Employer Branding (EB) is a topic of significant interest for many businesses in the current era of intense "war for talent."

According to the Harvard Business Review, from 2004 to 2008, large corporations such as Unilever, Shell, and P&G implemented branding programs. This increased attention to the concept of employer branding, akin to what they had done in traditional consumer markets. Due to the escalating competition in the recruitment market, companies are striving to attract top talent to work for them.

Continue reading the content below from Hireforce to learn all about Employer Branding, its importance, why your business needs EB, who is responsible for this task, strategies, 7 tips, and 10 considerations when building an employer branding.

What is Employer Branding?

Employer Branding (building recruitment brand) encompasses all activities through which a company deliberately or inadvertently promotes its distinct image to potential candidates.

While you can directly engage in building an employer brand, you cannot guarantee the outcomes. The employer brand is shaped through the experiences of candidates and employees.

For example:

If a candidate has a poor interview experience, they will have negative perceptions of the company. They might later share their negative experience with others.

Employees receiving fair benefits and working in a professional environment may be satisfied with their job and inclined to share their positive experiences with family and friends, thus expanding the company's recruitment brand.

Benefits of a Strong Employer Brand

The employer brand of each company creates a competitive advantage. In recent years, the job market has become more competitive – not only among candidates but also among businesses.

Today, candidates have many job options. However, they prefer companies with strong employer brands. Especially, these companies often have few vacancies because internal employees highly value a workplace with a good culture and high growth potential.

How Are Employer Brand and Company Brand Different?

The two concepts of Employer Brand and Company Brand are often misunderstood as one. However, besides both referring to a "brand," they have differences:

Employer Brand refers to candidates' perceptions of the company as an employer. For example, how does the recruitment process happen? Is the interview feedback prompt or slow? Is the application process engaging?...

Company Brand is the impression people, such as customers, partners, consumers, have of the company.

Despite different definitions, Employer Brand and Company Brand impact each other. The primary foundation for developing a strong employer brand is a strong company brand.

Everyone wants to work for a market-leading organization. Listing companies like Google, Apple, Unilever, or P&G on a CV serves as a "stamp of quality assurance" for any employee.

However, a strong corporate brand is only part of the success of an attractive (long-term) employer brand. The target audience of Employer Brand includes job seekers and current employees. They are not like customers buying the company's products/services. They have different desires and needs beyond the company's reputation and brand.

However, there are similarities and principles applied between building a company brand and building an employer brand. Businesses must understand the "silent pains," position, communication, assessment, and measurement of their target – whether customers or candidates.

What are the benefits of a strong Employer Brand?

An Employer Brand is closely linked with the corporate culture, helping to attract a large pool of candidates for a vacant position. Consequently, employers do not need to spend a significant amount of money on talent acquisition. Companies with a strong Employer Brand tend to retain more employees, reducing turnover rates.

Moreover, candidates aspire to secure a position at such companies. They work meticulously and diligently, putting forth their best efforts to expedite and facilitate the recruitment process efficiently.

Why do you need to build an employer branding for your business?

Recruitment Brand Communication

Recruitment brand communication has become increasingly common and is an essential component of human resource strategies to attract and retain talent. When asked if recruitment brand communication is necessary, 66.4% of businesses believe it is, and 28.6% consider it extremely important.

In general, larger companies recognize the importance of branding communication activities.

For businesses with over 500 employees, nearly half of the recruiters believe recruitment brand communication is essential, with only 2.4% rating it as unnecessary. For companies with fewer than 24 employees, recruitment brand communication activities are underutilized, and 10.5% of recruiters consider them unnecessary. The three sectors where recruitment brand communication activities are deemed extremely necessary are Education/Training, Real Estate, and Retail/Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG). Additionally, businesses in the fields of Information Technology - Software and Marketing/Communications/Advertising prioritize recruitment brand communication activities, with over 30% of recruiters considering them highly necessary.

Attracting Candidates and Enhancing Recruitment Efficiency

The importance of Employer Branding is demonstrated in its ability to improve three critical indicators: Recruitment time, Cost per hire, and Recruitment quality.

A survey by LinkedIn revealed that 75% of candidates research a company's reputation and recruitment brand before applying. Even when unemployed, 69% of candidates would not apply if they disliked poorly rated companies. As a result, according to the same survey, 83% of recruiters believe that the employer brand is crucial in recruiting talent for their company.

Building an employer brand helps imprint positive images of the company in the minds of potential candidates. Consequently, when the company needs to recruit, reaching out to and persuading them to make decisions becomes more manageable. When candidates are familiar with the company's brand, the recruitment process is faster and less costly.

Additionally, according to LinkedIn statistics, companies with strong employer brands find over 50% of qualified candidates, with recruitment times being one to two times faster and a 50% reduction in recruitment costs.

Retaining Talent

Everyone likes to shine in famous environments, being well-known by many. Employees in companies with strong brands are akin to wearing luxury jewelry. This is a crucial factor in maintaining and stabilizing human resources. When a company's recruitment brand is strong, each employee becomes a communication ambassador for the company.

According to LinkedIn:

83% of employees would leave their current company if a more famous company invited them to work. In companies with strong employer brands, the turnover rate within the first six months is 40% lower than in other companies. The longer you retain talent, the less money your company spends on recruitment and training.

One of the most challenging aspects of recruitment is convincing candidates to work for your company. Talented candidates always have many choices, and they may even receive numerous direct job offers without interviews. In such cases, building a distinct position in the recruitment market is crucial.

Investing in Employer Branding correctly can help businesses reduce recruitment and training costs, increase employee retention, and attract talent. This is particularly important for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with limited ability to compete in terms of salaries. Therefore, smaller companies benefit more from investing in Employer Branding.

Who is responsible for building the employer brand?

When discussing employer branding, the first group that comes to mind is often the Human Resources (HR) department. Indeed, HR is the primary group responsible for building this brand. However, the Employer Brand is not something we can directly communicate to candidates or job seekers. It is simply the recruitment reputation that your company holds. The employer brand is not only reflected through HR but also through many employees within the organization.

Founders or business owners, CEOs, and all C-level executives: These are the individuals who set the company's strategic vision and define and reinforce the company's values. Direct department managers: They are responsible for leading, evaluating, and training the skills, expertise, and people within their teams. HR team: They establish relationships among employees within the company and develop appropriate HR policies. Marketing and communications team: They convey the company's image, stories, people, etc., to the public (through social media, events, etc.).

However, employer branding for a company would be unfeasible if each department operated or brainstormed independently. All must collaborate to create a robust employer brand.

Strategic Employer Branding in 5 Steps

Step 1: Define Objectives for the Employer Branding Strategy

Consider what you and your company aim to achieve through the employer branding strategy. Some common Employer Branding objectives include:

• Attracting more job applications

• Recruiting candidates with higher qualifications

• Enhancing online interaction

• Encouraging proactive candidates

• Increasing accurate awareness of the company's employer brand

• Building trust with current candidates

• Boosting traffic to the company's job website

• Increasing the number of job referrals

• Improving job offer acceptance rates

Step 2: Identify Your Ideal Candidate Persona

You cannot send the right message to potential candidates unless you know who your ideal candidate is. Below is a list of criteria you can use to create an ideal candidate persona:

Step 3: Determine EVP (Employee Value Proposition)

Do you know why your employees choose your company? Why do they stay? What do they value most about your company as an employer? These are the questions you need to answer to develop a successful Employer Branding strategy. The answers to these questions will form the foundation for you to develop the Employee Value Propositions (EVP) within your business.

EVP is the competitive advantage of the employer brand, helping the company stand out and differentiate itself to attract potential candidates and retain current employees in the long term. The business's EVP must be both unique and appealing, convincing them that your company is a great place to work. When determining EVP, you have also defined the clear messaging of your employer brand communication.

Here are the five essential components of a complete EVP:

Step 4: Identify Channels to Communicate Your Employer Brand

After determining the EVP, the next step is to identify the most effective communication channels. Along the candidate journey, there are about ten touchpoints between the employer and job seekers. Many of these touchpoints serve as advertising channels for the Employer Brand. Common employer brand communication channels include:

Efforts of recruiters typically include:

Creating and managing independent channels such as the company website, recruitment workshops, and registration processes. Monitoring and directing community channels such as social media and word-of-mouth channels created by internal employees. Measuring and optimizing the effectiveness of paid channels such as recruitment advertising on Facebook and paid job boards.

Step 5: Measure the Effectiveness of the Employer Branding Strategy

Employee branding communication efforts will become meaningless if the company lacks a way to measure success (or measure ROI). You should evaluate the success of the Employer Branding strategy based on the objectives you set in the first step.

Recruiters should generate measurable metrics for each campaign such as views, application numbers, recruitment time, etc., to evaluate objectively. Additionally, businesses should compare data within the industry to assess objectively and adjust promptly.

7 Tips for Effective Employer Branding Execution

Successful recruiters are those with intriguing ideas, know how to strategize, and build effective employer branding. Here are 7 useful tips on employer branding that you can refer to:

1. Stay true to core values

When creating EVP, ensure it's built upon the core values of the company. With the current proliferation of recruitment websites, company reviews, and the rapid spread of social media, the labor market information becomes diverse and easily accessible. Therefore, candidates will quickly discern whether your branding efforts are promising experiences you truly deliver.

So, don't make unrealistic promises; instead, demonstrate clarity, transparency, and consistency by starting from the job benefits section of the job posting. Your company must be a great place to work if you want candidates to see it as such.

1. Focus on the company's social media image

As mentioned above, 52% of candidates will research the company culture on websites and social media before applying. They trust these information channels because they are objective and multidimensional. Therefore, pay attention to and actively control your company's image on these platforms as much as possible.

Today, candidates often turn to company review groups on Facebook to read and reference advice from those who have worked at the company. You can join these communities and use keyword searches to find all candid reviews from candidates and employees.

Note: Candidates will check the employer's profile just as you do with theirs.

1. Gather insights from employees within the company

Employees, from the perspective of employer branding, play a dual role as both a support tool for building the employer brand and a target audience for employer brand development. Using your employees as a platform to develop the employer brand is entirely reasonable.

Internal surveys are often conducted to gather opinions, thoughts, and desires of employees about the company. However, if you want more valuable information, you can use more in-depth surveys such as focused interviews, strategic meetings... The ultimate goal of all activities is to help HR experts explore all about the "hidden truths" about the business.

1. Company recruitment website: a crucial tool in employer branding

A well-built recruitment website will make the company image more professional, save recruiters resources, and make it easier for candidates to access. These pages must be tailored to fit the target audience (candidate personas will be useful here). The user interface must be logically structured, intuitive, and easy to use, accompanied by orderly conveyed important information.

Important note: Avoid overusing hollow messages (like "we prioritize people first"), even if they align with your company's values. Messages used excessively often have little impact and do not inspire trust in readers.

1. What's your company's story?

Every company has its own vision and mission. However, not every company knows how to turn them into compelling stories. A story that combines events, developments, and emotions will always have a greater impact than some standard introduction lines. Tell your brand story through images, videos, blog posts, or presentations.

For example: If you visit careers.google.com - Google's recruitment website, you'll find many stories and articles. All are intended to convey the same message: "equal opportunity."

Google is committed to creating equal employment opportunities for all employees, regardless of race, skin color, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or criminal history. That message is reiterated on their recruitment website. Thus, potential candidates see the difference in Google's culture.

1. Differentiated experience from the onboarding process

They often say first impressions are hard to forget, and you won't have a second chance to make it. Make the first-day experience for employees truly special. Become a 12-point company on the scale of 1-10 in the minds of candidates by showing respect and welcoming them to the organization.

1. Establish an Employee Advocacy Program

Core employee advocacy is a program that encourages employees to promote the company. The HR department often encourages employees to actively promote the company on social media or give gifts with the company's image.

Imagine this: When an employee performs well at work, you can reward them with a small gift, like a cup of coffee or a shopping voucher. Then, what could happen is:

First: Public acknowledgment within the company will boost the motivation of all employees and let them know that their efforts are recognized. Second: That employee may share it on social media. From there, they inadvertently promote the company's image naturally.

10 Notes for a Successful Employer Branding Strategy

Analyze and exploit corporate culture "Know thyself, know thy enemy. A hundred battles, a hundred victories" - Sun Tzu's Art of War. The first and most important thing is always to identify the company's competitive advantage over other companies in the market.

Implement a clear content strategy Build a specific strategy for the business based on analysis to highlight strengths. From there, you can easily attract candidates, helping to elevate the brand's position to a new level.

Invest in training and employee development After selecting the right target for the business, recruiters must train employees immediately because new resources will lack experience. Training from the start helps employees easily absorb the corporate culture and develop human resources in the right direction.

Leverage the human resources of the business Leverage the relationships of employees working in the company. While they may not be professional recruiters, based on their credibility, candidates can easily apply.

Establish a clear personnel recruitment process Common recruitment processes today include submitting resumes, preliminary interviews, professional interviews, and application processing. Dividing them into sections will help recruiters evaluate employees and make the most accurate decisions.

Set up a career path for employees Employees will have an overall picture of their job and career advancement in the company if they are provided with a clear career path. From there, employees will be more motivated and aware of their responsibilities.

Develop an internal information portal Building this allows employees to easily transmit and receive information. They can update, perform, and freely share their opinions.

Leverage the power of social media Social media is widely used and has almost become a lifestyle habit for everyone. Candidates spend a lot of time online and tend to prefer viewing job postings on this channel rather than viewing job listings from other channels.

Build a modern, comfortable working environment A beautiful workspace and comfortable space will attract many office workers. A not insignificant part of candidates choose to work for a company just because of the beautiful and fully equipped office.

"Content is King" It's not difficult for candidates to search for jobs and information about the company. Therefore, don't forget to build the employer brand through content on the website.

Employer Branding has become an essential component in the human resource strategies of companies to attract and retain talent. It's time for you to seriously consider developing your company's employer branding. Hopefully, after reading this article, you can successfully implement an employer branding strategy for your company.