In addition to this, candidates also gauge the employer during the recruitment process. It is thus the job of the human resources team to ensure that you put the best foot forward during this process and ensure that the employer brand value is sustained.
However, there are a lot of subtle ways recruiters could harm the employer brand. Here is a short guide on how to drive employer brand during the recruitment process.
Don’t be a pushy headhunter
Yes, there are deadlines to be met, and there are certain candidates you are desperate to get a hold of. However, things may not always go your way. When you become pushy, you are betraying your desperation for everyone to see.
But the candidates don’t see you as an individual. They see the employer, and this impacts the organization’s brand in a big way.
Sometimes, pushiness can come through inadvertently. According to Anand Srinivasan, the founder of cold email outreach agency LeadJoint, some recruitment agencies deploy email blasts to advertise their open positions.
Firstly, this is not okay. It can also be illegal in certain jurisdictions. Secondly, it makes potential candidates associate your brand with spam and the negative connotation can drive even genuine candidates away.
Craft authentic job descriptions
Job postings are often the first touchpoint between the employer and the potential candidate. It is important that you deploy human-written inclusive language while drafting your job posting. Completely avoid jargon and cliches.
In the job posting, explain why the role matters, the future growth potential in this role, and be honest about the expectations and challenges. It’s also important that you highlight your team culture and impact, and not stop just with the requirements.
This establishes transparency and builds trust early.
Invest in branding campaigns
Brand campaigns are not meant just for the potential customer. It is also a good idea to run it to your target group of potential employees. This is because building good brand equity is a great way to hire the best resources. In turn, these employees help turn your organization’s dream to reality much faster.
You could start with LinkedIn Ads and if you have the budget, could extend to other channels like Facebook, Google, and TikTok. Using an AI video ad generator can help recruitment teams quickly create consistent, high-quality employer branding videos Ads for multiple platforms without heavy production effort.
Ultimately, candidate-focused branding campaigns work on any platform where your audience predominantly hangs out.
But LinkedIn can be a great platform overall because of its overall focus on business networking. To humanize your employer brand further, recruitment teams can also use an Instagram reel maker to showcase office culture, employee testimonials, and behind-the-scenes moments in short, engaging video formats.
These are small steps, but can build a highly appealing employer brand over time.
Deliver a respectful candidate experience
Potential applicants to your job posting tend to speak to older employees or other candidates who have interviewed with your organization before. How you treat your current employees, those who have moved on, as well as those who have applied for a job in the past can thus impact the quality of applicants reaching out to you.
It is important that you deliver a respectful candidate experience.This includes acknowledging applications early, communicating timelines early, providing meaningful interview feedback, and avoiding ghosting at all times.
Some of this can be made sure with the right tools as mentioned previously. But others come from ensuring a solid business process that values the candidate’s time as well.
Invest in modern recruitment tools
Picking a recruitment software for your hiring process may not exactly seem like an employer branding decision, but it really is.
Modern AI recruitment software platforms come with features like AI-driven outreach, resume parsing, and timely communication that ensure that you reach out to the right candidates with the most relevant message.
Also, these tools are automated and send rejection messages in a timely manner, thus ensuring that candidates don’t feel “ghosted by the employer” - this is an extremely vital step to maintain a good brand in the eyes of potential candidates.
Train hiring managers as brand ambassadors
Hiring managers are the first point of contact in any recruitment process. How a candidate views your hiring managers directly impacts how they view your organization in general.
Your hiring managers must understand the employee value proposition, the organizational culture, and be a thoughtful listener. Hiring managers must also be trained to speak authentically and also sell the role without overselling.
This is important to establish leadership credibility and impacts the candidates decision to work for your organization.
Leverage employee advocacy
All said and done, potential employees for your organization tend to trust other employees - people who are in the same shoes as them. One way to effectively drive employer brand during the recruitment process is by extensively leveraging employee advocacy.
Let employees share job openings on LinkedIn and Glassdoor, while also sharing their authentic inputs on the job role and culture. This drives positive employer branding and ensures more candidates choose to work for your organization.
In addition to this, make your merchandise more freely available to people outside your organization as well. While you may be already pampering your employees with goodies, including branded hoodies, computer accessories, notepads, etc., you could share similar goodies with candidates you speak to as well - this helps spread your employer brand beyond the four walls of your organization.
Provide a thoughtful offer experience
The offer stage leaves a lasting impression on the candidates. You do this well by clearly explaining the compensation and benefits, reinforcing their career growth paths, and being flexible wherever possible.
Sure, some candidates may view this flexibility as a sign of weakness and would tend to use this to derive a better pay or offer from elsewhere. But in the long-term such an approach helps since you demonstrate respect and long-term intent, and thus attract candidates who demonstrate the same traits.
Wrapping up
Employer branding in the recruitment process is not about what you say. It’s about how you make candidates feel through the hiring journey. Those that leave with a positive impression tend to spread it around and help you drive better branding, while those that leave with a negative impression can cause long-term impact on your brand.
