The Power of Inbound Marketing in Employment Branding

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

Earlier this week we talked about the power of inbound marketing for your employment and recruiting strategy. Most companies don’t understand where to start and if they are to start who should spearhead the efforts. If you’re a smaller company it’s most likely true that your HR department is already a department of just a few individuals, if not just one. The importance of

an Employment Brand Manger not only helps you recruiter faster and smarter, but the ROI is prevalent.

What is an Employment Brand Manager?
The Employment Brand Manager is someone who is in charge of creating a unified brand and message across all different employment channels. Larger companies will generally have a team of employment brand ambassadors, but for smaller companies it’s important to have at least one person who is focused on unifying the message. An employment brand manager’s main function is to establish a clear message that allows recruiters to basically be on the same page when recruiting.

What tools should an employment brand manager use?
When an employment brand manager is in a department of one or a team is looking to unify their message in one central location, using a product like TalentCircles allows them to do just that. TalentCircles can help serve as a centralized career website and talent network that helps drives candidates to a central point. This talent network will be owned by your recruiting team and helps them quantify their efforts when implementing concrete employment branding solutions for your company.

When your company is able to invest in products that help centralize your recruiting efforts it makes it easier for your employment brand managers to manage the brand more effectively. When building out your employment brand ask yourself a few questions to get things started:

• What are the most attractive attributes of your organization that could potentially lead candidates to your organization?
• What roles are the most critical to your success as an organization?
• What types of characteristics are you looking for in a future employee?
• What are the current perceptions that you as an organization are working with? How does it affect your company and what steps have you taken to remediate the situation?

These questions will help you get started in telling your story through your organization. It’s critical that as a company you paint a picture that attracts not only the best candidates for your open positions, but retains your current employees so turnover numbers are low. Take ownership of how those perceive your company and formulate a plan in order to highlight or rectify problems that exist.

Inbound marketing plays a crucial role in building a storyline that tells candidates who you are and what your company stands for. Use this information as a jumping off point to figure out how your newly appointed employment brand manager can start working at creating a positive brand environment.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s is the Chief Blogger & Founder of Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @jmillermerrell.