1. Pitching talent brand
to your CXO

2. Table of contents
04 Why C-suite support is crucial
03 Introduction
05 Arm yourself with data
06 Make it relevant
07 Intel builds talent pool in competitive environment
08 Highlight the potential
09 DFS Group grows its talent brand awareness
10 Focus on bottom line benefits
11 Talent brand and consumer brand
12 Offer a clear pathway
13 Conclusion
14 References
LinkedIn Talent Solutions: Pitching talent brand to your CXO 2

3. Introduction
Is your company considered a great place to build a career?
In today’s market, securing the best talent is a highly
competitive process. Social media increasingly influences
company reputations and informs candidates’ decisions
around which organisation they want to work for.
Companies forging ahead in this new context have
embraced their ‘talent brand’: the highly social, public face
of your employer brand, which includes what people think,
feel and share about your company as a place to work.
A healthy talent brand can help you attract more high-
quality candidates. It can also speed up the recruitment
process while cutting costs and increasing the retention
of existing staff.
While many HR professionals and recruiters understand
the significance of talent brand, improving it can only be
achieved with C-suite support.
So how do you show your CXO that a strong talent brand
is important?
TIP:
The bottom line impact for companies is real:
a strong talent brand can reduce cost per hire
by up to 50% and lower turnover rates by 28%.1
LinkedIn Talent Solutions: Pitching talent brand to your CXO 3

4. Why C-suite
support is crucial
You need the support of your CEO and their team to
drive widespread participation in the task of building
and leveraging your talent brand.
You’ll need to ensure your CEO and their team
understand what talent brand is and commit to
helping promote it. Keep making your case until
they’re on board.
Having C-suite support will enable you to get other
key players involved. Your talent brand is part HR,
part marketing, part communications – and it’ll need
IT support. Use others’ expertise by including them
in a cross-functional talent brand task force.
“I probably delivered the same
deck 40 times – sometimes to
the same audience. You will
feel like a broken record, but
it doesn’t sound like that on
the other end until you start
converting people.”
Kara Yarnot
former vice president and director,
Talent Acquisition Center of Expertise, SAIC
LinkedIn Talent Solutions: Pitching talent brand to your CXO 4

5. Arm yourself with data
Before pitching to your C-suite colleagues, arm yourself
with persuasive data that clearly illustrates the benefits
of a strong talent brand for your organisation.
Health-check your company’s talent brand, so you can
provide an accurate snapshot of where it’s at. Conduct
internal and external research and evaluate where you
stand relative to competitors using key metrics, such
as the LinkedIn Talent Brand Index.
From here, determine compelling opportunities for
improvement and suggest targets and objectives
to aim for.
3 reasons to invest in your talent brand
You'll spend less on hiring. Lower
your cost per hire by as much as 50%.
You'll boost retention. Reduce
employee turnover by up to 2.8%.
You'll influence the conversation with
candidates. If you don't, others will.
LinkedIn Talent Solutions: Pitching talent brand to your CXO 5

6. Make it relevant
Show your C-suite that a strong talent brand has the
potential to deliver specific advantages for your company.
Identify pressing business challenges and show how talent
brand can help. For starters, here are some common
business challenges that can be effectively addressed with
a talent brand focus:
• Lesser known brand: a strong talent brand can
help increase overall brand awareness and improve
recruitment outcomes.
• Company transformation: talent brand can help you
attract the talent you need to grow and change.
• Limited talent pipeline: an effective talent brand can
help you continually engage with future talent.
• Hiring inefficiencies: talent brand can help you get
more done with less and expand recruitment channels.
FACT:
Companies with a strong Talent Brand Index
(TBI) receive 2.5 times more applications for
jobs than companies with a weak TBI.2
LinkedIn Talent Solutions: Pitching talent brand to your CXO 6

7. Intel builds talent
pool in competitive
environment
Facing stiff local and multinational competition for talent,
Intel Corporation – the world’s largest semiconductor chip
maker (based on revenue) – wanted to improve its employer
brand and develop a recruitment strategy that would help
it establish engaging relationships with candidates, create
attractiveness for careers at Intel and build a strong,
proactive talent pipeline.
Improving its talent brand using LinkedIn Talent
Solutions tools, such as Career Page and
Custom Groups, Intel:
• Changed employer brand perception.
• Built a strong pool of 1200 highly engaged
professionals.
• Hired quality talent with cost efficiency
in multiple geographies.
Results
LinkedIn Talent Solutions: Pitching talent brand to your CXO 7

8. Highlight the potential
Developing your talent brand can help you move from a
‘post-and-pray’ hiring model to one that intelligently targets
and develops relationships with candidates.
As a result, boosting your talent brand can deliver valuable
benefits that your C-suite should know about. These include:
• Growing the number of job applications you receive.
• Having potential candidates seek you out.
• Activating and engaging passive talent.
• Attracting international talent.
• Finding talent for those ‘hard to fill’ positions.
FACT:
83% of talent acquisition leaders say employer
brand significantly impacts their ability to hire
great talent.3
LinkedIn Talent Solutions: Pitching talent brand to your CXO 8

9. DFS Group grows its
talent brand awareness
Luxury travel retailer DFS needed to attract candidates
globally, but struggled with low brand awareness in Asia
and globally, as candidates wanted to work for bigger,
more famous brands. DFS turned to LinkedIn, using tools
such as Career Pages and Work With Us to amplify its story
as a luxury retailing brand and optimise its hiring process.
• DFS grew its Talent Brand Index from 8% to more
than 22%.
• Potential employees began actively seeking DFS
placements.
• DFS achieved 20% growth in job applications.
Results
8%
22%
DFS TALENT BRAND INDEX GROWTH
LinkedIn Talent Solutions: Pitching talent brand to your CXO 9

10. Focus on bottom
line benefits
Improving your talent brand can deliver real bottom line
impact. Share this with your C-suite to enhance your case
for talent brand focus:
• Companies with a strong Talent Brand Index typically
experience a 43% decrease in cost per hire.4
• A strong talent brand can help you hire the talent you
need more quickly.5
• Companies with a strong talent brand receive 50% more
quality applicants.6
• A company’s employer brand is twice as likely to drive
job consideration as its company brand.7
FACT:
Globally, 56% of professionals rank talent brand
as a top factor when picking a job.8
LinkedIn Talent Solutions: Pitching talent brand to your CXO 10

11. Talent brand and
consumer brand
– the ultimate match
A talent brand focus can deliver powerful benefits for your
company’s consumer brand.
Consumers are a credible, powerful voice with expansive
reach through their social media activities. In forums such
as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram, consumers
can build or destroy a brand in minutes. These platforms
are also enabling an equally powerful yet often forgotten
audience: employees.
Constructing a positive talent brand includes recognising
the role of employees in brand building. Understanding
the way your company is perceived by current and future
employees, and working to lift those perceptions, can help
you build a brand that resonates with consumers and talent.
FACT:
Research conducted by LinkedIn and
Lippincott reveals companies with a strong
Talent Brand Index and BrandView score have
a five-year cumulative growth in shareholder
value of 36%. Aligning your consumer and
talent brand efforts will inarguably pay
dividends – not only in the stock market, but
in attracting target consumers and top talent.9
LinkedIn Talent Solutions: Pitching talent brand to your CXO 11

12. Offer a clear pathway
While the pay offs can be enormous, the reality is that it’s
not that difficult to strengthen your talent brand. In fact,
there are many simple things (lots of them are free) you
can do to give your talent brand a shot in the arm.
LinkedIn is the natural starting point for building a positive,
highly social talent brand and it offers a wealth of free and
paid tools you can use to showcase your company as a
great place to work:
• Profiles: the #1 activity on LinkedIn is checking out
profiles, so upgrading yours and your team’s represents
a prime branding opportunity. Set your profile up as a
model for others to emulate.
• Spruce up your Company Page: post status updates
and use bold and colourful images, graphics and even
video to bring your company’s brand and culture to life.
• Launch your Career Page: include compelling content
and showcase authentic employee stories.
• Empower your employees: lay out the goals and offer
your employees a clear, easy path to becoming talent
brand ambassadors.
FACT:
60% of large businesses and 63% of SMBs
report using online professional networks to
build talent brand.10
LinkedIn Talent Solutions: Pitching talent brand to your CXO 12

13. Conclusion
When considering switching jobs or a career, a company's
reputation as a great place to work is increasingly important
to candidates.
A deliberate talent brand strategy can deliver key benefits
including:
• Cost: an effective talent brand can halve the cost
of hiring.
• Speed: it can take weeks or months to secure candidates
for certain roles. If talented people are proactively
reaching out to you, you can hire within days.
• Retention: companies that make talent brand a top
priority report significantly reduced staff turnover.
• Quality: having a standout talent brand helps you
compete for, and win, the best talent in your industry
– giving you the lead on your competitors.
With C-suite support, defined goals and a clear action plan,
building an exceptional talent brand is an achievable task for
any company – large or small.
Download LinkedIn’s Employer Brand Playbook
to learn more about building a highly social
talent brand and how to bring your
C-suite along for the ride.
LinkedIn Talent Solutions: Pitching talent brand to your CXO 13

14. 1 Eda Gultekin, What’s the Value of Your Employment Brand?
December, 2011, http://lnkd.in/valueofEB.
2 Andrew Wu, February, 2015.
3 LinkedIn Talent Solutions, The State of Employer Branding,
October, 2012, p8, http://talent.linkedin.com/sites/default/files/
assets/LIStateofEmployerBrand_Oct12.pdf.
4 Andrew Wu, February, 2015.
5 Top 5 Benefits of a Strong Talent Brand, 2013,
http://www.slideshare.net/linkedin-talent-solutions/
top-5-benefits-of-a-strong-talent-brand.
6 Top 5 Benefits of a Strong Talent Brand, 2013,
http://www.slideshare.net/linkedin-talent-solutions/
top-5-benefits-of-a-strong-talent-brand.
7 APAC survey of 7,500 people, 2012.
8 2014 Talent Trends (Maria Ignatova), March, 2014,
https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/business/
talent-solutions/global/en_US/c/pdfs/linkedin-talent-
trends-2014-en-us.pdf
9 LinkedIn Talent Solutions and Lippincott, The secret sauce of top
companies: Aligning your consumer brand and your talent brand,
Sense Perspective, 2013, http://lippincott.com/files/documents/
news/Perspective_Align_Your_Consumer_and_Talent_Brand_
LinkedIn.pdf
10 2015 Global Recruiting Trends (Esther Cruz), November, 2014,
http://www.slideshare.net/Silvester1000/global-recruiting-trends-
linkedin-2015.
Index of resources
LinkedIn Talent Solutions: Pitching talent brand to your CXO 14

15. About LinkedIn
Talent Solutions
LinkedIn Talent Solutions offers a full range of
recruiting solutions to help organisations of all
sizes find, engage, and attract the best talent.
Founded in 2003, LinkedIn connects the
world’s professionals to make them more
productive and successful. With over 300
million members worldwide, including
executives from every Fortune 500
company, LinkedIn is the world’s
largest professional network.
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