Why Employment Branding and the Candidate Experience Matter

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

Right now the job market is growing every day, our economy is booming and recruiters are stretched thinner than they ever have been. It’s an exciting time for businesses to be expanding and recruiters to be challenged professionally, but we’re past the point where good old sweat and hard work will get the job done. With the job market as healthy as we’ve seen it since 1999, it takes a village to engage, hire and retain talent in your organization.

If you’ve seen that it’s more challenging than ever and that your time to fill has increased over the last several months, you’re not alone! I’m here to tell you that economic indicators are pointing that the job market will continue to challenge us. High quality candidates will remain in demand, boomers will continue to retire, millennials will continue to turnover between a year and 18 months. In short, recruiting will not only remain challenging but with the talent pool shrinking, you will also have a harder time recruiting, onboarding and retaining talent at your company.

The solution to successfully recruit in 2015 and beyond is to make employment branding and candidate experience part of all that you do. These two strategies are intertwined and should be weaved through every effort. This is the best way to make an impact on your hiring efforts. Here are five tactics that your probably already putting to work that can be enhanced by employment branding and focusing on candidate experience:

Candidate engagement

I would argue that candidate engagement could be the most important tactic you can use, and when you add in employment branding and a focus on candidate experience, these three things play off of each other so well. Candidates are more likely to engage if you’ve been exercising your employment branding, and if you approach candidate engagement with the mindset of creating a positive candidate experience, you’re more likely to be consistent and leave a better impression. Build your engagement around these two strategies to see the most return on your investment.

Improved candidate quality

This is probably what first comes to mind when you consider why to focus on employment branding. Improved candidate quality is a result of both your efforts and a reason why you should focus on these two things. Employment branding helps candidates better understand your company, leading to a better fit.

Developing talent pipelines

Developing talent pipelines is essential for staffing your company in the future. As a recruiter you must think long term and be prepared to establish relationships with prospective candidates and passive job seekers that will last for years. This only happens when you respect them, create a positive experience, solidify your brand in their mind and focus your efforts.

Expand the brand

When you’re engaging candidates, seeing improved candidate quality and developing talent pipelines, expanding the brand is bound to happen. When you also add employment branding and candidate experience to the mix, you’ll see a major boost in expanding to reach different types of candidates in all different places.

SEO

Search engine optimization happens through strategic efforts, and this is certainly true when it comes to recruiting. This will come from the work you’ve done establishing relationships online, via social networks and in person, both internally and externally. It’s then that your company will get noticed online and in real life.

TalentCircles is the most comprehensive candidate engagement platform on the market. Take a product tour or request a live demo today. 

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology anthropologist specializing in HR and recruiting. She's the Chief Blogger and Founder of Blogging4Jobs and author of The HR Technology Field Guide. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmillermerell.