“I would love to work there!”
If your employer branding is strong, it gives your talent acquisition a big bump in the right direction.
Qualified candidates will actually seek you out — without even seeing your job ads. When that happens, your time to hire plummets, while your cost to hire drops off a cliff.
That’s how employer branding can improve your talent acquisition..
And while you can’t magically improve your hiring brand overnight, you can take a few key steps to start the ball rolling in the right direction. Surprisingly, AI makes several of these steps fast and easy.
Meet with our hiring coaches today to see how AI can slash 90% of the time from your hiring process. Start filling jobs faster right away, with 10x higher quality people.
How Employer Branding Helps Talent Acquisition
As a recruiter at The Container Store, Rachel Kennedy of branding firm Southern Lighthouse was surprised at first that so many highly qualified candidates would apply to the retailer instead of to Macy’s, Amazon, or so many other big-name retailers. Yet she quickly discovered the answer — it was The Container Store’s employer brand.
Employer brand is the driving force behind your talent acquisition drive. The better your brand, the more you’ll attract top talent without lifting a finger.
Employer branding also cuts huge chunks of human resources cost from your recruitment process. If everybody wants to work for your company, your HR team becomes a gatekeeper, not a voice crying out in the wilderness.
How to Use Employer Branding for Talent Acquisition
If you start with a strong employer value proposition and communicate it well, your employer branding strategy will drive effective talent acquisition. Pay close attention to the way you post on social media, and make simple videos your new best friend.
1. Create an Employer Value Proposition
An employer value proposition (EVP) is your company’s “why.” It’s the reason any employee would want to work for you. Put another way, it’s everything your employees gain by working at your company. To create it, consider what you offer to candidates, including:
- Pay
- Benefits
- Career development
- Great coworkers
- Technology
- Positive company culture
- Excellent managers
- Remote work
- Flexible scheduling
- Perks
- Social initiatives
- Parental leave
- Retirement savings
- Onsite services like childcare
- DEI
All of these things can be part of your EVP. Your organization may not cover them all, but you should carefully consider what you do offer. The point is to build this consciously and distill it to a document that all your team members can refer to in your employer branding and talent acquisition efforts.
2. Communicate Your EVP
Congratulations! You’ve built an ironclad employee value prop. Highly qualified candidates the likes of a young Jeff Bezos and Mary Barra will now beat a path to your door.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.
It’s not enough to create an incredibly attractive EVP. You also need to communicate it effectively — and without grinding your recruitment to a halt.
How can you do that?
By leveraging the powerful and largely free (or inexpensive) tools at your disposal, including:
- Social media
- Job descriptions
- Emails
- Newsletters
- Recruitment videos
By leveraging the powerful and largely free (or inexpensive) tools at your disposal, including:
- Social media
- Job descriptions
- Emails
- Newsletters
- Recruitment videos
If creating and publishing content through these channels sounds daunting, don’t worry. With AI, the employer branding and talent acquisition process is a lot less time consuming than you think.
For instance, you can create a social media post or video script in just a few minutes, using ChatGPT to first outline it for you, then to write the copy.
Just log into ChatGPT, then enter a prompt like:
ChatGPT prompt:
Write a recruitment marketing video script, for a video to post on linkedin, for discoveredats.com, with an engaging introduction, company overview, and a call for candidates to apply via LinkedIn. Some details: The work environment is exciting, upbeat, fun, and fast-paced. There's room for significant career development, and employees will work closely with brilliant team members in a culture of inclusion.
Prompt:
[Opening shot: A dynamic aerial view of a modern office space with employees engaged in various tasks. Upbeat music plays in the background.]
Narrator (Voiceover): [With enthusiasm] Welcome to the heart of innovation, where careers take flight and dreams turn into reality. Get ready to embark on a journey that will redefine your professional trajectory.
[Cut to shots of employees collaborating, laughing, and sharing ideas in a vibrant office setting.]
Narrator (Voiceover): At Discoveredats.com, we're not just building a platform; we're building a community of pioneers. A quick glance into our world reveals an environment that's not only exciting and upbeat but also incredibly fun and fast-paced.
[Cut to shots of employees brainstorming in a creatively designed meeting room, high-fiving after a successful project, and enjoying a communal lunch.]
Narrator (Voiceover): Here, every day is an opportunity to create, innovate, and grow. We believe in limitless possibilities, and that's exactly what your career will be with us – limitless.
[Cut to shots of employees working on cutting-edge projects, attending workshops, and receiving guidance from senior team members.]
Narrator (Voiceover): Joining Discoveredats.com means joining a team of brilliant minds, united by a shared vision of revolutionizing the industry. Our commitment to inclusion means that every voice is heard, every idea is valued, and every contribution is celebrated.
[Cut to shots of diverse employees interacting, participating in team-building activities, and showcasing a strong sense of camaraderie.]
Narrator (Voiceover): We're not just colleagues; we're collaborators, mentors, and friends. And together, we're shaping the future while embracing the uniqueness of each individual.
[Cut to shots of employees attending career development workshops, receiving certificates, and moving up the career ladder.]
Narrator (Voiceover): Your growth matters to us. At Discoveredats.com, you won't just find a job – you'll find a path to excellence. With extensive opportunities for career development, mentorship, and hands-on learning, your journey here is what you make of it.
[Cut to shots of employees sharing success stories, shaking hands with clients, and participating in company-wide celebrations.]
Narrator (Voiceover): So, if you're ready to be part of a team that thrives on challenges, believes in collaboration, and celebrates achievements, then we invite you to take the next step.
[Text on screen: "Ready to join us? Apply now on LinkedIn!"]
Narrator (Voiceover): Discover your potential at Discoveredats.com. Visit our LinkedIn page and be part of something extraordinary.
[Closing shot: The company logo and the LinkedIn logo side by side.]
Narrator (Voiceover): Discoveredats.com – Where Your Journey Begins.
[End with the company logo, contact information, and a call to action: "Follow us on LinkedIn for updates and opportunities."]
[Upbeat music fades out as the video ends.]
Remember to adjust the script as needed to fit the specific tone and branding of Discoveredats.com. The script provided is a template to give you an idea of how to structure the video and what elements to include.
Or even easier, Discovered – Performance Hiring Software can help you create engaging employer branding videos like the one below:
EVP Communication Tips
To best communicate your EVP, whether you’re writing a blog post, job description, email, social media post, newsletter, or recruitment video:
- Start with your core values, and identify the ones you’d like to talk about this month. That could be DEI, creativity, excellence, career development, or passion.
- Find authentic stories in your workforce that match this month’s core value. With a little inquiry, you might find an employee who got a green light to reorganize her work area and made her job more fun. That’s an engaging employer branding story that will energize your talent acquisition drive.
- Spend 90% of your time on the part of the content the candidate will see first. That could be an email subject line, the first line of a social media post, or the title of a recruitment marketing video. Engage them right away to make sure they read your content.
3. Use Social Media Best Practices
About 90% of U.S. residents use social media, and 80% use it at work. That’s more candidates than you can reach with TV ads. But the key isn’t just to use social media. We’ve all had the experience of posting something we think is “great,” only to see our best friend and our mom click “like” — and no one else.
To attract candidates with social media:
- Create video. Video generates 10x more engagement than any other kind of post. Plus, a short video is an effective way to share your employer branding stories on LinkedIn and other social media channels.
- Let the founder speak. Company founders are the best people to tell your employer branding stories, because they’re the face of the organization, and their passion and vision lead the way.
- Start with your “why.” What is your company’s mission, and why should a potential candidate be excited about it? Every video doesn’t need to explain your mission statement in detail, but they should all be rooted in it. (For instance, your mission might be to fight breast cancer, and a good employer brand story might be a survivor testimonial.)
Known as “the singing nurse,” Joyace Ussin found singing helped her through breast cancer treatment. “Now I sing to my patients when I see they’re having a hard day,” she says. https://t.co/dXd7e4ImRv #BreastCancer #EndCancer
— MD Anderson Cancer Center (@MDAndersonNews) August 24, 2023
- Find employees who love your org, and get their stories out there. Real stories from real stakeholders will create more engagement than canned marketing copy.
- Share stories of empowerment. This can be as simple as a story about how your business empowered an employee to be creative, or to reach a personal goal.
Discovered – Performance hiring software’s AI integration can help you write your social media posts and other employer branding content automatically. Schedule a demo to see how it works.
4. Create an Engaging Careers Page
“This looks like a great place to work.” A well-crafted company careers page gives job seekers a way to interact directly with your employer brand. It can bring in organic traffic and increase your candidate pool, lowering your cost per hire.
To create a careers page that brings in qualified candidates, make it fun, visually engaging, and uncluttered. Give employees a way to see and apply to your open roles. Then, link to it from your homepage and your website footer, so job seekers can find it easily. The careers page example below from Wegman’s shows a fun, inclusive, energetic employer brand at a glance.
Discovered’s AI integration can create an attention-getting careers page for you. Book a demo to see how.
5. Create a Strong Candidate Experience
When a candidate applies to a job at your organization, do they feel like they matter? Or does their application drop into a black hole? Your recruitment process should flow smoothly from job ad to posting, collecting and screening resumes and applications, video interviews, interview scheduling, and pre-employment assessments.
Your hiring process should keep applicants in the loop, so it’s fast and easy for your candidates, with attentive communication throughout. This keeps candidates engaged and respects their time. One way to do this is to use AI to create all the job ads, video content, career page content, and email text that lets you interact with your employees.
6. Strengthen Your Company Culture
“It’s my dream to work in a place like that.” A strong company culture makes all your other employer branding and talent acquisition efforts easier. That’s because an attractive company culture gets your employees talking to their networks about how much they love their jobs.
You can strengthen your company culture by:
- Talking to your employees, getting their feedback, and giving them a voice for change in your organization.
- Screening new candidates for cultural fit.
- Encouraging mentoring relationships with high-performing employees.
- Providing opportunities for continuing ed (even via free online classes).
7. Engage in Online Reviews
Online reviews are a two-edged sword that can bring in business and improve your employer brand, or destroy them both. When you get a bad review, don’t hide your head in the sand. Address it, and encourage and incentivize your employees to address negative reviews.
To respond to negative reviews on your employer brand, such as on Glassdoor, or on your offerings, such as on Yelp:
- Monitor online reviews by Googling your company name and “reviews.”
- Thank the reviewer for their input.
- Validate their concerns.
- Offer a solution and invite them to speak with you.
Use Discovered – Performance Hiring Software to Strengthen Your Employer Brand
Plus, Discovered can post job ads to multiple websites and automatically administer one-way video interviews and pre-employment assessments, from skills tests to integrity tests to automated reference checking and more. See how Discovered can help you attract and retain top talent today.
Discovered – Performance Hiring Software’s AI-enhanced suite of tools can quickly create:
- Job descriptions
- Emails for drip campaigns
- Newsletters
- Careers pages
- Social media posts
