The whole process of sourcing top talent and getting them to say yes is both an art and science. Recruitment firms are coming up with more creative strategies for attracting the perfect fit for a job position, and employment branding is one of the major factors that can influence would-be employees to say yes to your job offer.
According to LinkedIn’s 2017 report on global recruiting trends, top talent leaders agree that while almost 70% of recruiting budgets are funneled towards traditional tactics, employment branding should be the number one priority of most companies. Although it has an ROI that is hard to measure, not having a solid and distinct employer brand in this age could prevent you from acquiring the best talents in the industry.
In fact, HR Gazette proves the importance of employment branding with simple math. Let’s say you get an average of 300 applications for every vacant position in your company. Out of those 300, 30 of them will undergo further assessment, and only five finalists will meet with you for an interview.
While only five finalists will personally see you and your office, all 300 people will have first impressions on your company based on the treatment they received during the recruitment process. Since social media now plays a huge role in the recruitment process, one negative Facebook post from one of these 300 people could hurt your recruitment efforts.
Here are some tips on how you can improve employment branding through recruitment:
1. Design your recruitment process.
A specific recruitment process gives you a solid foundation to start building your brand as an employer. In the example above, it’s clear that most job applicants form a first impression on your company the moment they decide to send an application online. This is why it’s essential for you to design a recruitment process that is transparent and consistent across all applicants.
2. Be precise with your job ads.
Do you want to hire someone who is trainable and absorbs new concepts like a sponge? Or are you looking for an experienced worker who can get right to work and increase your sales?
Precision is key to attracting top talent that matches not only the skill set for a certain position but also the company’s culture and brand. There are millions of job seekers out there, and setting up a generic job offer could lead to your company being a generic employer with no distinct offerings and unique incentives to attract the right people.
List down your goals and create your job ads around them. Tailor these job ads to match the employment brand you want to present online, and you’ll be ranking well in the eyes of top talents.
3. Maintain transparency throughout the whole recruitment process.
If you want to promote a company culture that’s fun, engaging, and puts employees first, then you better show it right in the recruitment process. Just like job applicants prepare their portfolio and rehearse for the interview to make a good impression, you should also strive to put their impression of your company in a favorable light that matches your culture and brand on social media.
Maintaining a friendly and transparent tone with your interviewees is an effective way to improve your employment brand. Plus, those who get accepted and become part of your team carry over their perception of your company, and this can affect their performance at work.
A perfect example of transparency in recruiting is when a Google recruiter established trust with an applicant by not only giving basic interview details but also recommending prior readings to prepare the applicant better.
Every organization is different, so find your employment personality and integrate it in your recruitment process.
4. Promote employees’ stories.
Or better yet, encourage employees to share their workplace stories on their social media accounts. Word of mouth is one of the most effective marketing strategies, and leveraging social media to boost your employment brand will greatly help your recruiting efforts.
Aside from attracting potential employees, a good employer reputation also affects the performance of your current employees. Garima Gulati Bhutani notes that breaking down the phrase “employer branding” will give 2 root words: employ, which refers to applicants, and employe, which refers to the current employees of the company.
Webrecruit UK also suggests setting specific dates when employees can post on the company social media account. Allowing your employees to share their “project for the day” during Wednesdays, as well as the little company events on Friday nights will further establish your employment brand—attracting people who see themselves having the same experiences.
It’s all up to you how you’ll arrange this so that you can get the most of social media for promoting your unique employment brand.
5. Get everyone in your organization involved.
Launchpad suggests having everyone in your organization memorize the “company elevator pitch.” This is an effective way to spread the word about your company’s vision, and turn your regular employees into brand ambassadors of the company.
6. Give insightful feedback.
Different people have different ways of receiving feedback, but that doesn’t mean you can’t give feedback that empowers interviewees to be better instead of making them hate you.
Many people advocate the sandwich technique or inserting a negative feedback in between two positive comments. But Julie Zhuo, VP of Design at Facebook, likes to take a more realistic and practical approach to giving feedback without being rude.
In one of her weekly essays, Zhuo believes that the quality of work and making people feel appreciated should both be considered when giving feedback. Instead of looking at strengths and weaknesses, reframe your thinking and offer your insights on where the applicant did well and your suggestions on how he/she can further improve. This way, even if you had to say no to an applicant, they’ll remember your employment brand of pushing people to become better versions of themselves.
7. Ask for feedback.
Feedback is a two-way street, and listening to it can help recruiters better assess how well their strategies performed. Ask your interviewees how their experience was with your recruitment process. How do they feel? Did they have a pleasant experience despite not getting the job?
Getting feedback from interviewees are precious data that you can use to draw conclusions on what went wrong and how you can keep on improving your process. Continue what works, discard what doesn’t, and keep iterating to maintain your employment brand.
Final Thoughts
Employment branding may take a lot of effort to establish, but it’s one of the investments that will pay off in the long run. More recruitment firms are using social media for recruiting, and having a positive reputation will help ensure that you’ll land top talents that can become major assets in your organization.
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