First impressions count. For businesses, the first time candidates meet an organisation is often through the hiring process. A less than stellar encounter can hurt the organisation’s employer brand, putting people off a job opening. It can even alienate candidates from the company as a customer, impacting on its reputation and long-term sales.
An employer brand is a company’s reputation as an employer. It includes everything from recruitment advertising, to content about its employer value proposition (EVP), to employee advocacy
on social networks. Developing an employer brand means capturing the heart of an organisation’s culture and using this to promote the business as a great place to work, in order to attract the best talent. As the availability of key skills worsens around the world, employer branding is becoming increasingly critical.
Whether or not any time or intention has gone into articulating your employer brand, your business has one just as it has a company culture. Your hiring process itself is a key visible component of your employer brand and can profoundly affect what people think and say about your company.
The biggest risk to an employer brand is a disjointed, poorly planned online job application experience that doesn’t show a real interest in or consideration for candidates. In a world where top talent is scarce, job seekers have to be won over, or they’ll simply go elsewhere.
Every part of the experience matters as candidates see it as a reflection of what life would be like if they were to work at the company. A confusing and frustrating candidate experience can leave a horrible impression of the business as a disorganised, second-rate company.
Here are four ways in which the online job application process can be optimised to boost your employer brand:
Beyond the online job application, employer branding also needs to be reflected in personal interactions. When the candidate comes for the interview, what are the people like, what impression do they give, and how does this make the candidate feel?
Once an organisation has taken a candidate’s details, recruiters and hiring managers need to effectively manage and use the data. For example, a candidate’s perception of an employer’s competency and employer brand can be decimated by an interviewer who isn’t aware of information the candidate has previously provided in their application.
Recruitment technology, like graylink’s software, can provide you with a recruitment website that’s aligned to your brand guide and offer you tools to communicate quickly with candidates, personalise messages with candidates’ names, and set up templates to be approved by the communication department. Scarce-skills candidates are presented with too many opportunities to entertain companies who make the recruitment process difficult or don’t reply quickly enough.
Beyond the online job application, employer branding also needs to be reflected in personal interactions. When the candidate comes for the interview, what are the people like, what impression do they give, and how does this make the candidate feel?
Employer branding is a growing concern for organisations, as the shortage of key skills raises the bar to find and keep the talent needed to achieve their growth targets. Organisations are increasingly looking inwards to assess and improve their working environments, benefits and culture to become more attractive employers and articulate these benefits as part of their employer brands. Looking forward, it’s safe to say that CEOs and marketing will start working more closely with HR on the employer brand, as they start to realise its strategic value.