Employer branding and recruitment: The ultimate guide

What is employer branding?

Employer branding is the process of positioning your company as the employer of choice to a target group of potential candidates.

An employer brand refers to the perception your current and potential employees have of your company. As an action, employer branding involves deliberately establishing your company’s values, work culture, and personality to ensure they align with your ideal candidates’ aspirations.

Employer branding is not about misleading people into thinking that a company is better than it actually is. It is about defining your unique employee value proposition:

What unique set of benefits do you offer employees in return for the skills, capabilities, and experience they’ll bring to your company?

Your employer brand is made up of every touchpoint you have with candidates and employees, from the first messages you send to candidates, to your employees’ exit interviews.

Creating an authentic and positive employer brand requires a lot of work, but it pays off. In this comprehensive guide, we cover everything you need to know to build a strong employer brand.

Employer branding vs. recruitment marketing

Many HR professionals use the terms “employer branding” and “recruitment marketing” interchangeably. Is there a difference?

These terms are closely interconnected; both have to do with your company’s reputation as an employer. The main difference is that:

→ Employer branding is the process of defining and positioning who you are.

→ Recruitment marketing is about communicating who you are as an employer.

As your foundation, employer branding comes first. Think of recruitment marketing as another term for promoting your employer brand.

The importance of employer branding in recruitment

Companies worldwide are already working on improving their employer brands. You don’t want to be left behind. Here are 3 reasons why employer branding is so important for any recruitment strategy:

Compete in the war for talent

A company is only as great as its people. And great people want to be associated with leading brands.

Recruiters are now taking a more proactive approach to attract and find the best candidates—including those who aren’t actively job searching. While it may seem impossible to compete with huge companies with prominent brand names, employer branding can actually be your secret weapon to attract top candidates.

A strong employer brand is twice as likely to be linked to job consideration compared to a strong company brand, according to LinkedIn research. That means developing your employer brand can help you level the playing field in the war for talent. This is especially important when hiring younger and more junior demographics, on a global scale.

Retain your best employees

Employees working at companies with strong employer brands are more invested and present lower turnover rates.

And more productive employees means more business growth. Happy employees feel proud to be part of their company and can become brand ambassadors. For instance, they could refer you to good-fit candidates and create a positive impression through word of mouth. This alone can help to improve your employer brand without increasing your marketing spendings.

Quick tip: Beyond the recruitment process, employer branding is also important for acquiring and retaining customers. People want to work with companies that treat their employees right. A poor employer brand might have them question your reliability and trustworthiness.

Reduce cost per hire

Companies with a weak employer brand report spending almost double on cost per hire than companies with a strong employer brand, according to LinkedIn research. What’s more, some companies even spend more on employee wages to compensate for their bad reputation. But the majority of job seekers would still completely rule out companies with a negative employer brand. As an example, HBR reports that a 10% salary raise would only tempt 28% of job seekers.

Employer branding is a smart business investment. Whereas a bad reputation costs you quality applicants, a great employer brand means you can spend less on recruiting costs because people will naturally find and apply to your open positions.

• 76 % of candidates are explicitly looking for what makes a company an attractive place to work
• Employee turnover can be reduced by 28% by investing in employer branding.
• 80% of talent acquisition managers believe employer branding has a significant impact on the ability to hire top talent.
• 79 %of candidates use social media in their job search.
• 50% of candidates say they wouldn’t work for a company with a bad reputation—even for a pay increase.
• 55% of job seekers abandon applications after reading negative reviews online.

Getting started with employer branding

Answer the following questions with your team to build an employer brand that attracts and retains employees.

You can also use this employer branding canvas to get started.

☑️ Who are you?

☑️ What makes your company unique?

☑️ What do you do?

☑️ What makes your company credible?

☑️ What’s your value proposition for job seekers

☑️  What unique benefits do you offer employees?

☑️  Why are you the best employer? How do you differ from your competitors?

☑️  How do you treat your current employees? How can you improve their employee experience?

☑️  Who do you want to know about your company?

☑️  How will your future employees find out about you?

☑️  What are your goals with employer branding?

☑️  What do you need to succeed?

☑️  How are you going to promote your employer brand? What channels will you use?

☑️  How are you going to measure your employer brand?

How to improve employer branding

We handpicked 11 tips for you to follow to improve and maintain a strong employer brand. Your company’s growth depends on it.

11 employer branding best practices

1. Make employer branding a central part of your HR strategy

Building a strong employer branding strategy is a long term plan.

And if you want to succeed, you can’t treat it as an afterthought. Prioritize building your employer brand with your team and make recruitment marketing a key component of your overall HR strategy.

2. Keep your employees happy

A conflict between your organization and an employee can tarnish your employer brand.

When they feel like they are in the right, employees hesitate a lot less to go public with horrifying work stories nowadays. And whether it is through word of mouth or on social media, negative comments about your company can spread like wildfire and have the power to ruin your reputation.

The best way to avoid such a scenario, besides ensuring that all your colleagues behave appropriately in the work environment, is to keep your current employees happy and maintain good relations with your ex-employees.

3. Keep your candidates happy

Job seekers can also spread the word about a negative candidate experience.

For this reason, you need to ensure that your organization is able to offer a high-quality candidate experience, to all candidates, throughout the entirety of the hiring process.

Extra tip: Candidates need organizations to be transparent. Keep your candidates up to date, and share feedback to let them know what they need to improve.

4. Embrace storytelling

Craft a meaningful story about your company and work culture to help potential candidates connect with your brand.

You wouldn’t have a company without your people. Showcase your employees’ success stories through videos, via blog posts on your career page, or your social accounts. Instagram and the proximity it creates with the audience is ideal for this.

In other words, tell a good story to show that your organization is a great place to work at.

5. Show your values by doing something to benefit a cause

Volunteering or donating to a cause tells people what your company cares about.

For example, Holvi organized a free Python course for complete beginners in collaboration with The Shortcut, and F-Secure organized a free cybersecurity course with the University of Helsinki and MOOC.

Also in collaboration with the University of Helsinki, Reaktor offers a series of free online courses about AI called The Elements of AI. All these companies showcase their values while making friends with like-minded organizations.

If you’re short of ideas, ask your colleagues! They will most likely get back to you with a ton of topics that they hold dear.

6. Be present and active on social media

Social media is one of the most relevant channels to promote your employer brand — especially when recruiting Millennials and Gen Z.

In most cases, however, LinkedIn is generally the best platform to reach potential candidates. We highly recommend sharing Employee-Generated Content and testimonials on your LinkedIn Career Page to drive interest in your company.

If you’re hosting or attending an event, consider live streaming on Instagram or Facebook.

Extra tip: people love to interact for and with their organization. Involving your current employee in strengthening your employer brand will contribute to increasing your employee retention rates.

7. Engage the management team

Employer branding is a team effort.

It’s essential to get your company stakeholders involved in building your employer brand. You should also be able to rely on your management team to promote your employer brand key messages on social media.

8. Share the responsibility

Strong brands emerge from collective efforts.

Support all your employees to be active on social media, and provide social media training if necessary, as not everyone knows how to properly use social media. What’s more, providing training will help you to make sure that employees follow strict brand guidelines when sharing content with their networks. It is key to build a strong and consistent brand.

9. Make friends with like-minded companies

United, we grow stronger.

We all get by with a little help from our friends. That includes other companies too. Build and nurture relationships with like-minded companies that share your values, or values you want to be associated with.

One way to do this is to amplify your friend companies’ messages on social media by engaging with them. Leave relevant comments and spur conversations! Alternatively, you can host events together if your target audiences are compatible.

10. Host and attend public events

Always be transparent.

Arrange an open house day or an event in a relevant learning institution that will connect you with your target candidates and show your company image in a positive light.

11. Practice empathy

When you’re wading through hundreds of resumes, it can be easy to forget what the process feels like from the candidate’s perspective.

Keep empathy at the heart of everything you do to create meaningful connections with candidates through your various brand touchpoints, both online and offline.

Putting yourself in their shoes will significantly improve the candidate experience, help you get to know your candidates better, spot warning signs that they’re not the right fit, and ultimately find the right match.

How to drive your employer brand with video content

Video has become the most important medium for organizations to share their messages. We have identified 4 ways to use video content in recruitment to improve your employer brand.

1. Create employer branding videos

Consider creating and sharing employer branding videos to show potential candidates what your company is all about. You can interview employees, do an office tour, show what a typical day at your company is like, share your annual sports day, showcase your company’s vision as a story—or something different altogether.

Either way, make sure you’re providing relevant and insightful information about your company culture and that you’re speaking to the types of candidates you want to attract.

To increase your reach, share your videos on different channels including:

→ Your career page
→ YouTube
→ Your company and employees’ social media platforms (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.)
→ Instagram through IGTV, stories, and highlights

2. Add videos to job ads

Have you considered adding videos to your job ads? You could use a video instead of a written job ad, or use it to complement your existing ad.

For instance, you and your team could introduce yourselves and the role via short videos. That way, you’ll be able to share a glimpse of what makes your company culture so unique and strengthen your image as an employer in the process.

Extra tip: Be natural and portray an honest message of your company and the role. You don’t want to give candidates unrealistic expectations.

3. Use pre-recorded video interviews

Candidates love pre-recorded video interviews. It gives them a unique opportunity to shine and stand out right from the screening process.

In other words, using pre-recorded video interviews in recruitment will help you improve the candidate experience. Even if you don’t end up hiring a candidate, you want to offer them a smooth experience.

The screening process is a key employer branding touchpoint so you want to get it right.

Pre-recorded video interviews also allow you to be seen as a modern and attractive recruiter, which can spread positive word of mouth about your company.

4. Send video messages

Have you ever communicated with candidates through video messages? If you’re using an ATS with a video interviewing platform, you can send direct video messages to candidates instead of sending cold and boring emails.

Video messages allow you to better engage candidates and provide more information with little effort. You can send informative messages letting candidates know about the next steps in the recruitment process, or include questions and ask candidates to respond.

Depending on what you have to say, you can send these videos to individual candidates, a selection of a few lucky ones, or a large candidate pool.

9 model employer branding examples to follow

Check out these examples of career pages and company culture videos to get some recruitment branding ideas for your own company.