What I’ve learned about employer branding since leaving Indeed.
After spending the last decade at Indeed, I made the decision to leave and lead sales at SparcStart. My time at Indeed was spent diving deep into the world of recruiting and hiring with minimal brand training. Since starting with SparcStart, I’ve been lucky to expand my knowledge by chatting with some seasoned employer brand experts to increase my expertise in that area. They’ve shared amazing tips with me, and I’m excited to share their wisdom with you.
To be successful at anything, especially employer branding, you need a strong base. For those that don’t know or need a refresher, employer branding is a very important part of a company’s value proposition, if not the most important – it’s all about showing off what your company’s about to both current employees and potential hires. Think mission, values, culture, and personality. Get this right, and you’ll attract great candidates and keep your current team happy. So, what makes a successful employer brand strategy?
First off, start small and test things out. Find a brand ambassador, a champion for your company and culture to help you; and when you find what works, go big! Don’t just do what people want – do it in the way they want it. Did you know that 84% of all internet traffic is video? That’s why it’s not just nice to have videos; it’s essential.
This leads us to the power of video. We all watch videos in our down time, whether it be about this weekend’s game (go UCONN!), what’s new in fashion or movies, or even the occasional cat chasing a laser, but also for work – most trainings are video and interactive, but the recruitment world hasn’t quite caught up. Candidates want to see who they’ll be working for and with, get a feel for the job, and hear some success stories. It’s way more convincing seeing a real person talk about it than reading some boring text. And guess what? When candidates were asked what videos they wanted to see most, the numbers were very clear – they want to meet the hiring manager, see a preview of the job, and learn more about the company.
Here’s the kicker, you don’t need a Hollywood production company. Everyone’s got a high-quality camera in their pocket these days. So, why not use it? Forget about spending a lot of money on fancy setups. Keep it real, keep it simple, and save that money for something else.
When looking for my next venture, I was pleasantly surprised during my job search to learn that there are sophisticated platforms managing video workflows and providing the much-needed metrics. But most I found were very expensive or had one limited solution. SparcStart really stood out from the rest for me – one of the company’s solutions can add hiring manager videos to jobs directly on your career site. Another solution is a video management platform built to request, record, edit, and approve at scale. The third is a data asset management tool specifically made for recruitment advertising. Sold! No additional app to download or long ticket wait times? Where do I sign up?
This is what our industry has been looking for. Our goal in recruiting and TA is to make candidates feel comfortable and ultimately apply, right? What can make you more comfortable than hearing from the hiring manager talking about the role and welcoming you? When we want to share company culture, there’s no better way than with video. And ultimately, we want one easy to use platform to store all our recruiting assets – videos, pictures, flyers, links, and more. The truly sophisticated recruitment marketers get all of this and that’s why they use SparcStart – more on them and their themes another day.
If you’d like to connect and learn more about how SparcStart can help you and your company, please reach out to me directly at lindsey@sparcstart.com or set up time to chat using this link.