Employer Branding Strategies for Recruitment Process

Source : AIHR,(Online)

Recruitment is a comprehensive method of recruiting new talent candidates on board. It’s a process of aligned with a company's needs, goals, and values. Recruitments will not effective without a strong employer brand. Posting a creative job advertisement on online platforms and waiting for applications to roll is not effective for recruitment. Attracting best talent from the competitive job market is really challenging and organizational reputation is crucial for attracting the best candidates.

Most employers believe that branding is about attracting potential candidate. Employer branding is more likely to be the responsibility of HR or Talent Acquisition rather than marketing (although they may collaborate here), and the goal here is to brand the team culture. You want to ensure that candidates and employees develop a strong, positive association with your brand and identify with your values. 

Recruitment-focused marketing efforts are a core part of your employer branding efforts, but it’s also important to have a plan in place to continually engage with existing employees and encourage them to spread the word about your brand.

Employer branding covers a variety of communication types, including:

-  Company Careers Site

- Internal Newsletter

- Employee testimonials and spotlights 

- Recruiting focused videos 

What is Employer Branding in recruitment?

Employer branding is also affected by the recruitment process. Recruitment is a major factor as it affects job seeker decisions. Research shows that 69% of job seekers would not accept a job from a company with a bad reputation even if they lost their job.

Organizations must understand their position in the market in terms of employer branding and plan accordingly to attract talent in the job market. Job seekers are interested in what the company offers, what it has, and what opportunities it offers its employees.

An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) helps streamline and customize the recruiting process for a more personal and positive candidate experience. This process assists recruiters with day-to-day tasks so recruiters can focus on more important things. The best way to optimize your recruitment process is to monitor performance and measure how your system is working.

Organizations must follow an employer branding strategy to build reputation by taking into account mission, vision and values.

Importance of adding Employer Branding to recruitment strategy?

            Source:(Youtube, 2022) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Grpd-qT98Ys 

1.    Growing your talent pipeline 

Data from our Employer Brand Guide shows that around 75% of people looking for a new role will only apply to a company with an impressive employer brand. Curran (2022).

A reputable employer brand means candidates are already familiar with organization's culture. They interact with employer brand content on social media and may be connected to some of employees on LinkedIn. These people are more likely to apply for job than someone who has never heard of company.

2. Remove the recruitment barriers

For an example, if your company is smaller scale company, your recruitment competition is high to recruit the talent candidates. Because you may not be able to pay the salary and benefits with comparing the larger scale  company offer. But if you have builds the strong employer brand which will allow you to attract the best candidate among the large scale company.

3. Improving the job pool with the potential candidates

When your company has a good reputation, it will be easy for you to attract new talent. You don’t even need to spend a lot of time advertising and reaching out to people to find candidates. Candidates will naturally come to you.

4. Costing saving by recruitment 

Once you start advertising your job opportunities on all job sites, the candidate sourcing process can get expensive. When your company has a positive image, a simple job page on your website, a strong Linked in profile, or social media profiles as recruiting tools will help attract the broad range of talent you're looking for. Further, reduces hiring costs by collecting more high-quality applications, eliminating the need for expensive headhunting this will be more cost effective. 

5. Retain the best employee within company

A strong employer brand will make your employees proud to come to work every day. This allows them to become free brand ambassadors, telling their acquaintances how much they enjoy working for you.

Additionally, they may give positive reviews online, inspiring other potential candidates to apply.

Employer Branding & HR framework on recruitment 

Human resource department will play the role for stablished the employer brand among the job seekers in the job market. Because to bring the talent candidate to organization. Therefore HR should be know the what the organization need by including employee feedbacks. 

Source :Conceptual framework in Employer branding in HR (

Curran (2022).

   

How build the strong employer branding in recruitment  (Source: Boulo Blog)

Step 1: Get to know your organization inside out

Before the building of the employer branding in the recruitment function, organization need to confirm and understand of the company vision, mission, core values etc. By considering those below mentioned components build the strong employer branding.

- Career advancement, formal training, On the job training, performance evaluation for personal development as opportunity 

- Company culture , reputation of the management, quality of the peers and team building activities as people. 

- Reward & Benefits which offer from the company-  Salary ,bonus, healthcare insurance, welfare facilities and fairness of the compensation 

Step 2: Evaluate your employer brand thoroughly

Establish the best strong goodwill in market place, by identifying the company product or service need to deliver or promote in the market. By promoting company brand in social media, survey methods, those will help the attract best employee to company. 

Step 3: Put employee satisfaction at the forefront

Treating employee are mist important factor for retain and recruitment for the company. if the company not treat the employee well, they will destroy or damage the company goodwill because of they not satisfied about working environment.

Step 4: Keep your candidates happy

 Job seekers can also help employers improve their brand image by spreading positive messages about their experiences. Company should provide a high-quality candidate experience to ensure every candidate is satisfied throughout the entire recruiting process. 

Eg: Provide the feedback of the recruitment process whether candidate the select or not, possible to send the email by send the answer, that will lead to create candidate in positive aspect of the company 

What is their first request? Consistent communication and feedback about where they are in the recruiting process.

Step 5: Embrace storytelling

It’s important to develop meaningful stories about your company and work culture to connect potential candidates to your brand. One of the most popular methods is to showcase employee success stories through blog posts, videos on your career page, or social media such as Facebook and Instagram. 

Step 6: Show your presence on social media

Social media is the ideal channel to promote company brand because of huge of  connection had involved and inter connected through this social media. Eg: Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram. What are the good things or company values and engagement activities better to promote via social media. 

Step 7: Engage the management team

if the employer might be able to create the profile with higher management, its details of the providing special messages from the management communicate through social media. 

Step 8: Contact with like-minded companies

Inter connection with other companies for getting support for building the good branding image

Step 9: Embrace and practice empathy as a core value

Employer Branding & Human Resource Management 

Human resources is responsible for managing and developing an organization's employees. They ensure that employees are satisfied with their jobs, motivated to achieve the organization's goals, and have the resources to succeed.

Employer branding and human resources are interrelated as they both contribute to creating a positive work environment. Employer brand can guide your HR policies, procedures, and benefits. When you deliver on your brand promise, employees will feel valued and motivated to work for your organization. This in turn creates a virtuous cycle, where happy employees lead to a better employer brand, which attracts more talent and retains existing employees.

Example for employer Branding in different industries  : 

Technology Industry        : Google,  Netflix , Microsoft 

Automobile Industry     :  Fort , Benz,  Honda, Toyota 

Sri Lankan Context as examples most of multinational companies, IT industry companies having strong brand image employer branding role. Because why, They are attract the potential candidate from demanding their values. Eg: Most of companies are now published the advertisement by mentioned what are benefits you chosen the company beyond the mentioned job profile. 

Eg: SyscoLabs  / Unilever/ Fortude 

How do the employer branding effect to Recruitment 

    1. Creating a Positive First Impression

    2. Attract the top Talent 

    3. Reducing Recruitment Cost 

    4. Employee Engagement & Retention

    5. Direction from culture     

    6. Enhance employee experience 

Example for employer branding effect for recruitment in global context 

1. Heineken

They have create the G'O PLACE " campaign  which involve the share video of the working style different position, working in different location of employee  The purpose and effect of the campaign is to demonstrate that their brand is centered around the unique personalities and ambitions of their employees.

The campaign doesn't stop with employee videos, however. Their website offers an interactive digital interview where the they asks them 12 questions while also providing facts about the company. This interview checks cultural added value while introducing the candidate to the company. Upon completion, candidates are given a profile such as "Pioneer" or "Investigator" and invited to apply using their resume and LinkedIn profile.(Doyle,O.2017)

According to Doyle (2017) mentioned their recruitment percentage has been increased 56% during the interview. 

2. PwC

PwC have implement new branding strategy which is webpage calling as Career Advisor. Which is not normal career page, which they intended to change that webpage because most of candidate will reach that webpage with or without the requirement of  applying for positions at PwC. From this branding strategy they have more talented pool in different positions.  

3. Starbucks

Employer branding attract and retain the best employee because of they value their employee in occasionally. PwC use the Instagram & Twitter account for appreciation for current employees and interact with future candidates well. 

Eg: If the employees' obtain the achievement graduations or any special event, they tend to congratulate from social platform which is showcase the company culture as well as employee benefits. By that create the brand ambassadors that job seeks can trust. 

As HR Specialist learning points and personal aspect of HRM Functions

Finding the best talent candidate is difficult task for the HR person. Because of the competitive job market and its very hard to being standing as employer. Reason is if market having the good /strong brand name & considering other benefits also same components are checked.  

Attracting top Talent : Having strong and well established employer brand and by promoting it with suitable strategy, candidate as keen interest to apply for the job. Employer branding, Employer branding platform would be advantages for attract the potential candidate with understanding company value and benefit which have provide. Eg: Job posting in website or Facebook, create the advertisement 

Conclusion 

Employer branding is more than just marketing: First, focus on building a business that values ​​its employees and provides them with a set of core values ​​and a strong company culture that they embrace and actively communicate. By building an authentic and strong employer brand, you'll be able to effortlessly recruit top talent who actively want to work for your business, and keep existing employees engaged and excited about your company's future. Your company's reputation will get a real boost by building a positive workplace, but taking steps to build a strong employer brand will help you spread your message beyond your brand's immediate network and engage with top talent from around the world. From this article have review that what are strategic need to be implement to recruit the best talent and maintaining the company image among candidate and market place. 

Reference

Agouridis,A.(2023) Talent acquisition Employer branding (blog entry) October 11 October. Available from https://www.jobylon.com/blog/how-to-use-employer-branding-in-your-recruitment (Accessed 05th April 2024).

Doyle,O.(Undated) 5 Examples of Companies Doing Employer Branding Right (blog entry) Undated. Available From https://www.occupop.com/blog/5-examples-of-companies-doing-employer-branding-right (Accessed 06th April 2024).

FabHR,(2023) The Importance of Employer Branding in Recruitment (blog entry)13 October. Available From https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/importance-employer-branding-recruitment-fabhr-nmh3f/  (Accessed 08th April 2024).

Matuska,E. and Figurska,I.(2013) Employer Branding As A Human Resources Management Strategy  (Online) Available From https://frcatel.fri.uniza.sk/hrme/files/2013/2013_2_03.pdf (Accessed 04th April 2024).

Reiners,B.(2024) How to Create an Employer Branding Strategy (blog entry) 15 February.Available From https://frcatel.fri.uniza.sk/hrme/files/2013/2013_2_03.pdf (Accessed 04th April 2024).

The Upwork Team (2023) How to Boost Your Employer Branding for Recruiting.(Online) Available from https://www.upwork.com/resources/employer-branding-for-recruiting (Accessed 04th April 2024).

Verlinden,N.(Undated) 13 Great Employer Branding Examples To Inspire You in 2024(Online) AIHR. Available from https://www.aihr.com/blog/employer-branding-examples/ (Accessed 05th April 2024).