Employer Branding To Win The Best Candidates

Organization need to prioritize and need to build employer branding to win the best candidates and sustain their competitive advantages. By doing this the best candidates will come and apply to the company. Failing to build effective brand, the company should compromise their quality of workforce resulting to reduce of their competitive advantages. An organization which doesn't have an employer brand, will face big problem in the recruitment.

According to experts, employer branding focuses on communicating with employees, potential staff, the recruitment industry, business partners and communities. It informs people about the merits of working for the organization. The objective is to make staffs feel good about their work and their employer, getting better people, improve their motivation and to retain the best talent. The attractions of the sector; company reputation; quality of products and services; location; work environment; salary range; conditions; employee benefits; people and culture and a good work-life balance are the factors which need to be addressed to create an employer brand.

Steps to build an employer brand:

1. Define the target audience.
2. Develop a set of reasons why the organization is more attractive to that audience than other organizations.
3. Incorporate those reasons into all recruitment efforts and the organization's careers website.

Approaches to develop an employer brand:

• 'Outside-in' approach is spreading the message in the job market to increase the company visibility on the job markets through a multi-faceted approach including well-designed websites explaining the company culture, compensation package, career opportunities and why they are a great place to work.
• 'Inside-out' approach is creating powerful branding internally through employee experience and turn their employees into brand advocates. External branding can be effective if only it is legitimized by internal branding.

An interview experience should leave a positive impression of the company. Candidates receive an inside view of the company, and they will share their interview experiences and their perceptions with others. This word will be more trusted than what are posted on the company's website. How a company is perceived as a good employer in the job market will be based on people's experiences with the organization. An employer branding strategy needs to deliver great, compelling experiences to employees and prospective employees alike to attract and retain the best talent. Hence, a company's candidate management process become important component of a broader employer branding strategy that creates lasting, positive impressions across the employment experience.

Product brands influence the employment brand. Everyone want to work in a company where the brand or product is well known and are having positive market growth. Explaining the company product to the prospective candidate will be a good help to increase the employment brand.

Treat a candidate as a customer. Some managers consider the task of rejecting a candidate to be unpleasant. But the following suggestions can help make it easier and can help ensure that the interviewee still looks upon the experience positively:

1. Be responsive and communicate results quickly to the candidate.
2. Send a thank-you note to the candidate from the interview team.
3. Provide relevant feedback that will help the candidate in future job searches. Keep the door open and ask to be able to contact the candidate in the future, and offer yourself as a resource.

The perfect interview for a hiring manager might be one in which he or she concludes that the HR professionals delivered a great, pre-qualified candidate and in which he or she accurately assesses the candidate's capability to fill the open role without having to take too much time to do it. The perfect interview for an HR professional might include everyone-candidate and interviewers-showing up, a hiring manager pleased with the candidate.
From the point of view of a candidate, the perfect interview is where he/ she:

• Feels valued and respected.
• Has the opportunity to truly assess the company's ability to meet individual and family needs.
• Understands what to expect at each step of the interview process.

Initial touch points ensure that candidates receive consistent, positively branded messages about the organization. When extending an offer, put some corporate personality into it. Here are some suggestions:

• Whenever possible, personally extend an offer- even if it means flying to meet the candidate.
• Make the offer memorable by including a gift of your products or services.
• Deliver an offer letter with the prestige it deserves by differentiating it from other correspondence.
• Follow up the offer extension with a call to the candidate from a senior leader.

Top candidates have many choices. "The company with the best talent wins". Savvy companies and hiring managers realize that to beat their talent competitors, they must change the traditional employers' market paradigm.
A clearly defined candidate management process strengthens the employer brand, builds customer loyalty for your products and services, and attracts and retains the best talent. Each facet must be part of a winning strategy in the war for talent.