A misconception amongst many hiring managers is the belief that being a recognised or international company/brand is enough to attract the best talent. New research has now proven statistically that this is definitely not the case. The real truth is, regardless of your company size, finding great talent is difficult. 

According to advisory firm CEB, even the biggest and best organisations are failing to attract the right mix of talent because of unappealing or confusing employer brands. The study, surveyed more than 2,000 recruiting staff from North America, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East. A major finding was that employers are under increasing pressure to attract new “types of talent”. As the technological age continues, capability skill sets are changing. An example of this is an increasing demand for candidates (in all business disciplines) who possess highly developed analytical capability.

“Employers simply cannot carry on doing what they’ve always done. Branding for universal appeal just results in more headaches for the HR team who have to sift through a greater volume of low-grade candidates. Companies have to stop chasing universal popularity and adapt a ‘lure the best, deflect the rest’ mindset to employment branding,” Martin said.

Even more interesting to note, most applicants are not accessing information that originates with the company, with 61% saying they were skeptical about what employers had to say about themselves. This is an important to lesson for employers and one where the approach to employee branding needs to be a lot more comprehensive that just building a corporate employee branding strategy.

The research suggests that although three-quarters of companies around the globe have invested in formal employer branding initiatives in the past three years, just a quarter of candidates applying for roles are high quality.

“Today’s employers face greater challenges than ever in attracting the right mix of talent, especially as the economy allows for a move from survival to growth mode," CEB executive director Jean Martin said. "As businesses diversify their products and services, they have to hire people with skills their brand was never designed to attract."