1. The power of employees
Leveraging the power of your employees — testimonials, photos, videos or blogs are strong options to provide authentic insights for the savvy, sophisticated job seekers of today. Through authentic storytelling, it helps to provide trusted and transparent viewpoints about what it is like to work at an organisation.
Ultimately, you should aim to convert every employee into your brand ambassador. Hearing how an employee feels about working for an employer carries significantly more weight than a polished corporate video. Companies that make an effort to showcase their workforce are more relatable to candidates and therefore are able to come across as being more authentic.
2. Building talent communities
Some of the most successful hiring companies set up company-branded talent communities to attract and curate talent from various sources. A talent community is a group of people who shares an affinity for the organisations — where they can connect, network, share opinions, exchange information and learn more about upcoming job opportunities. The ultimate aim is to create a positive impression of your employer brand among this potential talent pool so that your company will remain top of mind when members decide to make a career move.
3. Alternative sourcing channels
Review sites and company career pages garner much attention, but often workers begin their research elsewhere. These include alumni groups, industry forums, professional associations and business networks. Mature workers are most likely to have an extensive network with the strong credibility and respect that they have earned over the years. Companies struggling with hard-to-find skills should target some of these platforms to reach their talent. In addition, companies can also tap into the senior professionals who are working within the organisations that have a strong presence in these industry associations and industry forums to reach out to more potential employees.
4. External influences
The ability to control content is critical to brand building and creating a memorable candidate experience. But what happens when a company’s reputation hinges on external influencers? Increasingly, workers turn to a wide variety of sources to learn more about a potential employer and many of these are independent opinions that are crowd-sourced.
The 2017 Randstad Employer Brand Research supported this trend — 45% of job seekers in Singapore are influenced by the opinions of friends and family, followed by coverage of the organisation on the internet and mainstream media. This further illustrated the far-reaching effects of a brand and the need for companies to craft and produce content that will position their organisation as an employer of choice.
The article is contributed by Randstad Singapore.