The Three Pillars That Strengthen Your Reputation as a Hiring Company
Employer branding is proving to be one of the most potent factors when it comes to top talent deciding whether to apply for a job posting and accept an offer. When you stand out as an employer, you’ll stop losing out to your competition when seeking to fill your vacant roles.
In this article, we discuss what employer branding really means, why it’s so important for successful recruitment, and how you can improve yours.
What Is Employer Branding, And Does It Matter?
Employer branding is the perception the market has of your organization as an employer. It’s shaped by everything from your values to workplace culture, to hiring processes to compensation packages – and everything between. In short, it’s your reputation as a place to work – and what current and ex-employees say about you.
Companies who ignore employer branding do so at their peril. Published employment statistics from LinkedIn and Glassdoor show that:
- 75% of job seekers consider an employer’s brand before even applying to a job.
- An incredible 92% of employees would consider switching jobs without a salary increase if it meant moving to an employer with a great reputation.
- On the flipside, almost 9-in-10 candidates say they wouldn’t consider joining a company with a sub-par standing as an employer.
Here at Lakeshore, we’ve seen the direct and indirect benefits of working with companies with excellent employer branding, including:
- Higher candidate quality and volume
- Faster time-to-hire
- Lower cost-per-hire
- Stronger offer acceptance rates
- Increased employee engagement and retention
Can you afford not to build an exceptional employer brand?
The Three Pillars of Employer Branding
A positive employer brand is created by delivering consistent, genuine experiences at every stage of the employee lifecycle. We’ve identified three pillars that are crucial to this – Company Culture, Candidate Experience, and Online Presence. By strengthening your employer proposition across these three areas, you’ll attract top-quality candidates, improve your recruitment success, and increase employee retention.
Pillar 1: Build a Compelling Company Culture
Company culture in the workplace framework is about how your employees feel. It’s about how they are treated, supported, and empowered. What it isn’t about is free snacks and games rooms. Though such things are nice-to-haves, they’re like wall decorations: a mural may look attractive, but is it hiding the cracks?
Employees are really good at spotting a false façade, and jobseekers (active and passive) want to know that you follow through on all the promises with daily behaviors. You’ll need to:
- Clarify your purpose and core values
- Foster inclusive, collaborative teams
- Develop approachable, empathetic leadership
- Make diversity, equity, and inclusion part of your DNA, and not a box-ticking exercise
- Offer flexibility and work-life balance in meaningful ways
A highly effective way to demonstrate your authenticity is to share employee experiences on your jobs and career pages, your social media content, and during interviews. The more you show what it’s like to work with you, the easier it is to attract the best candidates.
Pillar 2: Improve the Candidate Experience
Slow, fragmented, and impersonal hiring processes are damaging. In our experience, a poor candidate experience is a major cause of an enthusiastic candidate deciding against moving forward with an application, or rejecting an offer in favor of a competitor (even when the competitor’s salary is lower).
There are five simple rules to follow to improve the candidates’ experience:
- Communicate clearly and consistently at every stage.
- Simplify the process by limiting the number of interviews and managing expectations.
- Give timely feedback. Silence after an interview alienates.
- Respect the candidate’s time, and treat them like humans, not numbers.
- Make it personal – personalize emails, call before a final interview, and say “thank you”.
At Lakeshore Talent, we act as a conduit between candidate and employer. This helps to ensure a smooth, positive experience throughout the hiring cycle, reflecting well on you and increasing your chances of a positive outcome.
Pillar 3: Enhance Your Online Presence
However descriptive your job posting, you can be certain that candidates will check your website and social media, and search for reviews from employees past and present. In the digital world, you must leave a positive footprint. This isn’t a one-time effort. You should:
- Optimize your careers page to demonstrate your values, maintain your open roles, and showcase employee testimonials.
- Maintain active social media profiles, and give a ‘behind-the-scenes’ look at your culture via LinkedIn, Instagram, and even TikTok.
- Monitor and respond to comments and reviews – they really do matter, wherever they are found.
- Stay authentic, using photos of events, working days, team-building exercises, and more – and feature employee quotes.
You don’t need a huge budget to create and maintain a strong online presence, but you do need to ensure that you post in a genuine voice and stay consistent.
The Payoff: Long-Term Hiring Success and Better Retention
Developing your employer branding is an investment that pays dividends in lasting and measurable ways. A strong employer brand will help you to develop a talent pipeline, hire better-quality candidates faster, and retain your most talented employees. Offers are more likely to be accepted, and your teams remain together and engaged.
If you’re struggling to attract, hire, and retain top-quality employees, it could be your employer branding that is at fault. At Lakeshore Talent, we work closely with hiring teams to build employer branding that makes a real difference. We’ll advocate for you, deliver candidate feedback and market intelligence, and help you to identify strengths and weaknesses as we optimize hiring strategies with you.
Contact us today to discuss how we can help you to hire better, stronger, and faster.