So, you’ve got a shiny employer brand and catchy EVP… now what? Employer branding is more than copy:pasting your EVP onto your career site and triumphantly declaring, ‘That’s our brand!’.
An employer brand is painstakingly carved out in every interaction (job seekers, contractors and consultants, new hires, employees, and departing employees) and at every touchpoint in the candidate journey.
It’s not just what you say, but *how* you say it.
How you show up.
How you make people feel after interacting with you.
One of the easiest ways to communicate your employer brand is… well, in your written communication. AKA using brand voice.
Fa-la-la-de-da – What is employer brand voice?
Your employer brand voice is the personality your company takes on when communicating with job seekers and employees. These are the words used for your recruitment marketing; career site copy, chatbot personality, social media conversations, application forms, job ads, candidate emails and SMS, onboarding communication, talent community engagement, and of course, how you show up every day for your employees, like in your newsletters, intranet copy, and change comms!
It’s using words to communicate your brand and complement those in person experiences.
Why do you need an employer brand voice?
It helps you stand out from competitors. A strong and effective voice provides a consistent brand experience which creates audience trust. It helps you establish an emotional connection and recognisability in the market.
Additionally, a distinct brand voice can educate talent about your workplace culture, mission, and values. It therefore helps you attract more of the right fits while repelling more of the wrong fits (= reduced time and spend on recruitment, re-recruitment, poor hires and disengagement and much more contentment, productivity, and innovation.).
What’s the difference between employer brand voice and regular brand voice?
Let’s get clear on this - The employer brand and business brand are aligned to ensure consistency, but are used in slightly different contexts.
The employer brand voice has a specific tone, audience, and key messages to communicate your culture effectively with candidates and employees. However, it shouldn't widely vary from the public facing brand or you’ll cause confusion and mistrust.
For example, if you have a bold and funny brand personality on your social media channels, and your consumers come to know of you for this humour, but your job ads, candidate emails, and website copy are all written in that cotton ball dry corporate style, people will be confused. That would set off my alarm bells, because I’d assume your fun personality doesn’t apply to the workplace culture, and it would stop me from applying.
How tone can help
You’ll probably have varying audiences (grads v. executives) at different times on different platforms, and how you talk to them will also change in different contexts.
For example, you may like to banter with Instagram fans, but you’ll probably take a more serious *tone* when responding to complaints. I find it easier at this point to consider the brand voice as an actual personality.
When you think of your own personal experiences, in any situation your personality will stay the same, but you may adjust your tone to suit a specific event or audience (like at a funeral or chatting with your mates compared to your gran).
That’s why it’s important to identify your brand personality at its core, and the kind of energy, communication style, and key phrases you can use to adapt accordingly.
These 5 things all influence your voice
It can be a tricky thing to explain to everyone, “How to identify your employer brand voice”, as businesses come in all shapes and sizes with all sorts of marketing support or none at all – some have style guides and EVPs, others don’t. There’s no one size fits all answer for that question in this post.
If you’re a smaller business without any brand style guides, you may like to read this short guide How to Nail a Pitch Perfect Brand Voice.
However, at the highest level, you’ll need to incorporate these 5 things:
Your values
When you’re genuinely trying to attract and hire employees who are a values fit with your company, you should be demonstrating these values in your communication. For example, committed to excellence and high performance? Think Mercedes-Benz, and their sleek and prestigious brand voice.
Your mission
What’s your business purpose or mission? What do you stand for?
For example, if you’re a charity committed to community care, then your brand voice and interactions must demonstrate this. Your candidate communication would be highly communicative, empathetic and nurturing, aligned with the story behind your overarching mission.
Your key traits / strengths
How do you want people to feel when they interact with you? Warm, educated, inspired...?
Or, what are you / do you want to be known for? Exceptional customer service? Innovative products? Creativity?
Think about Lego or Apple, and how they use voice to convey originality, vision, and playfulness.
Your audience
Graduates, white collar, pink collar, blue collar, executives, tech! No doubt you’ll have a few specific audience types hanging out on different platforms. It helps if you can get clear on your core candidate avatars and how you’ll adapt your style to communicate in a language they’ll respond to (noting again that your personality stays the same but your tone will adjust).
Your style
Finally, have a think now about your communication style. Namely, will you be formal or casual? And what does that look like in practice for you?
Formal could use contractions with an elegant vocabulary (no jargon!).
Informal could look like friendly and light-hearted with a few local colloquialisms but never swear words or slang.
We’ll look at examples in action below 😊
Introducing a few brand archetypes for guidance
Carl Jung identified 12 brand archetypes. You could run a Google search and take a free quiz if you really know your (employer) brand, and use the archetype as a guide.
However, for demonstration purposes, I’m going to introduce you to my four brand voice personas.
Late last year, I created a series of candidate email templates written in these distinct voices for the range of brands I work with.
Here’s a breakdown of each and a few fun examples of how you can use voice to communicate an on brand message.
Introducing:
Sensible Susan the Sage:
Susan is a wise and nurturing voice for supportive sage brands, like Google or Wall Street Journal types. These brands are knowledgeable and inspiring, tending to use elegant language and warmth that guides audiences.
e.g. Susan telling a candidate they were successful at interview:
“Welcome to the team, {First name}. We’re so pleased to be offering you this role because, well, we think you’re the sunshine to our summer’s day.”
Phunky Phil the Creator:
Phil likes to play and have fun, and usually takes a light-hearted approach to life. This voice suits creative brands, and tends to be playful or cheeky, bold and/or witty. Think MnMs (more of a jester). Note: This is the style of voice I align my brand with.
e.g. Phil telling a candidate they were successful at interview:
“{First name}, you’re a MF Rockstar. Congrats on nailing your interview!”
(Remember, style and tone can vary. While Apple and MnMs could be considered creative brands, imagine if Apple’s tone of voice cracked silly jokes like the MnMs? Bit weird. This is why all the 5 things mentioned above are in play.)
PT Pete the Hero:
Pete is a motivational brand voice, helping people become their best selves. Like the warm golden tones of autumn, these brands are warm and earthy, inspired to change the world and encourage triumph over adversity. Think Nike (especially for the below example), but also aligns well with charities.
“You champion! We’re so pumped your career goals involve us because in a short amount of time, we’re going to be kicking butt together.”
Sophisticated Sarah the Ruler:
Sarah is a voice for prestigious ruler brands, like Tiffany or Mercedes-Benz (and many recruitment agencies). These brands value excellence. They appear as an expert, oozing charm and sophistication. Communication is straight-forward (no fluff or warm n fuzzy feels, here!).
e.g. Sarah telling a candidate they were successful at interview.
“Congratulations! You really excelled during your interview, {First name}. We knew you were a brilliant cut, and now we can be brilliant together.”
Looks great, but how exactly do you make a voice from a brand?
Using Sarah as an example – what comes to mind when you think of excellence? What image does a brand like Tiffany evoke for you? For me, I’d associate things like diamonds, luxury, prestige, status. Working from this shortlist, how can you use words to evoke these feelings and images in others?
Word play on diamonds; You’re a gem, One of a kind, Diamond in the rough, sparkling, brilliance, radiance and so on. For one thing, you can start sprinkling these words into your copy.
In terms of how you communicate, you could be looking at a clean vocabulary and shorter sentences, never using slang (but also, NO JARGON!). You’re articulate. Still use plain English (always use plain English!), but choose the words and sayings that emulate class.
Capiche?
If in doubt, you can always work with a copywriter who’s a brand voice expert. Most of the good copywriters do brand voice work as part of their project briefing, because this ensures when they write for clients they’re writing in the client’s voice.
But also ^^^ call me 😊
Writing pitch perfect recruitment content amplifies your employer brand
When you consistently show up online and in person at every touch point in your candidate’s journey, you create a memorable brand experience. You can use your communication to better tell your story and your offer to attract more of the right fits and repel the ones who don’t.
Be different. Resist same same.
Relax and have fun with it 😊