Employer branding: A Book Will Be Judged By Its Cover

In my last post, I discussed why a company’s brand is so critical to attracting job candidates and keeping their interest. But where do start? With what your candidates see first: your website and other visual materials.

To get started, you can take a look at what your competitors are doing.

Your rivals might have already sorted their branding out. Take a look at it and see what you think. While it’s not always nice to sit around admiring our competitors and thinking “gee, I wish I’d have thought of that,” it’s always good to see how they communicate their branding to their audience.

What is their theme, their colors? What parts of their branding can you emulate without copying, and which can you take inspiration from? What fonts do they use?

It’s a smart idea to use brands who are excelling in your domain as an example before creating a sort of juxtaposition that enhances your own brand image.

Create an awesome careers page. A good careers page is one that represents your brand. Take a look at your current careers page. Is it bland? A bland careers page won’t help you attract the best candidates.

Eighty-eight percent of millennials will only work for a company whose culture is exactly what they’re looking for. Your careers page is your chance to outline your company culture. Give insights into what it’s like working for you – include a video if you think this will help, as well as testimonials from those who already work for you.

Accenture’s careers page delivers a step-by-step explanation of their entire hiring process and offers full transparency in their hiring pipeline.

Paint pictures in the minds of candidates but make sure your pictures are genuine. Don’t fall into the trap of exaggerating what it’s like to work for you, but be real, honest and transparent.

Nail your logo and colors. The logo and its colors are the first contact a person has with your brand. It joins all the different parts of your company together, and your clients, employees and customers will remember it.

If you’ve either not got a logo at the moment, or if your logo seems more like a random assortment of ideas than anything that truly represents your brand, it’s time to go back to the drawing board and start again.

A creative logo design is key, but so is capturing your brand’s values and the aesthetics you want to take forward with you. A logo should also look professional, it shouldn’t contain too many colors and any fonts need to be chosen with care, and also need to be consistent with the rest of your branding and marketing.

Whenever you’re picking a logo design, as well as your colors, bear in mind how you want future employees, current employees and your clients to feel. Remember, perception is key here.

In the movie The Wolf of Wall Street, Leonardo Di Caprio gives his brand a complete makeover as his company starts to target higher end clients. Realizing these clients won’t give a fig for his company the way it looks at present, he revamps his logo and makes it more professional. Not a lot actually changes at the company but the perception — the way people feel about it — does. It’s all about image.

In my next post, I’ll discuss the people side of the branding equations: how you interact with the candidate.

Claire Newton

Claire Newton
Claire Newton is a marketing executive at Design Wizard.

Claire Newton

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