Here's What 'Employer Branding' Should Look Like on Company Career Platforms If your brand looks the same across all your social platforms, you're doing something wrong.
By Matt Straz Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Employer branding is kind of a big deal. In fact, it was named a leading trend in LinkedIn's Global Recruiting Trends 2016 report: 59 percent of the 3,894 talent leaders surveyed said they had invested more in their employer brand, compared to last year.
Related: Does Your Company's Branding Really Matter in Recruiting?
Today, they can easily do that: There are more opportunities than ever for a company to show job-seekers its employer brand. Career websites, social media platforms, blogs and more are all places to direct employer-branding efforts. But if yours is the company doing the branding, your strategy shouldn't look the same on each platform. Job-seekers look for and expect different information and insights about employers on every platform.
What do they want? Here's what great employer branding includes on the most popular platforms:
Candidate experience on your career page
When job-seekers visit your website, they want information, and they want it fast. After all, 42 percent of U.S. job-seekers surveyed by CareerBuilder in 2015 said they visited career pages to find jobs and apply. And they said that the biggest influence on their decision to apply (or not) was available information.
On an employer's career page, then, awesome employer branding should be tied to a great candidate experience. If information is hard to find, the website difficult to navigate and the application process lengthy, job-seekers won't think twice about the company.
If the most basic information isn't readily available, they won't be motivated to dig deeper or look at the company's culture.
So, offer what they need. Wow candidates, and boost your company's employer brand by assuring a great candidate experience. Consider that experience from the job-seeker's point of view: What information is he or she looking for on that career page?
Is your website up to date? Does it look great? Is it optimized for mobile? All these factors will reflect back on your company and influence what candidates think about your brand.
Leadership on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the most popular social network for professional purposes among both recruiters and job seekers, according to Adecco's 2015 Work Trends Study. That makes it one of the most important platforms when it comes to employer branding.
Job-seekers aren't just using LinkedIn to search for jobs and connect with colleagues. Jobvite's 2016 Job Seeker Nation survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults found that candidates also considered LinkedIn the best place to network and get a sense of company leadership.
Great employer branding on LinkedIn involves interacting with job-seekers and showcasing company leadership. That's why you should connect with professionals and answer their questions. In addition, your leaders should establish a presence on LinkedIn. Interact with job-seekers directly, and publish posts to the community. Posts introduce job-seekers to company leaders as well as share the company's perspectives and values.
And that's what employer branding is all about.
Related: How to Develop a Stellar Employer Brand
Fun on Facebook
Although LinkedIn is the most popular social media platform for networking and job-seeking activities, 67 percent of those surveyed by Jobvite said they used Facebook in their job search. According to the survey, job-seekers said they were checking Facebook to browse photos and content and get a sense of company culture.
The problem is, many candidates don't find what they're looking for. A 2015 LinkedIn survey of more than 10,000 professionals who had recently changed jobs found that 49 percent of respondents said the biggest obstacle in the job search was not knowing what working for an organization might actually be like.
That's a good reason to use Facebook to show potential employees what your working culture is all about. Share pictures of office events, celebrations, volunteer days, community activities and anything else that sets your culture apart.
Related: How to Fire Someone Without Ruining Your Employer Brand
Recognize team and employee achievements, and keep your feed full of recent and relevant content. Use Facebook to give not only job-seekers but existing employees what they really want -- a taste of company culture.
