Are you seen as a great place to work?

Everyone knows that employees are looking for more than a pay cheque when choosing great places to work, sure it’s a key element, but what helps to get great talent walking through the door wanting to join your organisation?

It’s all about engagement and employers that provide attractive benefits that go beyond financial rewards. Building your employer brand throughout the recruitment process will help to attract and recruit candidates who are the perfect fit.

Engagement begins well before your new recruit’s first day, even before they receive a job offer, so it’s vital that an organisations culture should be consistently conveyed throughout the attraction, engaging and application stages.

At the research stage, candidates will review your website/careers site to learn about your employer brand. Earlier in the year at In-House Recruitment Live, Reed.co.uk presented research on what’s essential in an employer brand. According to the Reed research they were as follows:

1.  Clear organisational values
2.  Ethical principles
3.  Employee rewards and benefits
4.  Established reputation
5.  Commitment to career progression

12 elements of successful brand communication

How you communicate your employer brand, is also important, your career site should provide a hub of information for engagement in various formats. Here are some recommended elements to include on your own careers site, all of which will aid in making it more successful in engaging with candidates from the offset.

1.  Compelling employee stories through video
2.  Career pathways that outline the journey an employee can make through the organisation
3.  How your recruitment process works – what can candidates expect?
4.  Company values – your framework for focus and leadership
5.  Rewards and Benefits
6.  What it’s like working here – think beyond over used words and really illustrate what it will be like to work for the organisation
7.  Colleague testimonials
8.  Learning and Development
9.  Interview hints and tips
10.  Diversity and how you recruit
11.  Apprentice/Graduate Programmes
12.  FAQ’s

These careers site examples from Ecotricity and Travelodge show how they embrace employer brand building and use creative content aligned to company culture to engage candidates.

A customer-centric approach

When a candidate becomes engaged with your brand and decides to apply for a role, regular and relevant engagement must continue. The 2016-17 Talent Board EMEA Candidate Research Report shares research that supports taking a customer-centric approach:

“Savvy employers are making their recruiting teams available to answer questions during live chats on career sites and social media, as well as experimenting with chatbots to answer general employment questions….It’s also interesting to note that companies are engaging as much as they do in social media to attract candidates in 2017, despite candidates still leveraging social channels like Twitter and Facebook with much less frequency”.

The same survey shares that candidates have higher expectations and want to understand their progress and how much of their application is left. Think about your application process and if it reflects your ‘great place to work’. Small improvements to your registration and application process can reap benefits and build engagement in the early stages.

Talent Board CandE research shows that the candidate experience improves when companies help candidates prepare, ask relevant questions and communicate with candidates throughout the interview process. It’s at this stage that intelligent, personalised alerts and inviting candidates to choose their preferred interview slot can help with the nurturing of talent throughout the process. Think of your recruiting process as the perfect opportunity to demonstrate engagement and your customer-centric approach.

Having provided a stellar recruitment service to attract and select the ideal candidate, fully immersed them in your brand and culture throughout the process and have them accept your offer, your onboarding process should keep your new hires warm before they start and ensure they are prepared for their first day. Take the opportunity to customise your offer management process and provide step-by-step new hire information while collecting that vital candidate information.

A candidate driven market

If you want more insight on understanding candidates and what works to attract the right quality and quantity in a candidate-driven recruitment market then take part in this survey to find out which channels and techniques are working best. Your input will form part of the report, which will give valuable insights into candidate attraction trends in the UK recruitment market. We will be able to send you a copy of the 60-page report to act as a reference guide for your recruitment activity.

The survey should take no more than 5 or 6 minutes to complete and is entirely anonymous. Participants have the option to enter the prize draw to win a £250 Amazon voucher at the end of the survey. You can also download a free copy of the 2017 UK candidate attraction report to see the in-depth analysis for planning your candidate attraction strategy.

Download the Travelodge Case Study on how they understood their target audiences and developed the candidate journey.

Alternatively, take a peep at our careers site guide and learn how others have benefitted from candidate-centric careers sites.