Employer Branding and Recruiting: How are they interconnected and why are they so important?

Employer branding is all about showcasing your organization’s most defining qualities that will make you the superior option for the talent you are hoping to recruit to your team. And we’re here to hold your hand throughout the entire process.

At Juno, we are here to help you analyze and translate the latest recruitment insights into attention-grabbing employment propositions and employ the most tried-and-true communication strategies that will surely have the best talent on the market coming your way.

The Importance of Employer Branding in Recruitment:

1. Significantly reduce cost per new hire

Did you know? According to LinkedIn’s latest findings, Organizations that don’t invest in a quality employer brand report losing money in the long run; the organization must pay almost double the cost per new hire on average compared to organizations with a more competitive employer brand.

And what’s even more telling than that?? Some companies even invest more into employee salaries in order to make up for their poor reputation. The majority of those seeking employment often completely rule out companies with weak employer branding. For instance, HBR estimates that a 10% salary increase would only attract 28% of job seekers.

2. Highly Competitive War on Talent

Fact: the best talent wants to be associated with the best brands. Period.

Due to the highly-competitive climate in the world of recruiting, recruiters are choosing to be more proactive in order to attract and discover the best candidates—including those who aren’t actively job-hunting. While it may seem unfeasible to compete with huge brands, employer branding can actually be your secret weapon when it comes to attracting top candidates.

According to LinkedIn research, strong employer branding is twice as likely to be associated with job consideration compared to strong company branding. That means that focusing on employer branding can give you an advantage in the war for talent. This is especially important when hiring young, fresh demographics, on an international scale.

Employer branding is undoubtedly one of the smartest business investments one could make. Having a bad reputation has its costs. For one, you lose out on quality applicants. When you invest in employer branding, you can spend less time, money and effort on recruiting because people will come to you first and willingly apply to your open positions.

3. Retain your best talent

Employees of companies with great employer branding are more motivated, dedicated to their work and thus show decreased turnover rates.

And more productive employees equates to more business growth. Happy, satisfied employees feel proud to be part of their company and therefore can serve as brand ambassadors in their own right. For instance, they could refer you to the most suitable candidates and create a positive reputation for the brand through the grapevine. This alone can help to improve employer branding without increasing marketing spendings.

Quick tip: Employer branding goes beyond simply recruiting talent. It is also a necessity when it comes to acquiring and retaining customers. Customers want to partner with companies that respect and value their employees. A poor employer brand image might cause potential customers to doubt your reliability and authenticity.

Here are a few simple ways to start building your employer brand:

1. Build a sense of brand advocacy

Did you know? Marketing magazine The Dunn estimates that 84 percent of people are more likely to trust recommendations from their peers compared to any other type of advertising or marketing?

In this ever-changing, modern world of social media and advanced technology, marketing is no longer the king of brand-building. Both corporate and employer branding are in the hands of your employees – and customers.. This applies to the recruitment process as well.

Therefore, it’s paramount to ensure that as many employees as possible are actively amplifying your employer brand on-board, from front-line staff to hiring managers. Give employees the necessary autonomy to utilize their social media platforms to build their own brand by sharing aspects of their working lives with their following.

2. Keep in mind: candidates are also customers

Glassdoor believes that candidates are increasingly likely to conduct their job search similar to online shopping. As part of the job-hunting process, job seekers typically do some research to find out more about your company’s expectations, work ethics and interview protocol. They may also leave reviews about their experience applying to your company.

Therefore, it’s critical that you provide a positive, professional and fun journey for candidates. Juno’s platform delivers a branded, content-rich candidate experience if you’d like to incorporate cool features such as video interviews, fun game-based assessments or even psychometric evaluations. Automating the process allows for candidates to move forward to the next stage in a timely manner.

3. Cultivate your company culture

Did you know that 83% of millennials feel most engaged when their organization’s culture is diverse and inclusive?

Recruitment plays a key role in cultivating culture, ensuring the most suitable talent is brought on board. Decide what type of culture you’d like to create. There are lots of ways to make the hiring process more inclusive.

Your brand has to be a reflection of your company culture. Building the right culture is the foundation of a strong employer brand.

4. Add depth to the process

When it comes to promoting your employer brand, there are plenty of strategies that go beyond just words that can be even more powerful. Showcasing an attractive vision of your brand that inspires people can often be best executed through visual means– like photography, graphics or video, just to name a few examples. Many of our customers have been dabbling in other social media channels like Snapchat and Instagram to connect with their target candidate demographics.

5. Connect employer and corporate vision

An amazing candidate experience is beneficial to both employer and consumer branding. If you don’t invest in crafting the perfect experience for candidates, 25% of UK job-seekers have either stopped purchasing altogether or purchased less frequently from a brand because of a negative experience they had during the screening process.

Employer brand allows your audience to get a feel for your overall purpose, vision and company culture. Although corporate and employer branding don’t target the same audiences, the messages should remain consistent throughout. In our highly interconnected world, we use many of the same channels to speak to our customers as we do our candidates.

6. Create your own authentic message

Create a message to reflect the tone of voice for your brand, so that candidates know exactly what to expect if they were to become an employee. Make sure the brand voice is consistent throughout by unifying the messaging on the careers section of your website with video content, advertising, assessments and 1-on-1 meetings with the recruitment team.

Aim to demonstrate a cohesive overview of your brand but not to the extent that the cohesiveness takes away from the human aspects and differentiators of your brand – which HBR says are an essential component of an employee value proposition.

Depth also means that everyone is engaging in the conversation; communication is a two-way street. You could consider tools like chatbots or hosting online chats to help candidates get their questions answered on the spot.

These top 10 tips should get you set up for success when it comes to boosting your employer brand to attract the best talent.

Next steps? Discover how Juno can help you create an outstanding candidate experience.

Amplify your employer brand with Juno

Use Juno’s cutting-edge platform to access cutting-edge features such as advanced recruitment tools that will help you transform your employer brand overnight.