Your employer brand is your reputation as a good employer and companies that actively manage their employer brand are using marketing tactics to help job seekers find the information they're looking for to make confident career decisions. The result is that they’re able to nurture relationships with candidates and develop their credibility as a good employer. They’re also seeing their efforts translate into cost and time savings for their businesses.

Job candidates are looking for information to answer their questions about your company and to discover if you are a good employer. What they find is going to form their opinion of your company and that opinion will guide their decision as to whether to accept your offer, or even to apply for your job in the first place. ​

According to LinkedIn’s “Ultimate List of Employer Brand Statistics”, a well-managed employer brand can mean:

• 28% reduction in turnover
• 50% reduction in cost-per-hire
• 50% more qualified applicants
• 1 -2 x faster time to hire

You Have an Employer Brand Whether You’re Managing it or Not

If you act like a job seeker and Google your company name, you’re going to find that your employer reputation is living in online places that you don’t control like review sites. You may also have had some comments on your Facebook page.

Your employer brand also lives on your website whether or not you have any careers content there. If job candidates can’t learn anything in addition to the job requirements; if they don’t find something memorable about you; if they don’t find anything that helps them envision working for you, then your employer reputation is going to be weak and your company isn’t going to stand out from the competition going after the same talent.

Time for an Employer Reputation Audit

Before you can start to improve your employer reputation, you should get an understanding of where you are now. A simple employer brand audit will help you to uncover opportunities to build your reputation and improve the results you get from recruiting. Your audit should include these components.

• Website and Careers Page
• Social Media Presence
• Reviews and Recognition
• Employer Value Proposition (EVP)

Website and Careers Page

You probably have your jobs posted on various job boards but they should also be on a careers page on your website. When a job candidate is on your website, you can guide them to other content that helps them learn about your company. Develop employer credibility with photos, videos and stories that feature real people.

Don’t forget that candidates also want to learn about what your company does. Customer success stories are a great way to communicate that and to help people get an idea of the impact they can have on the success of your customers and the company.

Social Media Presence

The social media channels that are important to your candidates may or may not be the same ones where your prospects are active but having a social media presence is a start. It’s not enough to say “We’re Hiring” especially when you want to attract passive candidates who aren’t actively looking for a job.

Photos and videos should accompany your posts that share stories, contain testimonials or communicate your employer value proposition.

Reviews and Third-Party Recognition

There are several different websites such as Glassdoor where employees and past employees can submit reviews. It’s possible that the rating that you find for your company isn’t as good as you think it should be because it’s natural for negative people who volunteer their opinions first, isn’t it? The way to get more positive reviews is to ask for them.

If you’ve received an award for being a “top workplace” or “Best Place to Work”, having the badge on your website is a great trust signal.

Employer Value Proposition (EVP)

Your employer value proposition is the value that you bring to employees in addition to salary and benefits. This is where candidates learn “what’s in it for me?” If you’re all you’ve been communicating to job candidates is what you want and the job requirements, developing and communicating your employer value proposition will be your biggest opportunity to improve your recruiting results.

The best – and easiest way – to get uncover your EVP so that you can intentionally communicate your reputation as a great employer is by gathering and sharing employee experience stories.

Contact me to explore how I can bring you the expertise and extra hands you need to build and manage your employer brand with recruitment marketing.