How technology can Elevate Your Employer Branding Strategy

When it comes to hiring top talent, you can't be using the siloed techniques anymore. Your candidates are smart. They already know the responsibilities associated with a role. And receiving the same old job openings is when they lose interest in the position you're offering.

What they are interested in is the growth and the work culture they are going to experience in joining your company. So, how can you stand out? The answer is simple – employer branding. And the best way to create an effective employer branding strategy is leveraging technology.

Kelly Barcelos - a progressive digital marketing manager specializing in HR - has prepared a how-to-guide on creating a perfect employer branding strategy for the Lucky Hunter blog. Read on to find out how you can use technology to create a fool-proof recruitment strategy and attract the ideal candidates.

A Career Website

Most of your ideal candidates would like to apply directly through your website instead of applying through a job portal. And if your career page is just a list of job descriptions with stock images, you may be failing to attract the attention you want.

Hence, in addition to investing in a career portal, invest in a career website of your company, and leverage it to show what it's like to for you. It should be designed to cater to employer branding activities. It can be customized to utilize various features such as:

Recruitment platforms;
Talent networking forums;
Role-specific landing pages;
Location-specific landing pages, etc.

This will allow you to have a continuous connection with the candidates, which will ensure that whenever they look for an opportunity, your brand is on the top of their minds. Here are a few more tips to help you design the perfect career page:

Use interactive design and content to reflect the culture of your company. Instead of making guesses, your employees should know what they can expect to be able to make an informed decision.
Tell the candidates how they benefit from working with your company.
Make sure that the website is mobile-friendly.

For some inspiration, you must check out the career pages of Pinterest and Netflix. Pinterest, on its career page, states the 4 core values of the company and consists of quotes by current employees. This is an excellent idea since potential candidates would like to know the experience of others working there. Similarly, to cater directly to the applicants, the career page of Netflix consists of social channels and podcasts meant for job seekers.

Email Marketing

Email marketing for recruitment allows employers to develop relationshipswith candidates and nurture them over a period of time. This is a brilliant technique since you can make the first move and reach talented candidates rather than waiting for them to connect with you. The reason emails are more impactful is that they are personalizedand help maintain consistent communication.

However, email marketing is not the same as sending job openings to a huge mass in a go. It is more about reputation building and encouraging the candidate to move up the recruitment pipeline by creating a sequence of messages.

Here's how you can go about it:

Cold Email

This email is articulated to reach out to people who are unaware of your brand. The email should be convincing enough to make the recipient want to visit your website and know more about your brand.

Follow-ups

These emails are sent at regular intervals to keep the recipient interested so that whenever they start looking for an opportunity, your brand is the first they consider.

Cross-Selling

A candidate may not be interested in a position available currently. However, they may have a skill set you find very useful. So, cross-selling emails are sent to educate them about possible future opportunities.

Here are a few tips to help you create an effective recruitment email marketing plan:

Get your ideal candidates to sign up for your newsletter. This will help you ensure that you are approaching people who are genuinely interested in any communication from you.
Ensure that you have a relevant and interesting subject line. With a weak subject line, your email can be considered spam and moved straight to trash.
The body of the email shouldn't be a huge chunk of text. Add pictures, graphics, or videos that pique the recipient's interest.

Social Media Platforms

According to Betterteam, a job publishing software company, 59% of employees said that the reason for choosing their current organization was their social media presence. Almost all your ideal candidates may be using one or more social media channels, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Hence, it is only wise to leverage these platforms to attract top talent.

Social media channels allow you to consistently stay in front of your potential candidates with meaningful and engaging content. They also help you measure the response from your audience to see what works well and manage the content accordingly. Moreover, you can promote your social media content to get a wide reach.

Here are a few tips to help you leverage social media for recruitment:

Post job openings, but don't make the page all about recruitment.
Post content displaying your company's culture, such as events, award functions, office parties, potlucks, outings, etc.
Post information and pictures from your training and development programs for the employees.
Focus on the people and not the services. You can introduce the team to make it personal.

Basically, the whole idea of social media recruitment is to create the fear of missing out on your ideal candidates. And if you can do so, your social media followers can become your best employees.

Companies are largely using these recruitment strategies these days to hire top talent. What distinguishes you is how efficiently you do it. But when you use the techniques above, the problem of delayed communication and unorganized job portals is common. And this may affect your employer branding negatively.

So, to avoid such problems, you can use an applicant tracking system that streamlines and automates your recruitment process. An applicant tracking system ensures a great candidate experience since it:

Creates a clear and attractive careers page.
Reaches a wide range of audiences on social media.
Sends automated emails, messages, and reminders to keep applicants informed at every step.
Organises the onboarding process.

All this will help you level-up your recruitment process and manage your brand effectively online.

The changing industry dynamics require employers to be smart and innovative. And the good news is that technology can help you do it easily. So, stay updated with the latest technology trends, and you will be able to stay on top of your game.

About the author

Kelly Barcelos is a progressive digital marketing manager specializing in HR and is responsible for leading Jobsoid's content and social media team. When Kelly is not building campaigns, she is busy creating content preparing PR topics. She started with Jobsoid as a social media strategist and eventually took over the entire digital marketing team with her innovative approach and technical expertise.

Kelly Barcelos

Digital Marketing Manager

If you need to fill a tech job opening, contact Lucky Hunter agency. We provide discountsto startups, help with the specialist's profile and show the first relevant candidates within four days after the job opening discussion!