Recruitment Marketing:

7 Steps to a Stronger Employer Brand

Contents

Recruitment Marketing: 7 Steps to a Stronger Employer Brand2

The Rise of Employer Branding 3

Leveraging Your Employer Brand to Attract and Retain Top Talent 4

Understand the Difference Between Employer Brand and Company Brand 5

Assign Employer Brand Ownership 6

Take a Top-Down Approach 7

Evaluate Employee Engagement 8

Prioritise Happiness as Part of Your Company Culture 9

Give Employer Branding the Resources it Deserves 10

Make Employer Branding an Ongoing Activity 11

Be Inspired: Companies that are Raising the Bar on Employer Branding 12

Conclusion: A Strong Employer Brand is Non-Negotiable 13

About Clinch 14

3

The Rise of Employer Branding

Employer branding isn’t going away. In fact, last year, 38% of companies reported plans to increase

their investment in employer branding initiatives.

When you consider this alongside the growing trend of companies hiring dedicated leaders to

guide their employer brand strategy, it’s clear that the employer branding business is booming.

Why? Because the candidate mindset has shifted. Candidates are now thinking like consumers,

and just as a consumer will seek to establish how a product or service will benefit them before

purchasing it, candidates are taking the same approach to career opportunities.

If today’s companies are to attract

and ultimately hire top talent, they

need to be upfront about the

benefits of working for them right

from the outset.

They need to give the candidate

something to buy into.

That something is a strong employer

brand.

Our software lets companies use proven content marketing techniques to communicate their

employer brand and get to know the candidates it resonates with, for easier, faster, and more

effective recruiting.

You’ll find more on employer branding, why the future of recruiting is inbound marketing, and

the Clinch journey so far, at blog.clinch.io.

Recruitment Marketing: 7 Steps to a Stronger Employer Brand

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Eria nimoditatia voluptatas aut la nimint molore velenda debissitio.

That every company has an employer brand is

true.

It’s those companies that choose to invest in and

manage theirs, however, that gain a competitive

edge when it comes to attracting and retaining

top talent.

In this eBook, we’ll highlight SEVEN things your

company can do right now to boost its employer

brand for easier, faster hiring, and improved

employee retention.

Leverage Your

Employer

Brand to

Attract and

Retain Top

Talent

Recruitment Marketing: 7 Steps to a Stronger Employer Brand

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1. Understand the Difference Between

Employer Brand and Consumer Brand

• Consumer brand is the reputation a company has as a maker and distributor of a product or

service.

• Employer brand is the reputation a company has as an employer.

Why does it matter?

While a strong consumer brand will go some way toward driving interest in your open positions, it’

s not nearly as effective as a strong employer brand in attracting the right kind of people.

Think about Google. With 300 million+ monthly users, and a product that has become so powerful

that it has spawned its own verb, there can be no denying the gravitas of the Google brand.

But that’s not why people aspire to work there. People want to work for Google because they’ve

heard about the great benefits packages, the cool workplace perks, and the unique culture.

They’ve discerned from this that Google is a company that cares about its employees, and that

reputation is why they apply in their droves.

That, is the power of a strong employer brand.

Not every company can be a Google. But every company has an employer brand that they can

define, improve, and leverage to attract better quality candidates and enjoy faster, easier hiring.

LinkedIn reports that, "a strong employer brand is twice as likely to be linked to job

consideration as a strong company brand."

Recruitment Marketing: 7 Steps to a Stronger Employer Brand

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2. Assign Employer Brand Ownership

While it is true that every company has an employer brand, for this brand to gain strength and

have an impact, it requires careful management by an individual, or, ideally, a dedicated team

within your company.

Previously, responsibility for any and all employer branding activities would have fallen to HR.

That’s no longer the case.

As the candidate assumes the position of power and the lines that separate recruiting and

marketing become more blurred, more and more companies are realising the value of having

“blended” teams handling their employer brand strategy and implementation.

The future of hiring is inbound, and as recruiters begin to confront the reality that quality

content is key to attracting and engaging great candidates, it’s easy to see why it makes sense

for employer branding to become a collaborative effort between HR, Marketing, Talent

Acquisition, and Communications professionals.

Think about how you can bring together skill sets and expertise from multiple different

disciplines to create a team whose sole focus is employer branding — from creating the related

collateral that attracts new talent, to ensuring that existing employees are acting as brand

advocates.

Recruitment Marketing: 7 Steps to a Stronger Employer Brand

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“Your brand is what people

say about you when you’re

not in the room.”

Jeff Bezos, Founder, Amazon

Since so much employer branding happens outside of

the workplace — via employees’ social media accounts,

for example, or casual conversations with friends and

family members — it’s naive to think that an employer

brand can be 100% managed and controlled, even

despite the best efforts of a dedicated in-house team.

This is why leadership’s involvement becomes

important.

Those in the C-suite should make it a point to educate

their entire workforce on the value of a strong employer

brand, and emphasise the role that each employee plays

in shaping that brand.

By embracing transparency and empowering employees

in this way, leadership acts as a catalyst for the

emergence of an employer brand that finds strength

through consistency.

3. Take a Top-Down Approach

Recruitment Marketing: 7 Steps to a Stronger Employer Brand

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4. Evaluate Employee EngagementEmployee engagement drives better customer experiences, improves employee retention and

increases productivity.

It’s also viewed as being proportionate to the strength (or weakness) of a company’s employer

brand, i.e. the more your employees are engaged at work, the stronger your employer brand,

and vice-versa.

Which is why employee engagement is worth measuring.

And before you jump to any conclusions about employee engagement levels at your company,

take a look at these stats from the Harvard Business Review. The results might just surprise you:

Talk to employees, circulate employee surveys, conduct exit interviews and pay heed to the f

Look at what percentage of new hires come from employee referrals.

All of these will offer insights into the actual state of the workplace when it comes to employee

engagement, and as a consequence, will inform and, if necessary, allow you to take measures to

improve engagement and strengthen your employer brand.

Engagement scores decline with employee tenure, meaning that employees with

the deepest knowledge of the company typically are the least engaged.

Engagement scores decline as you go down the org chart, so highly engaged

senior executives are likely to underestimate the discontent on the front lines.

Engagement levels are lowest among sales and service employees, who have the

most interactions with customers.

Recruitment Marketing: 7 Steps to a Stronger Employer Brand

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5. Prioritize

Happiness as

Part of Your

Company

Culture

Does your company culture prioritize employee happiness? If not, it

should. Research carried out by the University of Warwick revealed

that happy employees are 12% more productive.

Not only that, happy employees are also more engaged. So, if, as

part of your employee engagement evaluation, you find lack of

engagement to be an issue, try focusing on improving happiness

levels in the workplace.

A happy team is more engaged, more productive, and more likely to

speak positively about the experiences of working for your company

— which translates into a better, stronger, and more authentic

employer brand.

Recruitment Marketing: 7 Steps to a Stronger Employer Brand

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6. Give Employer Branding the Resources it

Deserves

A strong employer brand allows candidates to evaluate their desire and suitability —both in terms of skills

and cultural fit— for a position with your company.

This ability for a candidate to self-select results in time saved for HR, talent acquisition teams, or the

department head who's been tasked with hiring.

And the ROI of a strong employer brand doesn't stop there.

LinkedIn reports that companies investing in their employment brand enjoy up to 50% lower cost per hire,

and up to 28% lower employee turnover rates.

Give employer branding the people, time, and money it needs to do its job now, to save on hiring and

reduce churn in the long-term.

Recruitment Marketing: 7 Steps to a Stronger Employer Brand

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7. Make

Employer

Branding an

Ongoing

Activity

Employer branding shouldn’t just start when you’re looking to hire.

Nor should it end once you’ve made that hire.

 

Understanding, improving, communicating, and monitoring an

employer brand is a full-time job, the importance of which should

not be underestimated.

The graphic below from TMP Worldwide illustrates how an

employer brand can be leveraged and bolstered at every stage of

the employee lifecycle, from initial candidate attraction, to the

impact of having high quality and engaged talent onboard.

Recruitment Marketing: 7 Steps to a Stronger Employer Brand

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Be Inspired

Taking into consideration all of the above, here are three examples of companies that are raising

the bar on employer branding right now:

1. HubSpot — A company that prides itself on “attracting and retaining people with HEART,”

HubSpot also believes in “radical transparency.” That’s why they decided to publicly share their

HubSpot Culture Code.

HubSpot shows how a company can give its employer brand and inbound recruiting ability a serious

boost by leveraging a positive company culture and making it visible to those outside the company

in an authentic and engaging way.

2. Deloitte — Each week, Deloitte gives a different employee the opportunity to take the reins and

lead the company’s @LifeAtDeloitte Twitter account, sharing his or her experiences of what it’s like

to work there. Offering employees a voice, and inviting them to amplify that voice across a very

public forum is a brilliant illustration of a company strengthening its employer brand by

empowering employees through trust.

3. Amtrak — On visiting Amtrak’s dedicated careers site, it’s immediately clear that this company

realises the power of good employer branding. Like HubSpot and Deloitte, Amtrak showcases its

culture and empowers employees by celebrating their contributions and making them the subject

of videos and blog posts.

Amtrak is also upfront and open about its benefits package — giving visitors to the website and

potential candidates all the information they need from the outset. It’s a small thing that speaks

volumes on how much Amtrak cares about creating a top class candidate experience, which in itself,

is integral to a robust employer brand.

Recruitment Marketing: 7 Steps to a Stronger Employer Brand

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A Strong Employer Brand is Non-Negotiable

With competition for top talent continuing to be fierce, and the best candidates seeking more from

the jobs they’re considering as a result, a strong employer brand is no longer a nice-to-have weapon

in the arsenal of fast growing companies.

If your business is to gain the competitive edge in recruitment and succeed with a workforce that’s

skilled and engaged in equal measure, a strong employer brand is a necessity.

Recruitment Marketing: 7 Steps to a Stronger Employer Brand

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Contact us:

US:

Suite 1301,

307 W. 38th St.,

New York,

NY 10018

(646) 665-2056

sales@clinch.io

EMEA:

CHQ Building,

Custom House Quay,

Dublin 1,

Ireland

+353 (1) 687 7178

sales@clinch.io

Recruitment Marketing: 7 Steps to a Stronger Employer Brand