What is Employer Branding?

employer brand

Feb 8

When you hear the word “branding,” your mind might think of logos, colors, and design. While a consistent visual presence certainly plays a part in creating a positive impression to the job candidates that you want to attract, employer branding encompasses a whole lot more than your graphic style. It’s your reputation.

Your Employer Brand is Your Reputation

Your employer brand is your reputation in the minds of your past and current employees, as well as your potential job candidates. Your employer reputation stretches out to include your community and referral network too, and if you’re not actively managing it, it may be costing you money. In fact, a Harvard Business Review study reported that a bad employer reputation costs companies at least 10% more per hire.

Attract, Retain, Engage with Your Employer Brand

The benefits of employer branding are both external and internal. Externally, when the objective is to improve recruiting results, active management of your employer brand can attract a better pool of applicants, resulting in better hires.

Employer brand management can help your company retain and engage your current employees too. Employer branding requires that you focus on what is important to your employees, and then you actually engage them in the process of uncovering and communicating your employer value proposition.

What’s an Employer Value Proposition?

Your Employer Value Proposition (EVP) is the value that employees receive from you apart from salary or wages. Your benefits package and perks may or may not be part of your EVP. It depends on the priority that employees place on them and whether they’re more of an expectation than an option.

Your EVP can include components such as:

Professional development
Work environment
Teamwork and collaboration
Work-life balance or time off
Impact on customer success
Recognition and appreciation
Opportunities for travel
Philanthropy

Recruitment Marketing is How You Manage Your Employer Brand

You can’t own your employer reputation because a reputation is the perception and feelings that people have about you. You can manage it, however, by gathering and distributing the messages that communicate your employer value proposition and position your company as a good employer.

These messages create touchpoints where people can engage with your company, giving you the opportunity to influence their feelings and decisions. Recruitment marketing is the method that you use to create these touchpoints.

Your recruitment marketing plan can include:

Employee Experience Stories and Testimonials
Website and Careers Page
Social Media
Job Boards and Review Sites
Internal Communications

Get Started with Employee Experience Storytelling

Your recruitment marketing plan can be very sophisticated or very simple depending on the size, needs and budget of your business. The foundation of anything you do to build your credibility as a good employer, however, is to gather and share employee experience stories.

My online course - Better Message. Better Talent Pool. - can help you learn how to use employee experience to support what you’re doing with recruiting today, and help you build your employer brand for the future. Subscribe below to get notified when the course launches.

Lori Creighton

I work with small businesses to improve their recruiting outcomes by creating an 'always on' employer brand. By shifting from job-specific promotions to a value-driven message based on employee experiences, a brand narrative is crafted that resonates with what employees value most in their workplace. Eager to share what I’ve learned, I offer my insights and strategies to marketing peers through resources and courses, designed to enhance their employer branding efforts and integrate recruitment marketing into their skill set.