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Employer branding is essential to attract top talent. If an organization wants to stay on top of the competition and hire the best early talent, it’s important to consider how potential recruits perceive its brand. 

Employer branding is the marketing of your company and one of the first steps in attracting new talent. With proper branding, you will be able to attract more qualified applicants, retain current employees and make it easy for them to recommend you as a potential employer. It can be the difference between bringing in the best talent or letting talent slip through your fingers. Additionally, you will also better differentiate yourself from the competition by cultivating a positive reputation, which will help with:

  • Reducing recruitment costs
  • Attracting high-quality applicants
  • Increasing employee referrals
  • Improving employee retention rate
  • Increasing offer-acceptance rates

This means that there are more than just PR benefits to excellent employer branding – it will also benefit your bottom line.

Consider your digital presence

A study found that 75% of job applicants view a business’ website and social media before applying for a position. Therefore, the success of your company’s recruitment efforts is directly impacted by your digital presence and how potential recruits perceive your business.

An in-depth review of your website and social media is important to ensure that it:

  • Explains what makes you a great employer
  • Shows that you care about your existing employees
  • Tells positive stories about your team and organization
  • Clearly communicates your outlook on business and the work you do
  • Conveys an employer value proposition

Early top talent will be looking at your digital platforms to see what type of business you are. You should therefore communicate a strong sense of your company culture on these platforms – so job seekers want to become a part of your organization’s ‘family.’

Your branding and communications are not only integral to your overall success, but also a powerful tool for recruitment. Many businesses therefore find it worth consulting with branding or marketing experts to ensure their branding strategy and communication align with their goals. These experts can help make your messaging appealing to talent you want to recruit and provide substantial long-term benefits.

Create people-focused content

Storytelling is an important part of growing your employer brand. The content that your company sends out needs to demonstrate that your employees are central to everything you do. This can be achieved by:

  • Creating videos that show a friendly face
  • Sharing case studies of employee success stories
  • Posting social media content about employee achievements

The very best companies invest in their people. Suppose you want to attract the best graduates, students and interns. In that case, you need to create people-focused content which shows that your people are your priority.

The importance of employer branding

When your company carefully defines and develops its employer brand, employer value proposition, and the messaging that goes with it, your company will become attractive to the early top talent. This means that your job applicants will try to make themselves stand out from the crowd, so they are irresistible to you.

However, your company should be doing the exact same thing through its branding. 

It is important that your organization makes a concerted effort to impress potential applicants. Your employer value proposition needs to make it clear that your workplace is vibrant and enjoyable, improving the appeal of your organization and job opening(s) to top early talent. 

The benefits of clear, effective employer branding are huge – less time and resources spent on fruitless recruitment efforts, more top-tier talent seeking to work with you, and quicker filling of vacancies as candidates find you through their own research. After all, if top-tier talent comes to you instead of the other way around, then you don’t need to spend time finding them – they already want to work with you!

Enhance your employer branding with Highered

Highered is the perfect platform for your business to enhance its employer branding. 

We can help you reach the talent you are looking for and build relationships directly with these individuals and career services at your selection of schools.

Learn more about employer branding with Highered today.