Simple answer… yes.  With the recruitment market bouncing back, candidates have more choice when selecting their next job.  Essentially, they can afford to be picky as it’s a candidate market.

With this in mind, businesses need to up their game if they want to attract the best candidates, starting with their employer brand.

Employer branding is all about promoting your business as being an ‘employer of choice’ to the right candidates.  The brand must convey a simple and clear story so that candidates can easily understand what it is, and determine whether they identify with it.

Their perception can be built up via multiple channels such as, Word Of Mouth, familiarity, media coverage, and experience with the brand.  In order for it to be truly effective the brand needs to be perceived as authentic, credible, relevant, well-defined and aspirational.

Candidates are more attracted to jobs with a company they recognise as a good employer. If at the end of the day your brand doesn’t have this pull, then your job is more likely to be overlooked.  Companies with a great employer brand will attract lots of applications, however many will be unsuitable and thus time is wasted filtering these candidates. On the other hand, those with a weak employer brand will find it much harder to recruit top candidates as applications will be lower.

Where businesses are recruiting for niche jobs, employer branding may be less important to a potential employee, as they have less choice. However, if your employer brand is poor, they may simply apply knowing they will only stay for a short while until something better comes along.  Should a candidate have a negative experience with a brand, it can affect their future interactions and those of others.  Word Of Mouth is a powerful channel and be in no doubt that a candidate’s experience will be shared with others, impacting on other candidates’ perceptions.  With this in mind, your actual recruitment process can play a part in strengthening your brand from good communication to timely responses.

Either way, a positive employer brand is worth its weight in gold as it takes time to build a positive brand and only minutes to destroy it.

For more information on how to make your brand stand out as a top employer, contact our team today.