. Creating ads for simultaneous distribution across multiple
channels.
2. Untapped, alternative recruitment channels that most
com panies aren't using.
3. Recruitment KPIs, metrics, and reporting.
4. How to integrate attractive landing pages with your appli
cant tracking systems (ATS).

Reach Out to Us Today to Learn More About Firing Up Your

Employer Brand and Upgrading Your Recruitment Process:
Drop us a line [email protected]
Schedule a demo [email protected]

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