What is one employer branding strategy to effectively tell your company story and attract talent to your career opportunities?
To help you better tell your company story and attract top talent, we asked HR/recruiting professionals and business leaders this question for their insights. From using your authentic voice to encouraging employee LinkedIn posts, there are several ways to attract the best talent by telling your company’s story.
Here are nine ways to tell your company story and attract the best talent:
- Ask the Right Questions
- Use an Authentic Voice
- Share Your Brand’s Unique Story
- Combine SEO Content With Digital PR
- Encourage Employee LinkedIn Posts
- Make Sure They Read Your Messages
- Infuse Company Culture Into Job Descriptions
- Lean Into Storytelling
- Tell Your Story in a Short Video
Ask the Right Questions
When we first began our talent branding strategy, we were committed to creating a brand of authenticity, not one of jargon and over-the-top confessionals.
We did this by asking one question in the interview, why did you choose us? Over the course of many conversations, we were able to gain an accurate picture of how we were seen externally and used this as the bedrock of our brand.
Steven Brown, DP Electric Inc
Use an Authentic Voice
Make real employees the hero of your story. Too many companies use this approach, but they do it in the wrong way. They create ‘models’ out of their employees with slick photoshoots, professionally produced short videos, and heavily edited testimonials. Job seekers can spot a façade when they see one, so using authentic voices is the best way to go.
Instead of ‘creating’ good employer branding content, show your employees living it. One way to do it is to ask the same set of questions to different employees in a relaxed setting and create a series of articles, videos, or infographics depicting them.
Remember, employee testimonials need not have endless praises of the company or made-up employees. Just feature genuine voices that speak to the struggles of the quintessential job-seeker.
Joe Flanagan, VelvetJobs
Share Your Brand’s Unique Story
A branding strategy we implemented was releasing messages from our founders and employees. Using this method is a great way to showcase company culture. Sharing within the industry, establishing expertise on a given topic, educating the target audience about a particular subject, and making a human connection is where you will start to attract new potential employees and leads.
By using these videos on our website, social media, and news feed, it’s helped increase brand awareness and increase traffic to our blog and landing pages, along with increasing conversions on our website as a whole. The strategy has led us to build trust and credibility for our brand when attracting genuine consumers who would like to learn about our products and talent who would like to work with us.
Daniel Kane, The Ridge Wallet
Combine SEO Content With Digital PR
One of the best employer brand strategies is to expand your digital footprint online with SEO content and digital PR. With digital PR outreach, small businesses like ours are able to strategically amplify their voices to increase brand awareness.
By using a combination of SEO content and digital PR services, our brand and our clients’ brands can attract not only new customers but also attract top-tier talent.
Rronniba Pemberton, Markitors
Encourage Employee LinkedIn Posts
Make sure all of your employees have their LinkedIn pages updated and encourage them to share job listings there. You can give them incentives for this; it’s totally worth it because referrals are often a fantastic way to find quality candidates.
The best part is that a job seeker will essentially see a testimonial from the current employee right there in the post. Encourage employees to add a quick personal note about why they love working there. This directly shows that your company is one worth working for.
Ryan Brown, Kenra Professional
Make Sure They Read Your Messages
In order to effectively tell your company story, you not only need to have a relatable mission, empowering message, and compelling visuals, but you also need to make sure your employees and prospective hires see it. Finding new and exciting ways to reach these audiences through microsites, social media, Slack channels, video, email, text, and QR codes can help maximize your engagement.
Telling the story is only half the battle. Making sure they actually read your communications is the hard part. By leveraging digital communications tactics and tracking engagement, you can ensure your story is read and absorbed, ultimately inspiring a more personal connection to your brand.
Heather Smith, Flimp Communications
Infuse Company Culture Into Job Descriptions
Tie in and infuse your company culture into your job descriptions. Have a fun culture that promotes uniqueness? Make sure your job descriptions are written that way! Pride yourselves on being innovative? Showcase that! However, your company defines its culture, make sure it is highlighted, especially during that first point of contact with the company.
Katia Dillon, TechnologyAdvice
Lean Into Storytelling
Consider leveraging the stories of employees and how they not only engage with but embrace company culture. LinkedIn Life, video, and blog have been wonderful tools in curating content from our employees to celebrate us as an employer of choice with impact.
Sentari Minor, evolvedMD
Tell Your Story in a Short Video
People want to understand the character and personalities of top leadership. Create a four- to six-minute video that tells how the company began, who runs it now, and where it’s going. Every top manager should speak on camera, but most importantly, the CEO should speak the most.
State clearly what your company stands for and what it values. Talk about how you keep the company’s team healthy, rewarded, and growing. In a labor market where employees have many choices and competing job offers, using video helps you convey a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle elements in a short amount of time.
Karen Zachary, Anchor Virtual Assistants
Terkel creates community-driven content featuring expert insights. Sign up at terkel.io to answer questions and get published.
