The secret to attracting (and retaining) the best talent is positioning your company as the employer of choice. But getting this right isn’t always easy – your employer brand needs to not only be appealing to your ideal candidates, but must also be authentic enough to keep people engaged and invested in your company throughout the hiring process and beyond.
So, how do you ensure your messaging and reputation align with the messaging of the recruitment companies you work with and accurately present your business to the market?
Defining and Communicating Your Employer Brand
Establishing a clear and authentic employer brand is an essential first step you should take before engaging with a recruitment partner or starting to hire. After all, you are creating first impressions about your organisation to the market, so you want to ensure that the recruiters you work with are representing you with consistent and well-thought-out messaging.
By defining and communicating a strong employer brand with your recruitment agencies, you can ensure that the right information reaches the right people. When your messaging is positive and consistent – both internally and across the recruitment companies you work with – candidates are more likely to walk away feeling excited about the company, regardless of whether their application is successful.
Once you have identified your employer brand, don’t forget to personalise your messaging and ensure it’s consistent across all potential engagements; the advertising, social media, the company website and any other platforms. At the end of the day, the more your brand is on the market, the more people have a chance to connect with and recognise it.
Matching Expectations with Reality
Once you have curated an enticing employer brand, leveraging it to your advantage centres around ensuring that your messaging is consistent with reality, and looking for ways to improve the employee experience to make your organisation a truly great place to work. Unmet expectations are one of the most common reasons people become dissatisfied at work and consider other opportunities, which is why aligning your employer brand and the employee experience impacts not just hiring, but retention efforts too.
Consider whether the employee experience is the same as the messages, and if not, which one needs to change. Remember, your employer brand is not just about how it looks on the outside, but what the reality of working for your organisation is really like. Consequently, taking care of your people so that their experience lives up to your brand is essential for holding onto your employees and maintaining your reputation in the market.
The key is to find a balance around promoting the right messages to attract great people, while also ensuring it is realistic to what it’s really like working for your company.
Find Out More
Here at Continuum, we are committed to helping you leverage your employer brand and find the talent you need to reach a new level of competitive excellence. That’s why we have put together our “5-Step Strategy to Building an Employer Brand that Attracts Top Talent.” This is your instruction manual on securing and retaining the best people on the market, complete with practical advice for every touchpoint of the employee lifecycle.
Click below to access your free copy of the guide today.
Need more specialist recruitment advice? Speak to our team of Data recruitment specialists to find out how we can support you in achieving your business goals by delivering on your short- and long-term hiring needs.