Employer branding is a forming a central part of talent attraction in today’s brave new world.
Attracting the very best candidates is only getting harder, so standing out from the crowd with a great employer brand is a great way to overtake competitors.
The problem?
Employer branding can be a little amorphous – it’s hard to know exactly where to begin.
It’s far easier to break intangible concepts like this into small manageable chunks – particularly if you’re just getting started.
An easy first step to boost your employer brand is to make sure all your employees are on LinkedIn. Here’s why:
Trust
What do you think candidates are more likely to trust – your employees or your corporate message?
Recent research suggests that “66% of people trust a company’s employees on internal programs, benefits and working conditions [more] than any other stakeholder”.
Encourage your staff to connect with talent online and answer any questions they might have about the company.
You can even formalise this, and encourage potential applicants to sign up for webinars and Twitter Q&A’s with your staff.
Alternatively, you can just encourage your team to reach out on LinkedIn and start relationships with the kind of people that they would like to work with.
Referrals
Referrals are the holy grail of every hiring department.
It’s statistically proven to produce the best hires. New hires that have been referred are also 23% less likely to quit – a particular benefit given the problems with retention that many companies have nowadays.
LinkedIn, as the main hub of professional communications, is your best bet for a thriving referral system.
It’s easy for employees to cultivate and keep up with business connections – the platform will even notify you when connections are looking for new work or have changed role.
Trying to leverage your staff for referrals?
Make sure their LinkedIn profiles are up to scratch. Think of every profile as an individual product or marketing page for your company. Having a team that consistently appears to be high quality on LinkedIn says a lot about a company!
Content distribution
Having a high proportion of your employees on LinkedIn makes it far easier for you to spread employer branding and career related content to a professional, targeted audience.
Content plays a key role in employer branding. Focus on creating material that gives candidates an insight into your company and helps them understand what a role with you would ‘really look like’.
Use your employees to amplify the reach of this content and get it in front of as many people as possible.
This could be as simple as asking them to share it to their own audiences, but it could also involve them sharing your material in relevant LinkedIn groups or sending it to specific candidates.
Summary
The sheer volume of talented professionals on LinkedIn makes it a must for any developing employer branding strategy.
Encourage your employees to act on your behalf and interact with great online talent, and you’ll be surprised as to the positive effect on your brand.
