Today’s hiring environment has undergone some unique stresses leading to a real challenge in finding and retaining talent. As a result, many businesses recognize the need to put more thought and effort into their talent recruitment strategies.
What Is an Employer Brand?
Can you define your employer brand? Every business has one—whether you put time and energy into developing it—it exists. The employer brand is the words and images that represent the experience that employees have with your company. Is your workplace fun? Do you treat employees like family? These are examples of how you might define your employer brand. And as it relates to talent recruitment, employer branding is one of the most important things to consider, especially during a hiring shortage. It is the differentiator that can set you apart from the competition.
To create an impactful employer brand, you need to focus on your company’s mission statement, values, vision, and culture. These things define the essence of your brand. Moxie recently completed this exercise when we rebranded in January 2021. The results can be seen throughout our website and in our annual review process.
How to Discover Your Employer Brand
One aspect of your employer brand involves the things you can control. This includes the outward-facing items that represent your company, such as your website and social media, and candidate-facing materials, which give people an idea of what your company is like. The buzz they create can motivate candidates to apply.
Another aspect of your employer brand comes from the opinions of your current and former employees. This makes it essential for businesses to take a true interest in learning what employees like about working for the company. A desirable culture is a selling point. Earning a reputation for the great culture you nurture is equally as important.
People want to work for companies that are known for being great places to work. If people love working for your company, that message will spread and lead to a positive employer brand. Your employer brand reflects your reputation, and today, your reputation matters more than ever.
A defined employer brand helps you:
- Create your recruitment content plan
- Maintain consistency in your employer brand messaging and imagery
- Remain accountable to the culture you’ve cultivated
To Speak to Job Candidates, You Must Know Them Well
Knowing and defining your employer brand is one thing, but a good talent recruitment strategy also relies on understanding your job candidates.
To focus your recruitment efforts, you need to know who you are trying to recruit, where you can reach them, and what they are seeking in a career change. For each role you need to fill, you need to create candidate personas—or a semi-fictional representation of your ideal job candidate.
Similar to customer personas we create to drive the strategy for our clients’ marketing campaigns, candidate personas help determine what the right candidate for the position looks like from a skill and cultural fit standpoint.
Candidate personas help you:
- Establish consensus on the ideal candidate for the role
- Create relevant job descriptions and recruitment content to increase applications
- Identify the best recruiting channels for your target candidates
Moxie’s team of branding experts loves to dive deep with our clients to explore, uncover, and define aspects of their businesses that speak to the core of who they are, who they serve, and who they need on their team. If you have more questions, reach out to me at michele.jensen@experiencemoxie.com.
