When we talk about branding, we’re usually referring to how a company captures the attention and maintains the loyalty of consumers to their services. Employer branding follows a similar goal only the target audience is switched to the potential candidates that you want to join your organisation.

The CIPD defines employer branding as:

'...a set of attributes and qualities, often intangible, that makes an organisation distinctive, promises a particular kind of employment experience, and appeals to those people who will thrive and perform best in its culture'.

Stryve’s recent fireside discussion, The War on Talent, pulled on the thread of increasing competition in the hiring space and outlined why effective employer branding is so crucial to securing the best candidates for your organisation.

• A recent LinkedIn study has shown that companies with a cohesive and targeted employer brand enjoy, on average, a 43% decrease in cost per hire.

• According to CareerBuilder, 67% of candidates would accept lower pay if the company in question had a positive reputation online

• Beamery shows that 69% of active job seekers are likely to engage with an employer that actively manages its employer brand, making it one of the most crucial deciding factors for candidates

The numbers are clear, your employer brand identity and, by extension your reputation, are directly tied to the cost of your hiring process. Now that we know the value of effective employer branding, let’s look at how to achieve it.

The role of social media and web presence in employer branding

The landscape of modern hiring is largely digital, and the spread of social media and personal technology means that you must view your employer brand through those lenses.

Platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are now likely to be the first places that a prospective candidate interacts with your brand, followed closely by your website.

As such, the content you publish across social media should use themes and language that are representative of your brand ideals and that can distinguish you from competitors.

78% of candidates will research a company’s reputation as an employer before applying for a role there. Projecting brand identity through your content is proven to raise your standing among would-be employees and increase the likelihood of both direct capture and referrals.

Once you’ve developed a visual and written presence for your brand the real work begins because now you must maintain that same tone and image consistently throughout the entire hiring pipeline.

The next step on a candidate’s journey will be your webpage and here is where you can really focus in on company culture and the experience of the employees working for you.

You should already have a dedicated careers page before beginning any recruitment drive and Stryve’s platform simplifies the process of setting one up and can be up and running in under five minutes.

Turning a candidate into an employee

So, you’ve caught the attention of your dream candidate, they resonate with your brand’s identity, and they can bring tangible value to your organisation, now how do you secure their talents?

The answer is communication, communication, communication, and your greatest ally here lies in automation. Your job now is to maintain consistent contact and usher talent through the interview and onboarding process. This process is often one of the greatest indicators you can give to new talent of what their experience working for you will be like.

Stryve’s triggered actions function takes care of this process for you and an automated hiring flow can be set up in a matter of minutes, saving you countless hours down the line.

The internal flow editor allows you to set up various automated actions such as emails and events to send to candidates as they move through your hiring process. On top of that, the tagging feature makes it easy to copy in your colleagues in recruitment or other relevant departments for easy access to a candidate’s journey and communications on their suitability for a given role.

While 78% of employers feel they do a good job communicating throughout the hiring process, only 47% of jobseekers agree, therefore it’s essential that your communications strategy be an ongoing process based on feedback from both successful and unsuccessful candidates in order to give your brand the best reputation possible in hiring spaces.

Giving a warm welcome

Onboarding is where employees should be made to feel secure and valued through reassurance via the expertise of their future colleagues and management, and by being provided the information and skills they need to succeed in their new role. Using the Stryve platform you’ll be able to create reminders for members of staff to action these communications as well as automatically trigger emails to new starters.

Moreover, candidates that are unsuccessful must still be managed in terms of their perception of their treatment since a negative experience can dampen the possibility of future referrals, reapplication, and your overall standing in the hiring space.

Unfortunately, these communications are too often neglected and usually due to human error or a misapprehension about their real value. After all, sending hundreds of emails of near-identical content with no direct follow-up action can seem both arbitrary and well… boring.

On the surface it seems like a waste of valuable human labour and there may be an argument for that but, in the age of automation, it’s a moot argument. Stryve can streamline this process, allowing you and your team to perform these actions in a matter of minutes, not hours, and give you back precious time for other tasks while boosting your brand reputation.

Make machines work for you

An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) can liberate your human workforce when it comes to the more mundane aspects of hiring. They can schedule emails and be directly linked to job boards and web pages that you’re using to advertise open positions - allowing you to keep your finger on the pulse of how job seekers are responding to your web presence.

Given their relatively low cost, ATS’ are fast becoming standard equipment for emerging companies to cut hiring costs as well as unlocking the value of their people’s time.

At Stryve we’re determined to support SMEs and start-ups in stepping into tomorrow’s economy armed with the best talent possible to achieve their goals. Our ATS platform is designed for universal simplicity in order to ensure that any member of your hiring team is able to quickly adapt and integrate its benefits into their daily tasks.

To find out how you can take advantage of our platform, get in touch to book your demo with our team.