What's one creative way you've promoted your employer brand to candidates?

One of the main motivators for software engineers is, of course, impact but also innovation. They want to specifically know what types of projects they will work on and what technology they will be working with. While employer brand manager at Continental, the global automotive technology company, I learned from our research that this audience also likes reading white papers on future topics and uses Reddit. We collaborated with the engineering team and our agency, Ph.Creative, to write a white paper on smart cities (connected cities of the future) which included quotes from the team who worked on the project. Since Reddit advertising was relatively new at the time, we saw over 2X the results compared to traditional social media.

I find telling a compelling story includes the fundamental elements of who, what, when, where, why, and sometimes, how. Good stories are often dynamic and inspiring with relatable characters whose experiences and values resonate with readers. The same consideration should apply to employer brands. I find it vital for any employer brand strategy to identify your unique brand story by keeping talent at the center of the story and focusing on the value or experience you want them to have when engaging with your brand. Identifying the key themes, values, perspectives, and most importantly, the character journey creates the necessary ingredients to tell a juicy and compelling story. While storytelling is becoming more of a sought-after competency by companies and their recruiters, it is equally imperative for companies to have a story worth telling for employer branding professionals to elevate the brand experience.

As TA Professionals, we have so much information candidates need to know to make empowered decisions about their careers. Things like how to get a foot in the door, ace an interview, or how the business works. In the current ultra-competitive market, giving candidates a clear understanding of the business and their role is essential, so we launched these two social campaigns to make our knowledge more accessible. The first is "RecruiTEA," a multi-episode series where our TA team "spills the tea" on their best tips for candidates. The second was "Random Acts of Career Kindness Day," our take on the popular # holiday where we had live dialogue with candidates to answer their questions about our company. It\'s our job to attract the top-tier talent that will shape our company\'s future. Keeping transparency at the root of culture and infusing that in everything is how to build a strong employer brand.

What makes an organization\'s employer brand great? An ability to showcase the \'why\' to candidates! In a previous role, I launched a culture-focused podcast series, where we allowed employees to share about a topic that they felt most passionate about. From career advice, interview tips, DEI-activities and more, hearing first-hand from employees allowed candidates to really picture themselves as a part of the team. Not to mention, we were able to promote the podcast across our existing talent channels so that we got the biggest bang for our buck! It was so much fun getting to interview employees and having them share their experiences in their own words! Nothing is more powerful than an authentic storytelling opportunity!

We created a landing page on our company website with information about our company culture and job openings. The landing page had a video that appealed to the Millennial generation. It included information about life at our company, including benefits and perks. The landing page had links to social media and a contact form. The form was an automated email response that thanked the candidate for reaching out and wished them the best of luck. It included a link to the video and asked them to contact us directly if they were interested in applying for a job. The result was a 15% increase in candidate reach. This is a great example of using creativity to sell or promote your employer's brand.

80% of BentoBox employees have a background in hospitality, and we are SO proud of that statistic. Due to the inherently connected nature of the industry, we regularly tap into our employee base to bring in referrals - it\'s our second-largest candidate driver after Linkedin applications! We leverage a tool called Bambu that allows for easy social sharing of open roles and industry articles, and everyone is always vying for the top spot on the leaderboard. I would recommend drilling down to the one thing that makes your employee-base unique and finding ways to highlight and celebrate that both internally and externally. Give your employees every opportunity to shine, and they will be your best advocates for potential candidates.

We work with a handful of clients doing social media and video to boost their employer brands. For one of our clients, our most effective use of both platforms so far was to do a video shoot of an employee talking about what they like about their job and what the job "bought" them in life. We then got video of those things: new house, new car, being around a great team at work, having more free time to spend with the kids at home etc. When we used this day-in-the-life video that went beyond work and showed the person's home life, it resonated with people. While running this campaign we were able to roughly double our employee applications compared to the previous year. So although it's tough to do well -- the person has to be able to interview well and they have to let you in on parts of their home life -- the effort is well worth it because it tells the complete story of the person and how their work supports their life.

We want candidates to recognize a career in the insurance industry can be fun and impactful. The best way for us to communicate this has been through videos that highlight our colleagues lives inside and outside of work. We launched a series of videos that show our colleagues families and hobbies while also talking about their job and the company. They have been shared on our website, social media and through direct communications to candidates. Our plan is to shoot more videos to continue to tell our colleagues stories and the opportunities that exist in insurance.

Take the time to build an authentic brand by taking visible, measurable action. Provide candidates with as many touchpoints as possible that gives behind the scenes looks to bring talent “into” the office (virtually and physically) before they apply. Show off your locations, teams, events, production process, perks, or any other behind the curtain to give potential talent a real sense of what it’s like to work at your company. For your employer brand to be authentically unique, it can’t just be different from your main competitors, it needs to be true to your company’s specific culture and values. And they are only going to believe it when they hear and see it from your employees. Be confident to share the good and bad about your organization. Candidates will appreciate you for it.

I always look for ways that we can show candidates who we are versus telling them. That said, events are one of my favorite ways to immerse candidates in our culture and give them a close look at what our employer brand is all about. In all honestly, my favorite events are the more casual ones like happy hour with the team, where we invite our employees to bring a few friends and extend invitations to candidates we have currently in process. We have also had a lot of excitement and success around hosting tech talks, where one of our executives will go deep on an interesting topic and we open things up for a casual reception afterwards. No matter the event, attendees come out with a behind the scenes look at who we are, what we stand for, and what it would be like to work at our company, and as a result a deeper relationship with us as well.

One way is to create an employer brand video. This can be a short video that showcases your company culture and values, or it can be a longer video that goes into more detail about what it's like to work at your company. Other creative ways to promote your employer brand include creating an employer brand website, hosting employer brand events, and writing employer brand articles.

We promote our employer brand to prospective candidates by sharing our awesome company culture. For example, we boast our exponential growth and fast-paced culture which allow employees to gain new skills and perspectives at incredible speed. We emphasize our commitment to growing the company from the ground up and recognizing our employees' success on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis.

Most employers don't pay attention that internal branding and employer brand are not the same things. This is one of the reasons why some companies have a negative employer brand. Internal Branding is to show the awesomeness of the company and makes employees proud of working here. The greatest way to promote this is to have a good culture where people love to work. This will result in employees talking to candidates and mentoring them about the culture. If people are talking about the culture, this means that the internal branding is successful. We try to use different and creative ways to promote the employer brand. We did a game design competition for candidates applying for a design position. The whole challenge was to design a game concept that will be developed in our company. The winner would be hired and also get a bonus of 10,000 dollars.

If there's one thing that your employer branding needs to communicate clearly, it's the employee value proposition (EVP) that is unique to your business. Every organization has something to offer its potential candidates but if you can identify what sets you apart from the rest and highlight this during your hiring efforts, you'll catch the attention of applicants who resonate with your mission, and core values.

Storytelling, witty content, and creative writing promote an employer's brand to candidates in an exciting manner. A brand-specific landing page that ranks high with essential keywords to attract curious eyes seeking job opportunities. Why not boost the human side of your business and showcase familiar stories to reach others? Lastly, the promotion of your website with witty content is personable and will benefit you and draw top talent.

Build email marketing campaigns that are short and compelling. Begin with 2-3 sentences that convey traction; leverage growth metrics, impressive VCs or employees involved, etc. that will make them think, “This is a company I cannot miss out on.” Follow with your layman’s pitch, which should answer 1) What is the huge problem your startup is solving? and 2) How is your startup the best positioned to solve that problem? Keep it short (~800 characters or less) and avoid vague cliches that could apply to any startup.

Establish a conscious culture: Human resources, in my opinion, are crucial to developing a great company brand through flexible, transparent workplace policies and communication. In today's remote environment, I feel HR is a vital channel for many workers and prospects. An HR team must lead and communicate efforts to establish the conscious culture that employees demand, as well as handle internal concerns such as diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as re-skilling.

An easy and creative way to promote your employer brand is to include your employees in company social media content. For example, our team members have the opportunity to be featured in our TikTok videos and photoshoots for Instagram. It's fun to incorporate the hardworking individuals behind the brand while showcasing the creative possibilities of working here!

Host a table at a college career fair. This method of employer advertising is particularly effective in that you can meet qualified candidates in real-time and analyze who fits well into your company culture. Going offline with employer brand promotions is more personal and can garner quick results with a higher retention rate.

One creative way we've promoted our employer brand to candidates is by having a social media contest. We asked candidates to share why they would want to work for us, and the winner received a $100 gift card. This was a great way to generate awareness about our company and show off what it's like to work here. We received some great submissions, and it was a lot of fun!