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
4
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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
EMEA:
CHQ Building,
Custom House Quay,
Dublin 1,
Ireland
+353 (1) 687 7178
Recruitment Marketing: 7 Steps to a Stronger Employer Brand