By Karl-Johan Hasselström, Global Consulting Director at Universum
It’s not just about being number one. Working with employer branding involves more than just your position in a ranking. Ultimately, all companies need and should understand and analyze their position in the employer branding funnel (see illustration): 1) Does the target group know us? 2) Would they consider working for us? Do they see us as being an ideal employer? 4) Would they apply? And finally would they accept an offer? The funnel approach is the key to being a master employer brander. It requires making decisions based on facts, to decide: what to say and where to say it.
Click on the recruitment funnel to see it in full size
Depending on where your organizations stands within the funnel, will certainly determine the decisions you make. By making the right choices, you can either improve your position in the recruitment market, being able to compete more effectively for top talent, or maintain your employer attractiveness, if your organization is already perceived as being an ideal employer. In other words, if you’re unfamiliar, you’ll want to generate awareness. If they’re aware of you, you would want them to consider you as a potential employer. If they consider you, you would want them to see you as a good choice of employer. If they see you as being an ideal employer, you would want them to apply. And lastly, you would want to win a homerun by getting them to accept a position and stay. Sounds simple, right?
Now regarding your employer branding mix, one needs to decide where to be and what to say, depending on where one is positioned. Interestingly enough, the medium is the message today, as various channels do create different results and it’s important to understand what outcomes they produce. For example, the channels that create awareness are not the same as those that induce desire. If you’re already well-known, does it make any sense spending hefty amounts on mass communications? Or if the majority of students already consider working for your organization, do you really need to spend as much on career guidance websites this year? Perhaps, your priority should be to focus on those efforts that create desire. Instead, you should send your best brand ambassadors on a country-wide campus tour, giving them a mission to seduce the top students to join your winning team. Essentially, you need to make sense of the current reality and implement a focused communication and recruiting strategy, one that will generate the perfect outcome.
Yes, how you decide to carry out your employment marketing very much depends on your position in the funnel and on what channels students use, at each step in the process, to get to know you better. We at Universum thus help organizations to decide how to allocate their communication budget to the mix. We conduct workshops based on facts, i.e. in-depth market intelligence, and give you a crystal clear indication of what channels you should be spending your money on, what channels you can reduce your presence in, and what strengths of your employer brand you should emphasize to stand out from your recruitment competitors. Remember, you can’t make smart decisions without understanding and analyzing the market research first. Simply, think before you act!
