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In today’s business landscape, digital presence is everything. But let’s face it: a lot of us still don’t know what we’re doing. Marketing and recruiting trends are changing more rapidly than ever before, and this marks the need for a shift in employer branding. It’s crucial to know what to examine and tweak to ensure your brand is represented accurately to potential employees, partners or team members.
The best place to start is with the sources you use to find candidates. These may include job boards, LinkedIn, your website and other social media accounts. Once you’ve compiled a list of these sources, begin assessing the success of each. This means not only the quantity, but the quality of interaction you've had through each of them.
When looking at your sources, consider the number of hires compared to the number of applicants. This ratio, whether one-to-four or zero-to-one thousand, should open your eyes to the usefulness of that source. You’ll then be able to decide whether your strategy with those sources needs changing, or whether you should be dropping that source all together. Even with something as simple as a job board posting, there is an element of marketing involved. You’re attracting particular kinds of candidates that are suitable for particular work cultures.
Your sources can also help simplify your recruiting process, whether you're looking to fill a permanent position, hire a freelancer or find a company with similar values to partner up with. If you use several social media platforms, start paying attention to whether a specific site performs better than others. Then the question is, “Why is this platform performing better?” Is it that more of your ideal candidates visit those sites, or are you marketing your employer brand in a better way there?
Once you have an idea of which sources are yielding decent results, it’s time to determine whether these individuals actually fit your company’s culture. There are traditional routes to measuring this, like calling references and collecting information about their past positions. But ultimately, communication trumps all: asking clear questions and getting to know people outside of the roles they've filled in the past is key.
When you determine the quality of hire from different sources, you are determining whether your employer branding strategy needs to change. You may hire several employees who found your company through LinkedIn, for example, only to find that none of them are still working with you a year later. In summation, don’t confuse source success with quality of hire.
This brings us to the next thing you'll want to keep an eye on: your turnover rate. Let’s say you have multiple new hires from applicants who stumbled upon your website. Let’s also say that you determined them as quality hires: talented, skilled and responsible. But what about turnover? By neglecting to measure turnover, you could be attracting and hiring great candidates who are simply not right for your company.
For example, you could be attracting and hiring employees who are transitioning to freelance careers. This trend reveals that you need to change your employer branding strategy in order to attract long term candidates. You may need to change which platforms you focus on, cater to a different age range, or rephrase content to get a point across more clearly.
According to the Fistful of Talent blog, “One of the biggest differences between marketers and recruiters is the content we consume.” Recruiters don’t always follow marketing content because it doesn’t seem like it would apply to them, but this assumption can be to their detriment. Any business owner may be surprised to find their role involving more marketing and analytics in 2017 and beyond. Not only can the right communication strategy solidify your employer brand, but it can ultimately lead to higher employee retention rates and team members that get you.
Learning to represent yourself online with total clarity takes practice and patience. You won’t find your ideal team members overnight, but you will find them eventually if you stick strongly to your values and communicate them consistently. Getting clear on your employer brand and how to convey it to an audience will ensure that you find the right team: people who will support your vision and work with you through the challenges of running your business.
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