Employer Branding Strategy to Attract Top Talent

Finding it hard to attract the niche IT, Tech, or Digital Marketing talent you need? We know the struggle.

While you could argue the talent gaps are to blame (and they probably are part of the issue), the real problem could be your employer branding.

In fact, competitors with positive employer branding net twice as many applicants as businesses with negative employer branding, according to an analysis by Betterteam.

Avoid a hiring panic by learning from the best of the best when it comes to employer branding and following the insights we’ve uncovered after over 20 years in the staffing and recruiting industry.

What is employer branding?

For those who don’t know, employer branding, unlike consumer branding, focuses solely on promoting a business as the employer of choice for a targeted talent group the company wants to recruit and retain.

In an age of job-networking sites like LinkedIn with thousands of daily applicants, expansive internal recruiting teams, and external recruitment and staffing services, many businesses simply don’t prioritize employer branding because they don’t see the ROI it offers.

How to build strong employer branding

There are employer branding tips you can steal from Tech industry giants like Google and Salesforce like making employer brand strategy a team effort, incorporating current employees, revamping your job postings, and implementing more effective retention resources.

Make employer brand strategy a team effort

A key hurdle preventing businesses of all sizes from having a successful employer branding strategy is miscommunication over who should own it.

HR tends to think they do, and the CEO thinks it’s their brand, so their responsibility and Marketing handles social (AKA a key channel to communicate your employer brand), so they will need to be involved as well.

Rather than forcing it on one department, have regular communication and collaboration between departments on employer branding efforts.

Have the CEO dictate core elements to be communicated, HR provide what current applicants are looking for, and Marketing present these details through social media, ad, and employee-based strategies.

Incorporate current employees to promote your employer brand

Over 70% of people trust what employees say over brand ads.

In that sense, what employees are saying about your business on your Glassdoor page or elsewhere online is extremely important.

Both Google and Salesforce incorporate employee engagement in their employer branding by showcasing unique employee experiences and perspectives via video content, Instagram posts, and Tweets that provide real-life examples of why their employees love where they work and encourage them to leave reviews on company social and Glassdoor pages.

Your internal employees are a free, invaluable resource in elevating a generic employee branding strategy.

Refresh your job postings that highlight employer branding

Stop posting redundant, run-of-the-mill job postings that paint your brand as a generic place to work by using the same repetitive job posting templates as everyone else.

Review your job descriptions and identify where you can infuse interesting aspects of company culture to help make them stand out.

Integrate retention resources to improve employer branding

From Day 1 for a new hire, the priority should be to provide them with the resources they need, so they stay with you as long as possible, along with improving the retention rates of your current employees.

Retention is a key indicator of the inside workings and culture of any business and many times, the reasons candidates pass on an opportunity are solely based on negative reviews and the turnover rate at a company.

To boost retention and improve your employer brand, identify how to make the new-hire transition smoother, provide professional development opportunities, highlight internal career advancements, and prioritize hiring within.

All of these elements will add to your employer brand and instill a sense of loyalty and respect among your employees to the business.

Employer branding examples

The first step in identifying how to step-up your employer branding game is to look at what the best companies like Google and Salesforce are doing.

It’s no surprise that many tech companies are considered great places to work since they are at the forefront of innovation, are newer, and have focused on building strong, unique employer brands that attract top applicants.

Google employer branding

Google has all the new-age perks you’ve heard of and even had a movie made about its one-of-a-kind interview process, but that’s not what built its attractive employer brand. Their commitment to company culture has.

Their oft-discussed “20% time” policy, where employees can devote 20% of their time to being creative rather than task-focused, coupled with their focus to drive out an apparent bro-centric atmosphere proliferating in Silicon Valley, and their exhaustive Google Careers page which speaks to each individual applicant have all worked together to build a brand everyone wants to work for.

Salesforce employer branding

Salesforce has brilliantly focused on its employer branding strategy from the beginning.

The company has attracted unparalleled Tech talent thanks to its commitment to an inclusive, equal, and philanthropic-driven culture, which is evidenced by the thousands of positive reviews referencing it on its Glassdoor page.

To end the pay gaps affecting 11% of employees resulting from the gender disparity in place at the 14 companies they acquired with more than 7,000 employees altogether, the cloud-based software company invested $3 million to reach gender parity company-wide.

The company also gives its employees paid days off annually to give back to causes they find meaningful.

To highlight these incredible initiatives and attract interested applicants, Salesforce regularly posts about them on its culture-focused Instagram.

Experienced recruiters across our ten nationwide offices have difficulty filling positions with high-end talent for companies with a negative employer brand.

Why is employer branding important?

Cultivating a strong employer brand is important because it can help with attracting more job candidates, increasing cost savings, and bringing in higher-quality candidates.

Attracting more job candidates with employer branding

So, is employer branding really that essential to get you the talent you need? In short, absolutely.

When asked about the challenges faced when filling these types of roles, most staffing industry professionals agree that the main challenge is the “sell” to the candidate.

This means that if employers have a negative brand, people are well aware of this fact. Candidates that are interviewing will do their research with platforms like Glassdoor and if they decide the company has the wrong brand, they won’t want to continue to pursue that role.

A positive employer brand drives cost savings

Companies with a negative reputation or poor employer brand should expect to spend at least 10% more per hire, according to a study by the Harvard Business Review and ICM Unlimited.

Think about it this way: If you have 10,000 employees, you will need to spend as much as $7.6 million in additional salaries to make up for your negative employer brand.

And most often, increasing the salary to net the talent you want won’t be enough.

A strong employer brand attracts higher-quality candidates

Having a strong employer brand, on the other hand, results in an increase in the quality of hires by 9%, according to a CEB study.

This means the most qualified applicants will always prefer employers who showcase they are a business worth working for through employer branding, even if that means taking a pay cut.

This means that there are times when an employer can come back with a lower salary offer and a candidate is willing to take it because they understand that they’ll be working with a great team and that there’s room for growth.

If your employer brand is strong enough, candidates will be willing to sacrifice certain things because they really want to work for your company.

Cultivating your employer brand

You have more control over your employer brand than you may have realized.

It’s more important now than ever before to ensure your employer brand is in-line with how you and your employees see your business, or you could end up with a culture crisis on your hands like Uber and a reluctance from top talent to apply for any available positions.

Take your lead from top employer brands when it comes to implementing an effective employer branding strategy and the tips we’ve outlined above, and you’ll be surprised to see the impact it has on your ability to attract and retain the talent you’re lacking.

If you’re having difficulty attracting the high-end, niche IT, Tech, or Digital Marketing talent your business needs, contact Mondo today. We’ll match you with highly qualified candidates you won’t find anywhere else.

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