Whether you’re quickly scaling your company, worrying about the Great Resignation and “quiet quitting,” or simply trying to fill a new role on your team, the fact remains: it’s a candidate’s market. So if you want to compete for high-value talent, you need to differentiate your company as a desirable place to work with an appealing company culture.
But it’s not enough to have a great culture; it’s equally important to promote that culture as part of your overall market presence—and an employer branding strategy will help you do just that.
What Employer Branding Is—and Isn’t
When you hear “employer brand,” do you picture meditation rooms and beer pong breaks? Don’t panic! While quirky perks can inform your employer brand, they don’t define the brand itself. (They don’t even represent a genuine company culture!)
SHRM defines employer branding as “what the organization communicates as its identity to both potential and current employees.” In other words, your employer brand is how you position your company to candidates and team members.
The most successful employer brands authentically represent what it’s like when The Right Employee meets The Right Employer, and they get married—er, we mean “enter into a mutually advantageous professional relationship.”
How an Employer Branding Strategy Helps You Build a Winning Team
Excellent employer branding doesn’t just draw job candidates. It draws the kinds of candidates you want.
If you are, in fact, a company with a meditation room, you probably want team members who appreciate that vibe and contribute to it in some fashion. And if your ideal team members wear business attire and speak in muted tones, your employer brand should attract that kind of candidate.
You’ve likely seen headlines conveying how much Millennials and Gen Z-ers care about company culture. Younger workers want their workplace’s values to align with their individual values.
Workplace values drive company culture, and company culture drives employer branding. It’s your employer brand that helps recruiters and HR departments attract terrific candidates.
If a good employer brand helps, does a bad employer brand hurt?
You bet it does! Consider these statistics:
- Employers with a bad personal brand pay up to 10% more in wages to attract talent. (Harvard Business Review)
- LinkedIn customers with a strong brand spent 43% less on recruitment costs per hire than their counterparts with a bad employer brand. (LinkedIn)
A bad brand reputation doesn’t just hurt recruiting efforts; it also impacts your customers’ perception of your company.
The race is on to capture the dreamiest of dream team members, so if you have an incredible company culture and a five-star brand reputation, now is the time to spotlight those assets.
4 Ways to Spotlight Your Employer Brand Message with Content
The simplest, most affordable employer branding strategy begins with content marketing. Do paid ads work? Sure. Does donating $1 billion to a nonprofit organization work? Definitely. But if you want to start now and get results that last, content is queen. (It’s okay if you don’t have a single content creator on staff. A company like Every Little Word can help!)
Here are four content strategies that work wonders for employer branding:
1. Upgrading your website’s Careers page
If your website has a Careers page, is it simply a list of open positions, or does it evoke the genuine experience of working at your company? A relatively easy overhaul will upgrade any Careers page from boring to on-brand.
Share what your company has to offer new team members.
Easy additions to your Careers page include:
- Compensation ranges
- Medical benefits
- Vacation time
- Parental leave
Don’t forget to mention other benefits and advantages, too! Do you cater lunch? Provide a public transportation stipend? Welcome pets in the workplace? Provide childcare? List anything that’s included in your employment agreements. (We can help you take note of other “perks” that aren’t necessarily guaranteed but represent your company culture well.)
Get testimonials from current employees.
Publish employee testimonials on your Careers page. There’s no one like an existing team member to make a strong statement about what it’s like to work for your business!
Communicate your values.
Does your business sponsor any nonprofits? Do you actively integrate DEI initiatives? Your Careers page is a great place to dive into the causes at the heart of your company.
Define the kinds of people who thrive in your organization.
Describing the traits your most fulfilled employees embody gives prospective candidates the gift of self-selection (or self-deselection). Not everyone will be the right fit for your organization—and that’s how it should be.
Instead of trying to appeal to the broadest possible applicant pool, focus on filling your candidate funnel with highly qualified talent. (Your recruiters will thank you!)
2. Publishing impactful job descriptions
Watch any restaurant commercial and listen to how they market their menu. Profitable eateries don’t say, “Buy our food.” They describe juicy burgers, tender vegetables, buttery potatoes, homemade rolls. . . you get the idea. Now, imagine what might happen if you approached your job descriptions the same way.
Ditch the dull list of job responsibilities and treat your candidates like customers. Give them a reason to care about the role and get excited about the prospect of working for your company.
3. Leading—thoughtfully
From your blog to your company newsletter to business publications like Inc. and Forbes, empower the wisest minds in your company to offer thought leadership on topics related to the workplace.
You likely have several subject matter experts on your team who can contribute meaningfully to your content marketing and build up your brand message.
4. Leveraging social media networks
Social media loves thought leadership, from the personal (parenting stories and pet videos) to the professional (boardroom stories and customer videos). Platforms like LinkedIn are tailor-made for career-specific content, and other channels can also help highlight your company culture in countless ways, through the words you use to the photos you share.
Remember: you don’t have to talk about your team to impart your team’s personality. The kinds of customers you attract often say a lot about the type of team you’ve built!
Make Your Authentic Story More Appealing
The best employer brands don’t play fast and loose with marketing spin. They encapsulate the company’s authentic story in an appealing manner.
So don’t lock the leadership team in a room to brainstorm ideas. Get your team involved! Talk to your employees and find out why they applied in the first place. Why did they want the job? Why have they stayed in their role? What is your company doing right?
While you can’t market your way out of being a bad place to work, you absolutely should call attention to being a great place to work! If you’re a good company, you deserve marketing that reflects that. to work! If you’re a good company, you deserve marketing that reflects that.
Ask about our Employer Branding Package and find your shortcut to a more intentional (and successful!) hiring process.
