5 Ways to Build a Standout Employer Brand on a Budget
Simply Hired Staff
Every talent acquisition manager wants to build a great employer brand. It’s a powerful tool for recruiting the best candidates for your open positions, and it can save significant costs over time by reducing your time-to-hire and retention rate.
Unfortunately, budget and personnel restrictions often push employer branding to the backseat. Not every talent acquisition manager has the resources to contract out or bring in a team to build their employer brand, making it difficult to follow through on the great ideas you might come across online.
Never fear. The Internet is making it easier than ever to organize an approach to branding that doesn’t blow your budget for the whole year. Here are a few low-cost and free strategies you can implement over the coming months to build your employer brand on a budget.
Revamp your careers page with efficiency in mind
The first stop for every potential candidate is the official landing page for your company’s recruiting efforts. Work with your in-house website development team to execute updates and ideas that will take as little coding as possible.
For example, using infographics to convey information often takes less manpower than coding images and content into a page in tandem. Recording a company video that communicates your company’s value proposition and what you’re looking for in a candidate might be even more low cost. Then review this article to identify ways you can help your company’s personality jump off the page.
Write captivating job descriptions
In a world of hyper-communication, words matter more than ever. That counts for your careers page, and it extends to your job descriptions. Review each job description to make sure that you are describing your company and the candidate as accurately as possible. Make changes accordingly. Then take this process a step further by updating your job description review process and inviting managers and other stakeholders to review position descriptions and provide feedback. If your managers are completely booked, connect with an established freelance writer or career specialist for a one-time consultation.
Curate your company’s website with an interviewer’s eyes
Next, move on to your company’s main website. Take in the content, images, photos and videos that a prospective candidate might see. Then make a list of changes that might better suit the candidates you are trying to recruit.
For example, the company photos you include on your website speak volumes. Are they posed or not? Casual or suit and tie? Full of off-site events or professional meetings? How you choose to display the employees who already work for your company will send a clear message to prospective candidates about whether or not they can see themselves working for you. Use Pinterest to sort through different kinds of professional headshots to find a style that represents your company.
Step off of your URL
After updating your careers page and company website, step off of your company URL to proactively brand your company out in the web. Review your company social media profiles on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn with the eyes of a job seeker. Note colors, sentiments and updates that could be taken out of context by a prospective candidate, as well as missed opportunities for connecting with job seekers. Consider tasking some of your social media team members to be on the lookout for particularly active social media followers in certain industries; you never know when a brand fan might translate into a perfect new hire.
Train interviewers in basic PR
Once a candidate makes it past your careers page, company page and candidate screening process, you finally get the opportunity to conduct an interview. An important part of the employer branding process is to make sure that you’re prepared for this moment and that you can represent your company professionally and accurately.
To make sure you and your team give the most realistic (and consistent) impression possible, implement interviewer training that proactively addresses employer branding issues that might come up. This will allow you to anticipate “surprises” before they pop up, including good and bad online reviews and the most consistent “elevator speech” for the company possible.
For more tips on building a desirable employer brand, read this Simply Hired article. Then use this Simply Hired article to identify the most effective metrics you can use to track the ROI of your employer brand over time.
Looking for a more comprehensive approach? Download our Employer Brand ebook today!
