Strategies to Improve Your Employer Brand Awareness
By Mary Lewis
With a growing number of companies vying to attract, engage and retain qualified candidates in a competitive global job market, it could be quite an overwhelming task to differentiate yourself as an employer.
In fact, 95% of job seekers say that an employer’s reputation is one of the factors they consider before even applying . In another study, 55% of job seekers abandon applications after reading negative reviews online, while only 45% employers ever monitor or ever respond to those reviews . Meanwhile, passive candidates that could meet your job criteria make up 70% of the global workforce.
This just proves the broader considerations that hiring managers must bear in order to demonstrate their worth to their prospective employees.
在当今人才驱动形的就业市场上,企业不仅仅要销售商品和服务,还在向潜在求职者推销自己的雇主品牌。为了吸引最优秀和最聪明的人才,企业必须从众多竞争对手中脱颖而出。
So how do you improve your brand reputation in order to stand out from your competitors? Here are some of the tried-and-tested strategies your Human Resource Department and Marketing can consider adopting:
01
Check out how your company fare in terms of its online presence. If an applicant wants to have a quick look of your company, what kind of impression will they get from the information available in the news, image search, video search, social media mentions, job boards, Glassdoor reviews, client testimonials?
Having an outsider’s perspective is an important starting point before planning any damage control or adjustments or updates made on your account settings. There are a couple of free and paid tools which can assist you in going through this.
查看公司在网上的口碑如何,包括新闻、视频搜索、求职网站评论等。
02
Survey a couple of key external stakeholders and existing employees to find out what they think about your company and what best describes the experience of working with you. Positive feedback can be gathered and repurposed as content for your website or social media accounts. Should there be any negative reviews, it would be best to find a way to address these in a timely and succinct manner.
对若干关键的外部利益相关者以及现有公司员工进行问卷调查,了解其对公司的看法。利用这些信息打造网站及社交媒体账户的内容。
03
Decide on your employer brand persona. People like to connect with other people, so your company must exhibit a unified personality, which the external public, including your potential employees, can relate with. You company brand persona should then be consistently adhered to by your hiring managers, who will represent your brand, as well as your content managers, who will articulate your brand.
Above is a brand personality scale which you can use as a starting point for discussions with and among your HR Team and Senior Management. Once you decide on a brand personality, this will affect how people feel about your product, which emotions they would experience when contacting your company and how they would remember you.
确定雇主的品牌形象。招聘经理必须始终如一代表公司的品牌形象和个性。
04
Create a streamlined and transparent recruiting process. Some candidates end up abandoning their application when they feel frustrated about the lengthy assessments, long lead times and lack of communication.
To know what it is like from the applicant’s point of view, you can infer this from these questions:
•How did they find you?
•How did they learn about the company?
•Where and when did they apply?
•How were they kept informed about their application?
•What resources helped in knowing more about your company?
Some of the key areas, where improvements could be made, is in terms of accessibility (e.g. allowing candidates to upload their resume instead of having to type their skills and experiences online). Another tactic is to use a recruitment software to help keep the HR team be on-track.
创建精简透明的招聘流程,改进招聘领域的可访问性。
05
Use LinkedIn to showcase your employer brand. Be sure to answer the following questions on your company page:
What will make me proud to work here?
What values or beliefs drive the business?
Who are the co-workers who I will be collaborating with and what’s their story?
What are some of the engagement activities that you offer?
How does your clients/customers/local community appreciate the business?
Make sure to use photos of CEOs and employees engaged in activities, awarding events, and community outreach to give applicants a sneak peek into their potential work life.
使用Linkedin来展示雇主品牌,在主页完善公司员工的工作生活情况。
06
Involve your entire team to make the most out of your recruiting efforts. Encourage the participation of employees through referral bonuses. You can also create a campaign whereby employees can share company updates and job openings on their personal accounts, primarily on LinkedIn. But be sure to provide them with the content using branded messages just to be consistent with your employer brand persona. In turn, a reward scheme can be created to recognize individual efforts for supporting the company’s recruitment process.
让公司整个团队最大限度为招聘进行努力。
07
While all the above steps are simultaneously happening, try to keep an eye on all your social media channels to respond to any comments (both negative and positive) in a timely manner.
在进行以上方面时,保持关注所有的社交媒体渠道,及时回应任何评论。
To be able to do this correctly, HR managers should determine who in their team has the bandwidth to monitor new reviews, curate template responses, which you can tweak and respond to reviews. Even the best companies get a critical review occasionally, but it should be looked at as an opportunity to clarify from the company’s standpoint and affirm the company’s commitment to addressing feedback.