In today’s recruitment and employment climate, it is more important than ever to be viewed as a desirable place to work. But even more so, it is important to actually BE a desirable place to work for your employees.
So we ask our favorite employer branding managers around the world to give us their best tips so that for some of you newcomers have all the ammunition you need to cultivate a genuine employer brand for your business.
Hannah Fleishman
Create an employer brand DIY (Do-It-Yourself) program for employees. At HubSpot, our Inbound Recruiting program is robust; we run global employer branding efforts including our jobs website, HubSpot Life social media channels, recruitment events, careers blogging and content, paid strategy, and more. This wouldn’t be possible without the help of our employees. That’s why we do our best to make it as easy as possible for employees to do an Instagram takeover on HubSpot Life, write a blog post for our careers blog, or host a recruitment event by creating kits and guides for how to do just that. Whether you have a full-funnel inbound recruiting program or are focused on one employer branding channel, make it easy for employees to get involved with DIY resources.
Hannah Fleishman, Inbound Recruiting Manager, HubSpot
Jennifer Johnston
Focus more on employee advocacy, employee reviews and employer awards. These are the decision points that today’s candidates use to determine where they want to work – what their friends or people in their networks have to say about you as an employer, what the crowd has to say, and how you compare to other companies they might be considering on best place to work lists.
Jennifer Johnston, Senior Director of Global Employer Branding, Salesforce
Estela Vazquez Perez
Not all companies are ready for employer branding, assess the job before taking it. Even though the role may be called employer branding, you have to figure out if they are talking only recruitment, which is most of the times. Maybe they are talking engagement, that is a bit more developed thinking so you need to find who is leading the conversation and how far your role is from that team. Very few companies are doing employer branding for culture transformation. This is the real deal and it needs a big sponsor to make it happen because it is ultimately owned by your c-suite. Our EVP was approved by our CHRO and heavily socialized internally. Don’t get frustrated if you are in level I employer branding, you can still create change and set up the foundation for a bigger conversation in the future.
Estela Vazquez Perez, Global Employment Brand Director, Royal Bank of Canada
Ton Rodenburg
Create an alliance and core network that enables you to build and communicate the brand. This alliance, or team if you will, should have the leaders in business, HR and communication at its core. This team should surround itself with a ring of great ‘disciples’, enthusiasts, inspiring people, formal leaders, networked, that can help spread the brand gospel. This network of brand ambassadors, ‘fire starters’ (thanks Benoy) then can become the core team to spread the virus of the employer brand. Internally, and in that ‘contaminating’ also more colleagues and outsiders to spread the word!
Ton Rodenburg, Employer Branding Strategy Director, ARA M/V Human Resource Communications
Jaclyn Campbell
Employees are your strongest asset, use them to your advantage. Meet with employees from all different departments, roles, levels, backgrounds, and locations and get to know them. Use employee stories to bring your employer brand to life – it brings a humanised approach that talent can relate to.
Jaclyn Campbell, Employer Brand Consultant, Optus
Audra Knight
I think the challenge with this type of role is that you have to be very creative/innovative but also be great with data/metrics. I think people often excel at one or the other. If you know your weaknesses than you can partner with other people on your team or other departments that can help fill in any gaps.
Audra Knight, Recruitment Operations Manager, Tenable
Sarang Brahme
Align yourself with employees, their experiences and be authentic. The idea is not to attract everyone but to focus on the top relevant talent for your company who understand your culture and what it’s like working for you. Focus on extracting the essence of company culture and put employees at the forefront of your campaign.
Sarang Brahme, Global Social Recruiting & Talent Brand Manager, Capgemini
Shaunda Zilich
The best advice I can give to Employer Brand Managers is to be transparent. No one expects any company to be perfect. At the end of the day no one wants to work with a perfect company… they want to have room to make a difference, an impact. Be sure to be transparent, real, and interactive with those you are looking to engage.
Shaunda Zilich, Global Employment Brand Leader, GE
Jörgen Sundberg
My tip would be to begin with the end in mind.
- What does success look like?
- How can we measure this?
- What will the bottom line impact be?
Reverse engineer your activities from there.
Jörgen Sundberg, Employer Brand Consultant & CEO, Link Humans
Carmen Collins
Your best source of employer branding content is the employees. A little bit of “trust” goes a long way if you let them do the talking for you, and you become the megaphone to amplify what they organically say.
Carmen Collins, Social Media Lead & Talent Brand, Cisco
