As optimism reignites the recruitment landscape, is your organisation’s employer brand looking a bit like a rabbit in the headlights?
If, like many other organisations, you felt there was no choice but to downsize your workforce during the pandemic, you may now be looking to make a sharp u-turn to attract the right talent to join (or in some cases rejoin) your organisation in order to recover and grow again.
There are signs that the jobs market is stabilising and we are seeing growing optimism that the vaccine rollout will lead to a faster-than-expected economic recovery. Our job site data (PRWeek Jobs and our sister job sites at Haymarket Media Group) points to growing confidence in the recruitment market since the middle of 2020 and particularly in 2021. Jobs advertised in Jan-March 2021 are 20% up on the previous three months (Sep-Dec 2020). And the number of recruiters advertising jobs on our sites is also up 20%.
Attracting the right talent is a challenge again. According to PR recruiter, Reuben Sinclair, with the volume of hiring back to pre-pandemic levels, and the majority of PR professionals that sadly lost their jobs during the pandemic having now found new positions, there’s a high level of competition for great candidates.
So how will you market what you offer to potential and existing employees? You have to get creative and make bold decisions now to secure that competitive advantage you’ll need.
The way you communicate your organisation’s culture online can have a significant impact on the quality and availability of candidates you attract. With most office workers working from home, and likely to continue doing so at least some of the time for the foreseeable future, the power of social media and online presence is more important than ever to help you stand out as an employer of choice.
Here are some pointers to help you stand out:
1. Get creative: The explosion of content, social media and email marketing has meant that employers are being ever more creative in how they’re targeting prospective employees. Gone are the days when slapping a job description up on a job board would be enough to find the perfect candidate.
2. Make the candidate journey easier: In a candidate-driven market, if you’re not making it easy, many of your competitors probably will be and are therefore more likely to attract top talent. Can you shorten the application process? Have you made it easy for candidates to find out about your company culture and vacancies?
3. Harness the power of online content and social media: Candidates engage with content across a variety of platforms - you need to ensure your message reaches your perfect candidate at the right time, through the right channel. Use content to communicate the culture of your organisation. Salary is not always the biggest driver for candidate attraction. Meaning and purpose, work/life balance and flexible working are equally, if not more, important.
4. Think “What does the candidate want to know”?: In all your recruitment activity, think about the value for the candidate - what do they want to know about your organisation in order to be convinced it’s where they want to work? If you can’t answer this then make it a priority to find out.
5. Adopt a marketing mindset: Employer branding is where recruitment and marketing meet, and as we face a candidate-driven market once again, you need to adopt a marketing mindset in order to attract the right talent. HR and marketing teams should collaborate to create a valuable EVP content strategy. If you don’t have a marketing team then consider outsourcing.
Read more about how to rethink your employer brand in this downloadable ebook from PRWeek Jobs’ employer branding agency, Wonderful Workplaces: Employer Branding Reboot: A guide for employers throughout the pandemic and beyond
Talk to us about how PRWeek Jobs can help you build and communicate your employer brand or recruitment marketing. Email prcamembersjobs@haymarket.com to discuss your needs and bespoke special packages.