Employer Branding For Dummies

•  Perfect your recruitment marketing
• Develop a compelling employer value proposition (EVP)
• Demonstrate your employer brand ROI

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Foolish Assumptions 2

Icons Used in This Book 3

Beyond the Book 3

Where to Go from Here 3

Part 1: Getting Started with Employer Branding 5

Chapter 1: Building a Strong Employer Brand 7

What Is Employer Branding? 8

Recognizing the benefits of employer branding 8

Stepping through the employer branding process/cycle 9

Laying the Foundation for Your Employer Brand 11

Aligning with business goals and objectives 11

Fitting in with your other brands 12

Rallying the troops (and leaders) 12

Taking an Honest Look at Your Employer Brand 13

Putting the Pieces in Place 14

Defining the give and get of the employment deal 15

Establishing employer brand guidelines 16

Giving your target talent a reason to tune in 17

Spreading the Word through Various Channels 19

Staying True to the Promise of Your Employer Brand 20

Monitoring Your Employer Branding Success 21

Chapter 2: Preparing for the Journey23

Finding Your Fit within the Overall Company Strategy 24

Aligning with the corporate brand 25

Aligning with the customer brand 27

Supporting the business strategy 29

Getting the right talent onboard 29

Aligning with human resources 34

Building Your Business Case for Employer Branding 34

Considering cost-cutting benefits 35

Checking out possible performance benefits 36

Making Friends and Influencing People 38

Getting senior leadership onboard 38

Convincing marketing and communications to go along with the idea 39

Getting HR comfortable with the language and thinking of brand management 40

Chapter 3: Conducting an Employer Brand Health Check 41

Taking a Look in the Mirror 42

Finding out what you already know 42

Conducting employee surveys and focus groups 43

Taking a Look from the Outside In 47

Gauging employer brand awareness, consideration, and preference 47

Identifying your key talent competitors 49

Evaluating the strength of your organization’s employer brand image 50

Evaluating the factors that shape your organization’s brand image 53

Weighing Your Competition 54

Benchmarking your competitors’ media presence 55

Mapping your competitors’ brand positioning 56

Spotting generic plays and opportunities to be different 57

Part 2: Developing an Effective Employer Brand Strategy 61

Chapter 4: Defining Your Employer Value Proposition 63

Setting Your Sights on the Goal: A Sample Employer Value Proposition 64

Brainstorming to Generate Ideas and Content 66

Gathering the right people 67

Drawing insights from your data 67

Conducting a productive employer value proposition development workshop 69

Balancing Competing Perspectives 73

Clarifying the give and get of the employment deal 73

Weighing current strengths and future aspirations 74

Balancing global and local considerations 75

Differentiating Your Organization from the Competition 76

Choosing Your Core Positioning 77

Writing Your Employer Value Proposition 78

Sense Checking and Stress Testing 79

Identifying tangible claims and proof points 79

Field-testing your draft employer value proposition 80

Chapter 5: Building Your Employer Brand Framework83

Aligning Your Employer Branding with Your Corporate and Customer Branding 84

Working with a monolithic brand 84

Navigating within a house of brands 86

Optimizing the parent-subsidiary house of brands framework 87

Creating a Visual Brand Identity with Impact 88

Developing Overarching Recruitment Campaigns 90

Setting campaign objectives 90

Writing a creative creative brief 91

Choosing the right creatives to work with 92

Testing Creative Solutions 95

Checking whether a creative solution works across different target groups 95

Choosing the best creative solutions 97

Chapter 6: Generating Engaging Content101

Grasping the Need to Go Beyond Recruitment Advertising 102

Mastering the Principles of Content Marketing 103

Balancing immediate engagement with long-term brand building 104

Local engagement hooks 105

Exploring Different Ways to Pitch Your Story 105

Showcasing existing talent: Employee profiles and stories 106

Be bold: Cutting through the corporate speak 110

Delivering facts, figures, and infographics 112

Making the most of video 113

Gaming your system 114

Promoting Employee-Generated Content 114

Facilitating employee-generated content with the right technology 116

Developing policies to prevent misbehavior and mishaps 116

Managing Your Content 117

Assembling a content marketing and management team 117

Conducting a content audit 118

Tagging and categorizing content to facilitate indexing and raise its search engine ranking 119

Building a content marketing editorial calendar 119

Chapter 7: Rolling Out Your Employer Brand Strategy 121

Winning Internal Hearts and Minds 121

Briefing Managers before Engaging Employees 123

Briefing Key Management Stakeholders 124

Engaging leadership 124

Pitching your plan to the HR/talent community 125

Ensuring alignment with corporate communications and marketing 126

Briefing Your Recruitment Teams 127

Developing your employer brand toolkit 127

Creating content playbooks 128

Providing guidance on localization 129

Getting team managers onboard 130

Engaging Employees 132

Think: Taking a rational, measured approach 134

Feel: Nurturing emotional engagement 135

Do: Inspiring employee commitment and behavior change 136

Maintaining consistency and continuity 137

Part 3: Reaching Out through the Right Channels 139

Chapter 8: Constructing Your Recruitment Marketing Plan 141

Sizing Up Your Audience 142

Segmenting your audience 142

Prioritizing your audience segments 143

Creating talent personas 144

Evaluating Target Talent Media Preferences 146

Mapping out your media options 146

Reaching people on the move (mobile) 147

Connecting with active and passive job seekers 148

Setting Out Your Plan 149

Balancing inbound and outbound marketing activities 150

Putting a recruitment marketing system in place 151

Chapter 9: Creating a Winning Career Site153

Making a Great First Impression 154

Checking off landing page essentials 154

Integrating with your social properties 155

Optimizing for mobile 157

Staying a step ahead of the Joneses 157

Delivering the Goods: Content 158

Aligning your website with your employer value proposition 159

Tailoring content to target groups 159

Writing effective job descriptions 160

Making it easy to apply 162

Personalizing your response letters 163

Creating Job Microsites 164

Chapter 10: Developing Your Talent Network 165

Leveraging the Networking Power of Current and Former Employees 166

Understanding why referrals make great hires 166

Setting up an employee referral program 167

Building an alumni talent network 171

Boosting Your Rejected Candidate Referral Rate 173

Creating Your Own Talent Communities 174

Chapter 11: Engaging Talent through Social Media 177

Getting Your Head in the Game 178

Where to show up: Choosing social channels 178

How to engage potential candidates 178

Laying the Groundwork 180

Choosing a social dashboard 180

Budgeting for ads and sponsored content 181

Making time for social media 181

Recruiting on LinkedIn 182

Building your Company and Career pages 182

Posting regular status updates 183

Measuring and optimizing engagement 183

Having employees update their profiles 184

Giving Job Seekers a Backstage Pass with Glassdoor 184

Making a Splash on Facebook 187

Creating a Facebook Page 187

Hosting Facebook Groups 189

Broadcasting via Facebook Live 189

Attracting Top Talent on Twitter 190

Picking up strategies by observing others 190

Using hashtags to source candidates 190

Engaging prospects 191

Getting your employees involved 192

Gauging your Twitter impact 192

Adapting to a New Model: Snapchat 192

Leveraging Video 193

Exploring ways to use video in recruitment marketing 194

Recognizing the importance of YouTube 194

Exploring Chat Platforms and Regional Channels 195

Building a Social Media Calendar 196

Chapter 12: Making the Most of Recruitment Advertising 199

Raising Your Employer Brand Profile in Search Engine Results 200

Using search engine optimization to improve your site’s search engine ranking 201

Gaining traction with search engine marketing 202

Sizing Up Paid Media Channels 203

Evaluating your potential media mix 204

Programmatic media buying 206

Getting the Best out of Job Boards 207

Adding a Personal Touch with Direct Engagement 208

Personalizing your message 208

Cutting through the spam 209

Chapter 13: Making a Splash on Campus 211

Marketing to College Students 212

Understanding the student/graduate mind-set 212

Attending to key touch points 213

Evaluating regional differences 215

Converting interns 215

Designing an attractive graduate program 216

Balancing targeting with diversity 217

Choosing Schools Wisely 218

Supporting College Career and Job Placement Services 219

Reaching Out to Less Prominent Institutions 220

Part 4: Delivering on Your Employer Brand Promises 223

Chapter 14: Shaping a Positive Brand Experience 225

Applying Customer Experience Thinking to HR Processes 226

Thinking differently about HR 226

Reviewing your current employment experience 227

Engaging in Touch-Point Planning 230

Conducting a touch-point review 230

Touch-point action planning 232

Designing signature experiences 233

Chapter 15: Making a Positive Impression on Candidates 237

Building Candidate-Friendly Application and Selection Processes 238

Designing a professional and courteous application and selection funnel 238

Tailoring your application, screening, and selection process to your EVP 242

Ensuring a Positive Brand Experience through Induction and Orientation 243

Focusing on the fundamentals 244

Preboarding new hires 246

Providing a warm welcome 247

Designing an extensive orientation process 248

Chapter 16: Engaging and Retaining Your Talent 249

Conducting Engagement Survey Action Planning 249

Considering the conventional approach to engagement action planning 250

Leading with your EVP 251

Leading from the top 254

Ongoing Engagement and Retention Processes 255

Conducting team briefings 255

Engaging in key people-management conversations 256

Identifying and responding to retention risks 257

Establishing an early-warning system 258

Maintaining Attraction and Engagement in the Midst of Organizational Change 260

Navigating a reorganization 260

Smoothing the transition during an acquisition 261

Rebranding a merger of equals 261

Part 5: Measuring the Success of Your Employer Branding Strategy 263

Chapter 17: Gauging Your Immediate Impact on Audience Engagement and Hiring 265

Linking Recruitment Marketing Activities to Objectives 266

Measuring the Effectiveness of Recruitment Advertising 267

Advertising costs 267

Audience exposure 268

Engagement 268

Source of application and source of hire 268

Analyzing the effectiveness of recruitment advertising 269

Measuring the Effectiveness of Social Campaigns 269

Social media costs 270

Audience exposure 270

Engagement 270

Source of application, source of hire, and source of influence 271

Using the results of your analysis to enhance your recruitment marketing 272

Measuring the Effectiveness of Career Site Content 272

Career site costs 273

Audience exposure 273

Engagement 274

Source of application and source of hire 274

Improving career site effectiveness through analysis 275

Measuring Referral Effectiveness 275

Referral costs 275

Audience exposure 276

Engagement 276

Source of application and source of hire 276

Improving referral effectiveness through analysis 277

Analyzing Your Overall Recruitment Marketing Strategy Success 277

Calculating cost-per-hire 278

Measuring success in terms of quality applicants and hires 279

Comparing your results to external benchmarks 280

Chapter 18: Monitoring and Maintaining Long-Term Impact on Employer Brand Value 281

Tracking Employer Brand Awareness and Reputation 282

Measuring improvements in brand awareness, consideration, and preference 282

Examining conversion ratios 285

Conducting employer brand image surveys 285

Drawing conclusions from external brand tracking 287

Tracking the Internal Impact of Your Employer Brand Strategy 289

Evaluating employee engagement 289

Tracking your employer brand experience 290

Evaluating the candidate experience 292

Assessing the onboarding experience 294

Evaluating employer branding’s impact on employee performance 294

Analyzing Your Employer Brand Index 296

Keeping Pace with Talent Market Trends 297

Part 6: The Part of Tens 301

Chapter 19: Ten Success Factors to Embrace 303

Getting Your Leadership Team’s Buy-In 303

Bridging the Gap between HR and Marketing 304

Sizing Up Your Company’s Talent Needs 305

Defining a Clear and Compelling Employer Value Proposition 305

Building Flexibility into the Framework 306

Getting Current Employees Onboard First 306

Making the Most of Social Media 307

Keeping an Eye on Your Competition 307

Getting into the Right Shape for Talent 308

Investing in Metrics 308

Chapter 20: Ten Common Mistakes to Avoid 311

Treating Employer Branding as a Project 311

Failing to Focus 312

Promising the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars 312

Playing It Too Safe: Corporate Bland or Industry Generic 313

Getting Obsessed with the Tagline 314

Over-Policing Your Local Teams 314

Underestimating the Resources Required to Create Quality Content 315

Forgetting to Connect Communication with Experience 315

Turning Off Your Brand Investment When the Going Gets Tough 316

Failing to Learn from Experience 317

Chapter 21: Ten Ways to Minimize Cost and Maximize Impact 319

Building More Talent Than You Buy 320

Maximizing Referrals 320

Hiring Above-Average Talent for an Average Wage 320

Targeting Efforts to Attract Fewer, But Higher-Quality Candidates 321

Focusing Your Creative Spend 321

Shifting from Paid to Owned and Earned Media 322

Localizing Content Creation 322

Encouraging Employee-Generated Content 323

Creating Your Own Talent Pools 323

Learning from Failure and Building on Success 324

Index 325

Employer Branding For Dummies is an excellent resource for companies new to the employer branding process who wish to create a compelling company identity, as well as for companies with branding programs already in place who are looking to improve them even further.

Richard Mosley, Universum's Global Head of Strategy, is widely recognized as a leading global authority on the subject of employer branding. He regularly chairs or delivers keynote presentations at many of the world's leading employer brand events.
Lars Schmidt, Founder of Amplify Talent and Cofounder of HR Open Source, is a leading strategy consultant, speaker, and writer in the fields of employer branding and recruiting.