Employer Branding for Recruiting and Retention

Employer branding is becoming a key element of talent acquisition as companies look to regain their competitive advantage and rebuild their workforce in 2010. It is fast becoming one of the most powerful recruitment tools available in today's competitive environment but attracting top talent after a tumultuous year of downsizing can prove difficult for many companies whose employer brand has been tarnished.

How can you overcome this? Start by thinking of the candidates as a consumer and learn to be a top marketer. A marketers focus is always on the consumer and identifying what they want to buy as opposed to what do we have to sell. In the same fashion, companies should consider what top talent might want to buy from them.

For help with understanding what candidates and employees want, look no further than Forbes' Best Places to Work list. Best practice organizations such as Google, Wegmans Foods and SAS are able to differentiate themselves by offering incentives, flexibility and job stability.

Utilizing these as tools for recruiting and retention will increase your chances of attracting and keeping the best.

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Comment by Saleem Qureshi on February 11, 2010 at 8:21pm: Dianne I agree with you that employer branding is becoming the key element.

When I advise our board, I talk about investing in the right strategy to get the optimum ROI

Unfortunately I dont think that there is a high enough ROI on building employer branding, because you attract 'applicants' not necessarily 'talent' ( the right people for the job). I think that you would get a higher ROI if you focused on first screening out the talent from the applicants, then used the energy to develop that talent.

Your thoughts...

Comment by Paul Alfred on February 12, 2010 at 8:53am: Hmmm... I think in a great economy employer branding over the long term can certainly increase ROI. Currently, with the employment rate where it is great talent might not be that hard to come by. To Saleem's point I would hope that Companies embrace "developing talent" as part of an ongoing strategy with respect to employee development and succession planning.

Comment by Dianne Delich on February 12, 2010 at 9:57am: Saleem,

You are correct in differentiating applicants vs. talent. That is always to case, but companies whose brand is less than stellar won't have the same pool to draw from. Or, more applicants and less talent. It is only a piece of the solution, but I believe it is becoming more critical as the job market recovers. As we all know recruiting involves selling and it is much easier to "sell" a well branded company than not. I am all for making recruiting easier, lol!