Every business has a story to tell, and telling it well can really pay off. Whether it’s sharing about your values, your accomplishments or what life is like for employees, storytelling is at the heart of many businesses’ employer branding strategy.
Employer branding is the process of promoting your company as a great place to work. This is your opportunity to sell your company to job seekers and build a strong reputation. By telling the right stories about your company in the right way, you can attract candidates while opening other doors of opportunity.
Original article here.
Here’s how employer branding can help strengthen your recruiting efforts:
Your brand is your reputation
One of the keys to an effective employer branding strategy is giving it the attention that it deserves. It’s important to create both short- and long-term plans, setting goals you want your efforts to accomplish and strategies that can help you get there.
Employer branding has a huge impact on candidates and companies alike, helping your business:
- Attract the right type of candidates to job openings
- Cut down on recruitment time
- Stand apart from the competition
According to Undercover Recruiter, 75% of job seekers consider employer brand before applying for a job — and companies with a strong employer brand see, on average, a 43% decrease in cost per hire.
Your employer brand is shaped by everything that’s published about you, from your own website and social accounts to third-party publications. Every customer or employee review reflects on your company’s reputation — and all it takes is a few negative reviews to turn that reputation sideways.
While you can’t always control reviews, employer branding provides an opportunity to gain control of your message. With the following strategies, you can ensure that job seekers see the right stories first.
Use third-party sites to spread the word
Many employer branding strategies can be accomplished in-house, such as creating videos and website content. But having your company featured in the media, a trade publication or a relevant third-party site gives an added boost to your branding.
A positive article about your business, published by a reputable source and following best practices for search engine optimization (SEO), will rank highly on Google. This means the article will appear at the top of the search results when someone looks for your company — putting the good stories front and center.
My company, career-growth platform Work It Daily, features businesses with robust employee benefits, strong company culture and impressive leadership to connect job seekers with great opportunities. How do we find the companies to feature? Through their strong employer branding efforts.
For example, we highlighted Malouf, a Utah-based bedding and furniture manufacturer, for their impressive employee benefits package. Initially, it was some favorable employee reviews and best-workplace awards that piqued my interest in the company. Since they do a great job with their website, videos and blog content, I was easily able to learn more about them.
This firm takes great pride in their product, company culture and philanthropic efforts, and all of this is featured prominently on their website. The company also does a good job with public and media relations and has been featured in news articles and trade publications — all of which can be found through a quick Google search.
Best of all, their employer branding paints a positive picture to prospective candidates; their representatives say there’s rarely a shortage of candidates when hiring.
Take advantage of multiple platforms
The more opportunities you take to put your company in front of job seekers, the better the odds are of attracting the right talent to your workforce. In addition to leveraging feature opportunities, using multiple platforms to tell your story is crucial to growing your employer brand.
Here’s another example from a company featured on Work It Daily: SeatGeek, a mobile-focused ticket platform. Since our article about their company culture was published in Nov. 2019, it has had over 15,000 page views and is one of the most-read articles on our website.
This firm stands apart for its presence on multiple online platforms, with an informative website, a blog that covers company happenings and spotlights employees and a fun Instagram account about employee life. They’re also featured frequently in the media and have received recognition as a top place to work. This not only caught our eye but entices potential applicants, as well.
As the importance of employer branding continues to grow, companies will increasingly focus on it. If you’re not utilizing an employer branding strategy, now is the time — because if you don’t do it, your competition will.
Original article here.
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