3 New Types of Candidate Content to Elevate Your Employment Branding Efforts

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

The race for the right candidates is moving faster than ever and recruiters are responding by trying out new ideas to reach the best and brightest. One of the most effective techniques that we’re seeing used today is a focus employment branding throughout content. We know that content is king, and we’ve found that it’s not only a great way to reach candidates but also provides us with countless opportunities to brand our companies as employers of choice – the type of place that anyone who comes across our content will be intrigued by.

The challenge with such a focus on content and using it to showcase an employment brand is that after months or even years of using content to attract candidates, things can get stale. While you must keep content fresh, it can be challenging since the messaging is likely strategic. The answer to creating candidate content that elevates your employment branding efforts is where you share.

Get creative with these three channels by creating new content, repurposing previous content and meeting candidates where they are.

Podcasting

Podcasting is my new love in the content world. I’m especially drawn to how it can be as structured or as laid back as your brand requires, how easy it is and the personality and employment branding you can infuse in each episode. I’ve now created around 50 Workology podcasts, and it hasn’t been an enormous commitment to record the 25-30 minute episodes.

Many employers are seeing the benefits of podcasts for employment branding, such as Marriott’s The Wandernaut Show that is geared toward reaching millenials. It’s innovative, creative and helps the company stand out to young candidates among the hundreds of other employers in the hospitality industry.

Periscope

Periscope is fairly new on the scene but live video broadcasting is the future of not only recruiting but our day-to-day lives as well. Early adopters have already seen a great deal of success with the app, such as HootSuite’s Operation #FollowTheSun campaign. The company has been able to engage candidates across the world in a new and exciting way that increased engagement and promoted their employment brand with simple real time streaming video.  

Virtual networking and events

The majority of our candidate pool lives and breathes online, so it’s not much of a leap to hold a virtual job fair or networking event. These are growing in popularity and are a great way to build relationships, answer questions and get to know your job seekers. They’re efficient, provide a much wider reach than your average job search event and are certainly cost effective. The easiest way to do this is my using a talent network technology that enables this type of event, such as TalentCircles.

Employment branding is all about sharing resources, information and insights into what makes your company a great place to work. In this competitive candidate market, it’s imperative to use content and your creative assets in new and exciting ways to engage the best candidates for your company.

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.

Using Technology to Build an Employment Brand

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

There is no doubt that the technology we have seen introduced in the recruiting space in the last several years has changed us for the better. Today’s applicant tracking systems and candidate relationship management systems make our excel spreadsheets of yesteryear look like cave drawings. We’re able to track, connect with, screen and keep up with candidates like never before, but many companies are still faced with a major problem. They‘re not able to do all these things in one place, and not in ways that support their employment brand.

While CRM and ATS technologies were game changers when they were introduced, they’re just not cutting it for those who want to be efficient and competitive in their recruiting. It's time to welcome a new technology that not only works on the back end but also presents your employment brand to the world.

The key to using these technologies like Talent Circles to build an employment brand is to incorporate these three essential elements. But first, your network or community starts with engagement, conversation and relationships not just a database. 

Provide a unified platform

The most vital part of a recruiting technology is that it provides a unified platform for you to manage all your recruiting activities and interactions with candidates. This means that both you and candidates have one central place to go for all recruiting activities. This can include applying, interviewing via video or phone, completing screening activities and connecting with recruiters and others.

Without a unified platform, your employment brand can become segmented as you send your candidates on a virtual scavenger hunt, gathering information about your company from LinkedIn, connecting with recruiters on Facebook, applying on your website, etc. Imagine if all these resources were in one place, and then consequently, all the information you could possibly need about a candidate is in one place. That’s what a unified platform does.

Foster a community

For all that technology can do for recruiting, it can’t make a candidate feel connected and desired. There will always be an element of human interaction and networking in recruiting and building your pipeline, so it’s important not to neglect that as part of your technology. Within your unified platform, you can create a community that allows candidates to connect with recruiters, other candidates and current employees. This can help them get their questions and learn more about the company, all under your watchful eye.

Make tasks easier and more efficient

The back-end features of your technology are just as important as what candidates see. It can make the difference between you being able to effectively recruit and being bogged down by endless details and ineffective data management. When choosing or developing a technology, you’ll want to make sure that it has the features and functions that you need as well. Essentially, it should be a hybrid of technologies that allow you to plan, engage and manage all from one place, making your job easier and tasks more efficient.

Technologies that do all this, such as the Talent Circles’ system, allow recruiters to present a consistent employment brand, meet candidates’ needs and streamline their duties like a CRM or ATS never could. 

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media.  She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs.