Ever so often, do you think about your competitors and ask yourself, are they having the same hiring issues like I am?  Wouldn’t it be great to have a constant flow of quality candidates knocking at your door? Well, we want to let you in on a little secret: the x-factor could be your Employer Brand.

What is an Employer Brand?

It’s your perception to employees and what you can offer them in terms of value is the benchmark definition of an employer brand.  Simply put, its what your company can offer people and why it’s a great place to work.  It’s important because it could be the reason someone applies to your company or scrolls right over your job ad. Having a strong employer brand makes it easier to attract and solicit top talent, it will also keep your current employees loyal and motivated to keep working hard knowing you’re one of the best out there.

Think About It: How is my company’s image as an Employer?

Take a step back and put yourself in your ideal candidate’s shoes, now think about the best player in your industry and what they can offer. Where does your company rank in this spectrum? Has your company had any major PR hiccups in the last couple of years? Understanding what value, you can offer to potential hires is key in determining if you’re having a talent attraction issue, if you’re not getting many applicants for C-level roles or people are avoiding your calls or emails, you might have a problem.

Tip # 1: Analyze & Reflect

Before you start to dissect your brand, do some research about your industry and what the ideal candidates are looking for. Understanding data and what attracts people to work in your field – what perks and benefits they value or what they hate will give you key insight to dissect your current brand. At the end of the day, some jobs or industries can be much more demanding and challenging than others, so you can’t compare apples to oranges when evaluating your brand.

As part of your self-review of, include current staff, suppliers and former staff if possible, ask them what they enjoyed about working (or leaving) your company. You can ask new hires if their current experience has measured up to their expectations.

Tip # 2: Acknowledge Your Shortcomings

Once your team has a good set of data, figure out where you’re coming up short and why. Don’t let the issue freak you out, sometimes companies think their issue is too big to correct when in fact this should be viewed as an agent for change. Decide as a team how you want to improve your current employer brand and develop a plan to implement and measure these changes. The experts at Proem firmly believe that understanding your employer brand is key to your overall recruitment strategy, we cannot emphasize this enough! If you truly want to attract the best talent, you are going to live and die by your employer brand strategy.

Tip # 3: Speak to your Leaders

Include middle management and low-level executives. This is one of the if not most important parts of your rebranding process. Think about it like this, decision-makers and executives may actively be involved in the hiring process, on a day to day basis, but they may not understand the exact frustrations from supervisors or managers. Use your willingness to rebrand and have an open conversation, have your middle management tell you what kind of messages they want to convey in possible rebranding efforts.  Everyone needs to be crystal clear and on the same page when it comes to rebranding, as part of the rebranding process is to tweak your company’s culture and have that reflect outward externally either by referrals, by current employees or online reviews by previous workers. To make your rebrand campaign a success, having a well-coordinated effort will increase the chances of success.

Tip # 4:  Develop an Action Plan

Once you have a clear idea of how you want your company to be viewed, develop marketing and brand efforts that are aimed at targeting your ideal candidates. In your marketing, you should promote your company’s core values and goals. You want to establish yourself as a reputable business in your outreach campaigns.  Draw a timeline of key focus points, your values, and goals, while identifying obstacles and hiccups that could arise.

Things won’t change overnight, some of your changes will be easy to implement while others will become bigger tasks to manage, just stay focused on the task at hand and your larger goals. Remember focus on the why, and don’t sugar-coat your shortcomings, be patient because change is already happening, your brand is already getting stronger.  The change will slowly happen like it always does, but make sure you follow through as rebranding your employer image is a long process.

Tip # 5:  Implement your New Initiatives

When your ready start to roll things out use brand influencers that will spread the word about great it is to work at your company.  Use social media to share real company stories and give outsiders a glimpse of how great it can be to work at your company. You want your new campaign to boost engagement and interaction with passive job seekers and active job seekers, ideally, you want your brand to be regarded as a well-respected player in your industry or sector. As time goes on, if your brand, its image, and values appear to be consistent, good candidates will start to reach out to you. Over time, as people start to gravitate toward your company more, you’ll form new networking contacts and reap other auxiliary benefits.

Proem’s HR Consulting

We are a team of experts that through our recruiting and placement efforts, have conducted extensive research and analysis that is geared toward understanding what drives candidates to organizations. We have conducted online polling and sampling to better understand what motivates and drives people. We hope this guide will encourage you to change and enhance your current employer branding strategy.