An Image of an organisation that helps consumers distinguish it from its competitors
The way your Organization’s prospective applicants, candidates, and employees perceive you as an employer
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Video Available at: https://youtu.be/S3-tCTPaZMw
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Mukta Patil
Social Media Talent Acquisition & Employer Branding
Zensar Technologies
Coming from an educational background of Human Resource Management, I am
happy to have landed within the Social Media Recruitment and Employer Branding
space. Two of my favorite things are now part of my Job description. New to the IT
industry and new to Social recruiting, though I have much more to explore, I have
gained some hands-on experience within this field. I have completed my higher
education in the UK with a Masters from King’s College London. I bring a total of 2
years of experience in recruitment in diverse industries such as Healthcare Charity,
Manufacturing and now IT.
About the Host
Employer Branding from a Recruitment perspective
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Contents of the Webinar
Employer Branding from a Recruitment perspective
• What is Employer Branding
• Types of Employer Branding (internal, external, incident)
• Objectives of Employer Branding
• Employer Branding for Recruitment – Organization level
• Employer Branding for Recruitment – Individual level
• Scope of Employer Branding
• Limitations
4. What is Employer Branding?
Brand
An Image of an
organisation
that helps
consumers
distinguish it
from its
competitors
Employer
Brand
The way your
Organization’s
prospective
applicants,
candidates,
and employees
perceive you
as an employer
www.sourcingadda.com 4
Source: sunlife.ca
Employer Branding from a Recruitment perspective
5. Current Trends in Employer Branding
• LinkedIn Global
Recruiting trends 2016
– 68% organizations
believe that the
company website is the
most effective Employer
Branding tool
– 61% say that online
professional social
networking sites are
effective
– 47% feel that other
Social Media channels
are most effective
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Employer Branding from a Recruitment perspective
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Objectives of Employer Branding
Employer Branding from a Recruitment perspective
• Employee Retention
• Attracting local and global talent
• Increase applications in Job posts
• Create an awareness and interest in the industry
• Build a talent pool for specific skills and expertise
• Attracting Generation Y and Z into your workforce early
on
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Types of Employer Branding
Internally Targeted
• For existing employees
External Targeted
• For potential candidates
Incident based Targeted
• Re-build lost trust due to a negative incident
Employer Branding from a Recruitment perspective
9. Who is your target audience?
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Experience based
Geography based
Demography based
Skill based
Employer Branding from a Recruitment perspective
10. Where can you find them?
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E.g. EY careers page on Facebook is
mostly used for targeting freshers
and lateral candidates
Behance.com is where you can upload
your graphic creative work
Employer Branding from a Recruitment perspective
11. What do they (Target Audience) respond
to?
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Source: http://selfie.thrilling.io/
Employer Branding from a Recruitment perspective
12. How to target you audience?
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Source:
Maersk:
https://www.facebook.com/MaerskGroup
Oracle:
https://www.facebook.com/CareersAtOracle
Employer Branding from a Recruitment perspective
13. Microsoft Case Study
• Old careers website was difficult
to navigate
• Overhaul of workforce with
major recruitment initiatives
Problem Area
• Create a new careers website
that is easy to navigate, easy
information.
• Strong online presence to
showcase current requirements
Possible
Solutions • Twitter: “what it’s really like to
work here”
• Facebook: FAQs, current
opportunities, hiring process
• LinkedIn: Job opportunities,
benefits, company information
Implementation
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Source: Linkhumans.com
Employer Branding from a Recruitment perspective
14. Employer Branding for Recruitment –
Individual level
Information, articles that are of interest to
your target audience
Share Relevant
content
Network through professional social
networking sites such as LinkedIn.
Network
Create a relation with your connections, have
conversations, respond on time, etc
Communicate
Promote our current organization and it’s
marketing content,
Promote
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Employer Branding from a Recruitment perspective
15. Sharing Relevant content
• Common topics/domain
• Sharing the right jobs to right networks
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Employer Branding from a Recruitment perspective
16. Network
• DO NOT just connect with everyone
• Research, target, plan
• Spread out your connection groups
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Employer Branding from a Recruitment perspective
17. Communicate
• Continuous conversations – personal and
generic
• Feedback, follow-up, updates, etc
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Employer Branding from a Recruitment perspective
18. Promote
• Share company updates – Encourage
followership to company pages
• Include company info in Job descriptions
• DO NOT overdo – not everyone is looking for a
job
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Employer Branding from a Recruitment perspective
19. Importance of EB for recruiters
• Rise in hiring passive candidates (69% compared to
2014)
• Increase in usage of Social Professional networks for
Quality and Quantity hires
• Proactive recruiting is on the rise as competition
increases
• Creating a presence as well as a point of contact for
active job seekers
• Creating a Talent pipeline
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Employer Branding from a Recruitment perspective
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Scope of Employer Branding
Employer Branding from a Recruitment perspective
• Growth in Investment by companies in Employer
Branding
• With easy access to information and reviews about your
company
• Changing expectations of generation Y and Z from
companies
• Reaches a large audience and can continuously attract
potential candidates
• If employees are encouraged to participate in employer
branding, it further enhances employee referrals
21. Challenges
• Time consuming
• Difficult to calculate ROI (since it cannot just be
measured in terms of applications)
• High costs for targeted campaigns
• Importance of Word-of-mouth publicity is always
higher
• Difficult and time consuming to recover from a bad
employer branding
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Employer Branding from a Recruitment perspective
22. Parting Thoughts
• Employer Branding can never be a short term project
• It has to be supported by top management and all
departments
• As an individual, it is up to you on how you want to
network and communicate in a manner that will
create candidate engagement
• “Begin with the end in mind” – Stephen Covey
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Employer Branding from a Recruitment perspective
Historically companies have been focusing on the external brand of an organisation. But due to the changing needs of consumers and potential client, companies now need to integrate external and internal branding. Expertise working for your organisation because you are an employer of choice, will mean they will provide services and products that will in turn enhance the external company brand. This is where there is a link between the organisation’s marketing objectives and employer branding objectives.
Employer Branding definition by: http://www.careerbuildercommunications.com/pdf/employmentbrandebook.pdf
The LinkedIn Global Recruiting Trends report of 2016 where 3894 number of talent leaders from different companies were surveyed, shows that
68% organisations believe that the company website is the most effective and powerful Employer Branding tool.
61% say that online social networking sites such as linkedin and viadeo are most effective
Only a 47% feel that social media channels are most effective
There is also a rise in making careers websites mobile friendly, which will allow candidates to apply or browse for jobs on their mobile. These features may have an impact on how potential candidates view your organization.
Just like every business strategy, Employer Branding too has objectives that need to be met. It is only with a clear objective will you then have an end goal and strategy in place. Your approach towards Employer Branding will change according to your objective. For. E.g. If employee retention and engagement is your main objective, you would want to focus your Employer branding efforts to internal employees, whereas if attracting local and/or global talent is your objective, your strategy will be focused on how to create an interest in the industry to applications.
Depending on your organisation’s hiring needs, there might be a need to attract and retain quality fresh graduates. So your employer branding initiatives will be based around creating a graduate’s talent pipeline and “selling” them your employee value preposition early on.
- Activities in an internally focused Employer brand strategy will involve learning and Development programs, Effective HR policies, events, mentoring, etc.
Externally targeted branding activities could be promoting current opportunities, telling employee stories of success and growth, networking and communicating with external audience
An incident based employer branding strategy may not necessarily be long term. E.g. an incident takes place at a factory where an employee was hurt, hampers the brand as a whole for not having employee safety checks in place. The company can then create a strategy and also take measures to re-assuring external and internal audience about their improvements. Or an organisation is “labelled” as a place with lack of careers growth, low pay etc. This is where the company has to not only re-consider its HR policies but also advertise and promote that change in HR policies aggressively to the market.
The first question to address as an organisation, is who do we want? Who is our audience? Who do we want to target? This will help you narrow down your efforts and will give a clearer picture on what kind of targeting initiatives you need to focus on
The second question in context is where do you find your target audience? On which social media platforms are they available? Where is their information readily available? Where is it that they network? This will depend from skill to skill. Your organisation may even have to think of offline methods to reach your audience as well
That brings us to the next question of what content does your audience respond to? Once we have identified who and where our audience is, we need to understand what attracts them, what interests them, what will probe them to respond.
And lastly how is your branding strategy going to be designed in a way that addresses the questions above.
I would like to show an example of EY India careers page on Facebook. EY uses its Facebook careers page to target fresh graduates extensively. They show updates about their recent campus activities, they have interview tips for freshers campaign, they talk about the kind of opportunities for graduates from different fields. With Facebook being their main platform for this target audience, EY has managed to create awareness of not just graduates but also experiences professionals who then are directed to their LinkedIn page for opportunities that match their experience.
The second example that I have shown is a website called behance.com which is a great place for graphic designers and animators. As a candidate you can create your profile and upload your projects, and as an employer, you can post jobs and review uploaded projects. Showing an organization’s presence on websites like these will not only give it a competitive edge, but also create awareness.
Taking the example of L’Oreal here I would like to show some of the different initiatives for employer branding and recruitment that they have. While L’Oreal has an official LinkedIn careers page, Facebook careers page that is segmented geographically, there are some common platforms that they use.
There is a dedicated website managed by L’Oreal which shows selfies taken by recruiters with the candidate they recruited. This campaign is great in a lot of ways. One, it shows the various professionals that are hired by l’Oreal. Second it shows a culture of inclusiveness and openness. Thirdly, the little LinkedIn icon out there when clicked shows you the LinkedIn profile of the recruiter. This encourages networking. It is also a great way to show diversity within their workforce and office locations.
This campaign will probe networking, if not job application immediately. It’s an excellent way of creating interest among your audience, they engages them in return.
The Oracle Facebook careers page focuses on telling employee stories. They talk about their employees from all over the world, their role and how oracle helps them grow in their careers.
Job postings are another simple and straightforward way to attract talent. However, job postings must stick with the context of skills you are hiring for. Maersk Facebook page is a mix of company updates and current opportunities. They do not have a separate Facebook careers page. You can see from the image that the job posting is in line with what the organisation is and the kind of skills they need for this particular role.
I would like to highlight a short case study where on Microsoft and how they addressed their recruitment demands through employer branding initiatives.
The first problem area that they identified was that the Microsoft careers website was old, not mobile friendly and difficult to navigate. This they realised discouraged applications for jobs.
There was a major overhaul of workforce within the company where new requirements were raised and people with new skills were to be recruited.
The solutions they then identified were, one that is to create a new careers website which was easy to navigate, easy access to information and supported on mobile.
They then promoted this new website to create a presence and also to recover from the old stigma of a complicated website
Moving on to how they established their employer brand through social media channels. Their twitter page re-directs audience to their career blog and career website. Their messages on Twitter are themed around what its like to work with Microsoft.
Their Facebook careers page talks more about the hiring process, current opportunities and some FAQs regarding selection process
LinkedIn Microsoft page is more formal, with job postings, company updates, etc.
This way we can see how Microsoft has answered the questions of Who, What, where and how through their employer branding initiatives, with a goal of recruitment in mind.
When I say individual, I am talking about recruiters and HR professionals like you and me. The organisations that we work with already have a branding strategy in place and under implementation. So how can we further enhance our company’s employer brand?
As a recruiter since we are constantly connecting with external audience and trying to probe them to show an interest in our current job opportunities. Hence, our employer branding strategy will be more externally targeted.
One way in which you can share relevant content is by registering yourself on websites that provide curated content. E.g of these are scredible.com and fedly.com
These websites will search for relevant content based on the key words that you input. It will not only help in creating that relevant content but also increase your understanding on the given topic
It would be quite ineffective if you post jobs for experienced professionals in a network or group of students. Targeting your audience for the content you share, and the platform on which you share is also very important. It will not only show your employer’s presence to the right audience, but will also probe applications and interest.
This exercise is effective, if you are planning to build that strong network of professionals that can convert into a talent pipeline.
As harsh as it sounds, do not accept every LinkedIn request that you receive. This is especially important if you are aiming quality hires through social media. While having a large network is good for visibility of your shared content, it may lack relevancy. And you may also be viewed as a spammer by quality professionals.
As a recruiter if you have certain skills and expertise that you recruit for, make sure you connect with those professionals extensively. Plan your content accordingly.
Do not restrict yourself to just one industry or expertise. Reach out to other professionals maybe in different geographies. This will give you that diverse network and increase awareness of your company in other industries too.
It is important to have a good communication between you and your potential candidate, since that does affect the candidate’s view towards you and also towards your organisation. Simple exercises such as thanking them after they have attended your interview, giving feedback even if they are not suitable. Guiding them to the right opportunities, etc will create a good raport.
LinkedIn report on Global Recruiting Trends 2016 revealed that 59% of Talent Leaders are investing more in their employer brand compared to last year
having a digital footprint that creates a strong employer brand is now become a necessity
it has increasingly become important to sell your organization's EVP to gen Y and Z through employer branding. They look not only for better pay, but career growth opportunities, CSR activities, work-life balance policies, etc
increase the organization’s Talent pool
Involving current employees into your recruitment activities. E.g. campus recruitment talks.
