Today’s job market is competitive, not just for candidates seeking out a new role, but for companies themselves to stand out among their competitors. An interesting and engaging employer brand can make a huge difference between a candidate deciding whether or not to apply.

Gone are the days of a simple job description being enough to attract candidates to apply–companies need to be showcasing their values and culture in order to resonate with potential candidates. 

Below, we’ve listed some easy ways you can start to assess and improve your employer brand.

1. Assess and Improve Your Current Brand

Before you can even begin to make any changes, it’s important to understand what your brand currently looks like from both a candidate perspective and the perspective of your current employees.

A good starting point is to gather as much feedback as you possibly can. Create surveys that you can send to your employees as well as your candidates during the hiring process. Ask them how they perceive the brand currently, the culture, how well they connect with the values etc. 

You can then analyze this data to identify common themes and make note of where your brand does well, but more importantly, where there’s room for improvement. Be open to all kinds of feedback, even if it’s critical, as this will help you strengthen your brand.

2. Define Your Ideal Candidate

A Candidate Value Proposition (CVP) will be a crucial tool in hiring the right talent, as this will outline to your candidates why they should choose you over competitors. To do this, you need to first identify your ideal candidate profile, to understand which needs and skills identify with your company goals. 

Having identified your ICP, you’ll be able to create your CVP based on what you now understand motivates them. A compelling CVP should resonate with your candidates and make you stand out from your competitors.

3. Communicate your employer brand

There’s no point in overhauling your employer brand if you’re not going to be shouting it from the rooftops. 79% of job seekers will seek you out on social media before they apply to a role, so using social media is key in building a successful employer brand. As well as just promoting your product, give people an insight into your company culture, what it’s like to work there and highlight your employees to ensure personability.

From social media, you’ll most likely be leading potential candidates to a careers page, so make sure both are consistent with each other and that your mission and values are the same throughout. Be honest with your candidates and give them an insight into who you are as an employer.

4. Prioritize Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)

Hiring without bias will play a huge part in the success of your overall employer brand. A commitment to DEI will boost your brand’s appeal and lead to a more diverse workforce, which will then lead to a more productive and creative workforce.

There are a lot of ways in which you can make your hiring process more inclusive, and tools and technologies which can help reduce bias in the process. If you’re interested in some of the ways to do this, check out our blog post on inclusive hiring practices here.

5. Measure Your Efforts

Improving your employer brand is not something that will happen instantly and needs time, patience and most especially, constant monitoring to ensure that you’re successful in your efforts.

There are many metrics you can use to measure your employer brand going forward, some of which we’ve highlighted below:

• Candidate experience: Use NPS surveys get feedback from your candidates on your hiring process
• Recruitment metrics: Data like quality of hire, time to fill and acceptance rates are good indicators of a good employer brand
• Engagement: Measuring your social media and employee engagement levels can give you an idea on if your efforts are paying off

The idea of building your employer brand can seem daunting, but it's important to remember that even though it will take time, it's absolutely worth the effort to attract and retain the best talent. There are plenty of small and quick wins you can put into place straight away to help your brand–if you're curious to discover more about these, download our free guide below!