As An Employer, Your Brand Matters

A top priority? Communicating culture

The topic of branding has always earned plenty of airtime in marketing circles. While HR professionals count on a strong brand to support efforts to recruit and retain the best people for their firms, they’ve not always seen how their function can directly contribute to building and differentiating that brand.

Hinge Marketing recently completed the Employer Branding Study among professional services firms to learn more about what constitutes a strong employer brand – from the perspective of both talent evaluators and the job seekers themselves. Over 1,000 professionals responded to our survey for the 2020 Employer Branding Study, from firms across the spectrum of professional service businesses.

First, let’s speak broadly about how these respondents view the concept of an employer brand. The most important factor is a well-defined company culture, one that is widely understood and clearly communicated. Logically enough, the brand you present as an employer should run parallel with your client-facing brand. So – having a strong company culture is absolutely essential for both evaluating how new talent will fit into your organization, and attracting the right new talent in the first place. 

The study explored a range of questions: What are recruits looking for at different stages of their career? How do mergers and acquisitions affect the employer brand? What impact has the coronavirus had on recruiting and retention?

Here’s our top-line insight about the study’s key findings 

1. Cultivate your culture

While an attractive salary remains the top motivator for job seekers at all levels, they also seek a good cultural fit, and pursue opportunities with employers who share their values, communicate honestly and demonstrate respect for team members.

For an employer, this means if your culture has problems, pay attention – it’s time to invest in making it better if you want to be able to hire great people. Think hard about what differentiates your culture, and communicate that distinct quality in highly visible places, such as your web site. And in today’s immediate context, if your company’s COVID-19 response was slow or inadequate, take strong action to remedy what you can – flexibility and empathy may tip the balance as you compete for strong talent.

2. Customize your messages

Most HR professionals recognize that job seekers at different stages of their careers have different priorities for their next job. As I mentioned earlier, an attractive salary and benefits package will always be a top consideration regardless of career stage. 

Broadly speaking from the study, entry-level job seekers are looking for strong signals about opportunities for growth and advancement. Mid-career candidates want responsibility – and need genuine respect for their contribution as well as a level of assurance they won’t be spread too thin. Job seekers at the senior level want an organization that has a clear vision for the future, and values strong leadership. As an employer, consider developing specific messages that speak to the needs of each cohort. Customized marketing collateral and/or web site pages may be in order.

3. Make sure you appeal to passive job seekers

Professionals who might be interested in a new opportunity, but aren’t actually looking, often represent an attractive pool of candidates. Statistics indicate that at any given time, there might be twice as many passive job seekers as there are active ones. 

These passive job seekers may find the motivation to change jobs if they see a clear indication of an appealing company culture. This group actually ranks culture as more important than salary – especially if they’ve become disillusioned with their present company. As an employer, make sure your outreach emphasizes what’s great about your firm’s culture, the type of people their peer managers and team members would be, and why the opportunity is both interesting and varied.

As an HR professional, you understand the challenges involved in recruiting and retaining top talent – and how the dynamics brought on by the coronavirus pandemic and related business uncertainty have changed how firms need to engage in the hiring process. As our study indicates so clearly, company culture matters more than ever. If yours is strong, lean in and use it as a key recruiting lever. And if it’s not – take action now to make meaningful improvements.