Attract top talent: The ultimate guide to employer branding

pageup_ultimate_guide_employer_branding_ebook_cover

Want to learn more?
Gain instant access to the full report.

Gain access

Part one: Why focus on employer branding?

Part two: The impact, science and art of telling stories.

Part three: Authenticity leads the way in 2022

Part four: Introducing employee generated content

Part five: Where to from here?

Part one: Why focus on employer branding?

80% of talent leaders said that employer branding was a key driver of making quality hires.
(LinkedIn research)

Only 50% of companies surveyed have a proactive branding strategy.
(LinkedIn research)

Talent professionals know that employer branding is important. Driving employer branding and creating appealing employer value propositions (EVPs) has become a key pillar of HR best practice. Yet, only 50% of companies surveyed by LinkedIn believe they have a proactive employer brand strategy. We know employer branding matters, but many companies struggle to do it well.It’s easy to see why: crafting a strong employer brand is no simple task.

With talent teams stretched thin after a years-long pandemic, other priorities take over. But putting employer branding on the backburner makes it harder to find top talent in the long run. A strong employer brand acts as a magnet —attracting culturally-aligned, quality candidates straight to you. 90% of professionals research the culture of a company before accepting a role, which is why it’s so important to amplify your organisationorganization’s values and beliefs anywhere a potential candidate might be looking.

A strong employer brand builds a strong talent pipeline

In a post-pandemic world, the labour market changes rapidly. One thing is clear though: it’s a candidate’s market. In 2022, job listings have increased 105% compared to pre-pandemic levels.105% compared to pre-pandemic levels. But applications? Down 8% in the same period. With the lowest levels of unemployment in decades, finding good people to fill roles seems harder than ever.

The best talent teams are overcoming this challenge by building a strong talent pipelining strategy. Instead of “fishing” for talent, they are proactively attracting it. At the heart of that strategy is a recognisablerecognizable, engaging employer brand. In the current market, it’s not enough to have a job on offer —you need to create a brand that people want to work for.

Highlight your company’s values clearly across all channels —social media, career sites, job boards, review sites and more. This shows potential applicants why they should want to work for your above your competitors. Today’s jobseekers prioritiseprioritize diversity and inclusion in their decision-making processes, with 39% of candidates rejecting a role or not proceeding with a job application due to a perceived lack of inclusiveness. The impact of a strong, inclusive and memorable employer brand is clear. Without one, you’ll struggle to create talent pipelines, attract new candidates and fill your open roles.

Engage passive candidates

With more jobs and fewer applicants, talent teams need to get creative to find the best new hires. 70% of talent globally is passive and not actively seeking new work. To engage this hard-to-reach market, you need to be an employer of choice.

CASE STUDY: How APM rebuilt their employer brand to attract top talent.

Allied health provider APM needed to think big to compete for talent in a highly competitive market. Allied health roles typically receive four applicants per role, in comparison to industries such as retail, where there is an average of 90 applicants per role. To attract quality talent, APM used PageUp Recruitment Marketing to showcase a compelling EVP across their 11 brands. This strategy saw great success with 80% of their career site visitors applying for a role.

See how they did it: APM case study

Help non-aligned candidates self-select out

If you were to ask Erika Klics, former Head of Talent and People at Spot AI, what the secret to recruiting talent is, she’d say it comes down to honesty and transparency. “Hone in on who you are and what you can offer. Be transparent about the role, the team, and your company. Whether it’s stories from current employees, a clear set of projects they can build, or transparent compensation targets, give people the tools they need to decide if your company is the right place for them.”

A clear, recognisablerecognizable employer brand attracts people who are more likely to be aligned with your company mission and values. It also gives people who aren’t a great fit the opportunity to self-select out. Using your employer brand to set clear expectations early-on can also have a positive impact on metrics like staff turnover. 22% of churn occurs in the first 45 days of employment, and 33% of new hires look for a job within their first six months. Much of this attrition can be attributed to misalignment —whether with the company, the role or team. By showcasing your authentic employer brand from the outset, wrong-fit candidates will self-select out, and best-fit candidates will apply. Remember, it’s about quality, not quantity.

Gain instant access to the full report here

I understand my information will be used in accordance with PageUp’s Privacy Policy. This includes emails, invites and updates covering HR and the future of work. You can unsubscribe at anytime. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Gain instant access to the full report here

Part two: The impact, science and art of telling stories.

A key element of building a brand is storytelling. Storytelling works: it’s a powerful tool to help persuade, drive empathy, and lead people into action –and we’ve seen it work in a number of different contexts.

Data can persuade people, but it does not inspire them to act; to do that, you need to wrap your vision in a story that fires the imagination and stirs the soul..

– Harrison Monarth, Harvard Business Review

Stories catch attention by triggering empathy. When it comes to standing out in a sea of competing information, using a strong narrative to get your message across is highly effective. A good story grabs our attention by engaging our empathy, and being ‘sticky’. If we feel like we’ve experienced something ourselves, the content is likely to resonate with us.

Stories are also more memorable than facts alone. Stanford research shows that statistics on their own have a retention rate of 5 – 10%, but when brought together with anecdotes, the retention rate rises to 65 – 70%.

What’s more, stories are highly persuasive. There’s a long-running joke about letting managers believe they came up with an idea themselves if you want to persuade them to support it. It turns out, that joke still carries weight –people are more likely to be persuaded when they’ve arrived at a conclusion on their own. Stories act as a map to the conclusion you’d like them to reach.

Stories allow people to persuade themselves, and that’s what it’s really all about. You might say that we never convince anyone of anything—we simply help others independently decide that we’re right. Do everything you can to tell better stories, and you’ll find that you are a terribly persuasive person.

– Brian Clark, Copyblogger.com

The science behind storytelling

Neuroeconomist Paul Zak ran an experiment to show the effectiveness of storytelling in a HR context. In this experiment, Zak measured immersion through a metric called an immersion quotient*.

*A higher immersion quotient means the person is more likely to take the desired action —in this case, the person was more likely to apply for a job.

In this study, three groups were shown different content throughout their recruitment journey. Group A were shown a static career site. Group B, a career site with employee stories, and Group C, a career site with employee stories and a live chat Q&A feature.

The bottom line: groups that engaged with the authentic content—in the form of written stories or interactive chat —scored significantly higher immersion quotients. Those who only engaged with the static career site scored lower than the industry average. The study found that the stories and live chat were up to 20% more immersive, both over time and at peak engagement.

Additionally, it was found that hearing directly from employees lowered the jobseekers levels of frustration —they were able to more easily find the answers to their questions and felt better about the recruitment experience.

The bottom line:

Corporate communications and static careers sites aren’t enough to convince candidates anymore. When deciding whether or not to apply, candidates are actively seeking out information. 57% of candidates feel companies aren’t sharing the right information on their career sites, which leads to a poor candidate experience.

With 64% of jobseekers using a career site as a resource when researching new opportunities, having this resource fall short is a big missed opportunity. It’s not only damaging to your hiring KPI’s, but damaging to your employer brand.

Storytelling can:

Improve candidate experience
Improve the perception of your company
Close the credibility gap and persuade candidates to take action

When engaging with employee stories:

95% of candidates thought the content was highly relevant

98% of candidates planned to apply to the company

77% of candidates said their impression of the company was improved

Watch: PageUp Webinar: Amplify your brand with employee stories

Part three: Authenticity leads the way in 2022

So if it’s just a story we need, why isn’t corporate-branded content cutting through? Many brands create a series of “talking head” testimonials –videos of employees talking about how great it is to work for their company. These are often shot from the shoulders up and cover the same handful of talking points. While this covers the facts, it lacks perhaps the most important element of good storytelling: authenticity.

In 2022, candidates are discerning.In fact, 51% of candidates are sceptical of corporate content, and would rather trust the views and opinions of a third party over the company CEO or career site messaging. So how can we break down these barriers, build trust with candidates and encourage them to apply?

Fortunately, while an emerging trend in talent acquisition, this isn’t a new challenge in other industries. For years, companies have been trying to build trust with their consumers — to show, rather than tell, the features and benefits of their products. But how?

The past few years has seen an emerging marketing trend of using user-generated content to connect with the audience and create authentic content at scale. Even with a large marketing team, one company alone can’t produce the same quantity of content as all of their customers combined. So by harnessing their loyal customer base to create unique, authentic content, companies are able to scale their awareness, build their authentic image and increase sales, all while making their loyal customers feel recognisedrecognized.

Consumers find UGC 9.8x more impactful than branded content. (Stackla)
79% of people say UGC highly impacts their decisions. (Stackla)
Consumers are 2.4x more likely to say user-generated content is authentic or trustworthy compared to brand-created content. (Stackla)
90% of consumers say authenticity is important when deciding which brands they like and support (up from 86% in 2017). (Stackla)
Brands using UGC on average had an 11% uplift on sales, and 4x increase in ad conversions.

Leading companies have recognisedrecognized the parallels between marketing to their customers and attracting jobseekers. Innovative HR teams are using this information to craft new ways to engage candidates, to stand out from their competitors, and to win the best talent.

Part four: Introducing employee generated content

With what we now know, there is a clear next step to take: springboard off the success of user-generated content to attract and engage potential candidates. How can you bring together the art of storytelling and the need to produce scalable, on-brand content? With employee generated content.

According to a survey conducted by Edelman, your employees are the most trusted source of information about your company. Conveniently, they’re also the best-placed to answer applicants’ targeted questions.

Candidates are particularly interested in hearing from employees about specific topics:

For an employer brand to truly reflect life at an organisationorganization, you need input from all facets of the company – not just HR. Employee generated content turns your employees into brand champions: valuable sources of authentic, immersive content. Hearing directly from employees lowers jobseeker frustration, and makes a company’s employer brand more credible and authentic.

What form can employee generated content (EGC) take?

EGC can be any form of content created by and featuring your team members that talks about your company, and your employer brand. This could be on social media, on reviews sites, or your own company website. Let’s break down a few of these channels:

Social Media

78% of candidates use social media to gain insights into company culture. It’s important you put your best foot forward here. Make an effort to call out employee milestones on your company socials, and incorporate your EVP in your social media content. Encourage employees to like or share company posts, or create their own posts and tag your company. While this is a more time-intensive approach, it is a low-risk, high reward way to get started.

Reviews

Glassdoor is one of the most-visited review sites for jobseekers in the research phase of their journey, with 86% checking a company’s reviews prior to applying. Encourage employees to share their experiences with your organisationorganization, to help future applicants hear what it’s like to work with you. This channel does come with a reputational risk: some employees or ex-employees may post a negative review. Put a plan in place to respond to every review —positive or negative —to show your willingness to respond, and your pride in your employer brand.

Your company website.

Sharing employee content on your company website is a great way to showcase your EVP and culture. While traditionally a manual and labour-intensive process, Employee generated content tools now make the process a breeze.

PageUp Employee Connections allows you to create and share authentic stories at scale —while controlling the content and branding. Getting started is simple: choose your employee ambassadors, and with just 10-15 minutes a month, they can create a bank of answers to FAQ’s, post video responses, take part in live Q&As, and more. Interested jobseekers can ask these insiders their burning questions and get genuine, trusted responses.

Improve your candidate experience and conversion ratios

Jobseekers who engage with PageUp Employee Connections are
3x more likely to be hired

Scale your efforts and save recruiters time

Recruiters who use employee generated content tools spend
40% less time answering questions

Amplify your employer brand and engage diverse jobseekers

One client in the Financial Services industry saw a
50% increase in diverse hires

Engage hard-to-reach candidates

Employee-generated content is
200% more effective at engaging candidates than company-driven material

employees stories
Authentic

95% of candidates thought the content was highly relevant

77% of candidates said their impression of the company improved

98% of candidates planned to apply

Content from PageUp’s Employee Connections can be easily shared on your company social media accounts —so you’ll be able to create a multi-channel employer branding strategy without creating extra work for your team.

The two-fold effect

Employee generated content doesn’t just provide a way for you to engage with new candidates. Nominating employee ambassadors gives you the perfect opportunity to praise, engage and recognisedrecognized your top performers. According to Joseph J. Balbi, there is measurable ROI attributable to recognition and employee engagement.

Engaged employees display::

59% less turnover
17% increase in productivity
20% boost in sales
80% motivated to work harder when they’re appreciated

By engaging your team members to help build your employer brand, your company benefits in two ways. Firstly, you can easily attract culturally aligned talent, and secondly, you can retain top performing ambassadors.

Watch: PageUp Product demo: Harnessing employee generated content

Part five: Where to from here?

To many talent teams, the concept of producing great quality, authentic, engaging content to attract more candidates sounds fantastic. The downside? The time and resources it takes to do so.

But if you use the right tech, you can actually save time, and get a better ROI on your talent acquisition efforts. Let your insiders create engaging content, share it across all your channels with ease, and sit back as the applications roll in. With a clear direction, a comprehensive strategy and the right support, you can use authentic stories to engage new candidates and retain your top performers.

To see PageUp’s Employee Connections tool in action

Get in touch today