Employer branding promotes a company to job applicants. Its reputation depends on it, which is why it is essential to make it persuasive and sincere. After all, in the digital age, a bad reputation can be very damaging to a company. In this article, we introduce you to the basics of employer branding and give you the keys to getting it right.
“More and more companies are experiencing recruitment difficulties, particularly in certain sectors or occupations under pressure where the ‘war for talent’ is raging. Employers now need to see candidates as customers and differentiate themselves on the job market by attending to their employer brand and the quality of their career web pages.” Dalale Belhout, HR marketing and employer branding manager at DigitalRecruiters, Digitalrecruiters.com.
Ninety-five per cent of job seekers check the Internet before applying for a job. As many as 70% of millennials use social media to evaluate the employer branding of a company in which they are interested. These figures remind us of the importance of working on your employer branding to preserve your online reputation. Rather than giving meaning to work, you need to know how to give meaning to your choice of company. For the same job and salary, how do applicants choose one company over another?
To develop an effective recruitment strategy, a company has to showcase its soft skills. The thinking behind this exercise requires employers to lay themselves bare and enter into a process of courtship with the employees they wish to attract. Employer branding is a company’s identity card in the public and professional sphere. How do you get the right message across at the right time to the right people?
Creating an employer brand is a real exercise in introspection to find out what your true values are. But be careful! A company’s values should not be abstract concepts: they need to be implemented in the company. Half of all employees talk about life in their company on social media. If the message you are conveying does not correspond to reality, you will be quickly exposed!
“Inbound recruiting is based on the same techniques as sales marketing. In other words, the communication and conversion strategy naturally follows the life cycle of an unknown person on the web until they convert (apply). How do you do this? By creating content tailored to the level of maturity of this unknown person, relative to their desire to apply (or not apply) for a job with you.” Clémentine-Lou Henry, inbound recruiting & employer branding consultant, Parlonsrh.com.
To succeed in their recruitment strategy, companies must treat candidates as customers and offer them a highly personalised experience. The aim is to make future employees happy, just like customers. This is why, for a successful company, employer branding and commercial branding cannot be separated.
The case of McDonald’s illustrates the importance of building your brand, both as an employer and as a business, in a striking way. How did an American fast-food chain manage to make France, a country known for haute cuisine, its second biggest customer worldwide? Simply by changing its values radically. The change in colour of the McDonald’s logo from red to green is just one of the effects of the redesign of its brand.
McDonald’s objective was both to present itself as an environmentally friendly company that respects the health of its consumers and to establish itself as a key player in the local economy in France. It has succeeded. Its image has improved significantly among the general public, and many French people now associate eating healthy, local food with McDonald’s burgers. And the commercial impact has been immediate.
Yet the success of McDonald’s would not have been complete if the company had not simultaneously completely rethought its employer brand. Not so long ago, the jobs offered by the firm were perceived as challenging and poorly paid. They were the last resort for job seekers. Now, even the most difficult jobs are seen as honourable ones that open the door to a promising career.
Why this change in perception? Because McDonald’s promises its future employees fulfilling upward mobility, provided that they are involved in the life of the company. This change in attitude on the part of the general public is proof of the spectacular success of the firm’s work on its employer branding.
The case of McDonald’s highlights a key principle: employer branding demonstrates real values associated with a promise that has to be kept. So, how do you strike the right balance between these two mainsprings of employer branding?
“If a strategy is to be credible and long-lasting, there needs to be consistency between what is said on the outside and what is experienced on the inside. Employer branding is not ‘just’ HR marketing or simple communication without a solid foundation.” bpifrance.
Building an employer brand requires employers to rethink their recruitment strategy and the meaning they wish to give to their company. This thinking must lead them to define their company’s values and the promise they want to make to each applicant, in an honest way.
Whether referred to as “corporate culture” or “values,” company values need to be authentic: visible from the outside and lived out on the inside. They bind a company together, since 60% of recruiters believe sharing corporate values is one of the determining factors when choosing future employees.
These values are communicated by means of a strong, understandable and powerful message. The corporate brand must reach as many people as possible. Up to 80% of recruiters see corporate branding as a powerful way to attract talent.
Values go hand in hand with the promise made through a corporate brand. Just as values must be acted on, the promise is a commitment that must be kept. In thinking about the message that the company wants to convey through its brand, the critical question to ask is, “What is the promise being made to job applicants?”
In most instances, this may be a variety of career paths, which are as multiple as they are diverse. For example, an employee should be able to grow and change jobs within the company by following one of the paths promised by the employer brand. The company should keep its promise and allow this to happen, provided that the employee is committed. If their career plan fails, the employee alone should be held responsible.
While values are collective, the promise is individual. These values represent the conditions for all employees to work in and the company’s philosophy. The promise, however, corresponds to the path that the company undertakes to offer to each employee, individually, in exchange for a clearly stated benefit. It is an obvious motivating factor.
“Ninety per cent of employees would change jobs if they were offered a position in a company with a much better reputation than their own.” Infographic, What is employer branding?, Digitalrecruiters.com.
An attractive, understandable and engaging employer brand is a powerful recruitment tool. Even the most complex message can be conveyed in a relevant way and add value to an employer brand. And like anything of value, good employer branding is bound to be attractive. It is therefore essential to know how to enhance it.
But working on your employer brand and implementing the values and promise it promotes also helps to retain employees. Successfully retaining employees is 80% cheaper than recruiting new talent. To keep your best people from leaving, it couldn’t be simpler: you have to be authentic and stick to your commitments.
For example, if a company is experiencing a high turnover, it should consider whether its message is consistent. A series of departures after only two years of employment should raise a red flag for the employer. Indeed, this means a mistake was made during recruitment, both by the applicant and the recruiter. Is the message conveyed by the employer brand misleading? Does the employer brand attract the wrong candidates?
Recruitment is obviously not an exact science and some worrying signals may not be picked up by recruiters. Working on improving your employer brand has the advantage of making it easier to reach the talent you are trying to attract. But the introspective work that this requires is also an opportunity to consider which profiles deserve to join the company.
The value of employer branding goes beyond the strategy of recruiting and retaining employees. The effort required to develop is a golden opportunity for employers to take stock of the life of their company. Defining an employer brand is also a way of broadening recruitment criteria and opening up to other types of applicants.