HR professionals often offer tips to job seekers on how to excel during job interviews. Checking your smile – a piece of spinach quickly forgotten –, conducting thorough research, and, above all, presenting yourself at your best are all key. But what about tips for HR professionals and employers to excel during the recruitment process? Yes, you too could benefit from strategies to enhance applicants’ candidate experience.

It all begins with your employer brand, the cornerstone of your recruitment process. Don’t worry, we understand that Rome wasn’t built in a day. However, we do know how you can equip yourself for the War For Talent, and in this blog, we’ll reveal those strategies to you.

Employer branding: the applicant is king 

What do you offer potential employees to prevent them from defecting to a competitor? A robust employer brand is essential, but effectively conveying your narrative is quite the challenge. Employer branding is a clever fusion of HR and marketing.

Your employer brand is your most potent asset in the job market – it attracts applicants while ensuring current employees remain loyal. A compelling and genuine narrative is crucial. When potential candidates navigate through a humane recruitment process, the path to a successful hire becomes clear.

3 Phases of Employer Branding in Your Recruitment Process

As an employer, you’re essentially selling a job to job seekers, whether they’re actively or passively looking. It’s a metaphorical journey through the recruitment process that you embark on together with the applicant. Each time, the candidate traverses approximately six steps, divided into three crucial employer brand phases.

Phase 1: Showcasing Your Image Throughout the Recruitment Process

The initial stage revolves around raising awareness of your employer brand. Offer potential candidates insights into your story, showcase your assets, and illustrate how things operate on the ground. This is where you want candidates who are considering your competitors to divert their attention to your company.

Showcase Your Internal Employer Brand

Here, your primary focus is on passive job seekers. They may not actively be seeking a new job but could be open to new challenges. Therefore, as a company, it’s important to communicate your vision and goals through various channels, even when you don’t have any job openings. During the awareness phase, you need to begin enticing people subconsciously.

At Jobtoolz, we understand the essence of (job) happiness all too well. From fierce ping-pong tournaments to unlimited chips and pints on Fridays, and enticing team incentives — these are all small yet valuable elements bound to attract applicants.

The ambassadors of your employer brand

As we progress further in our journey, the moment to impress the candidate has arrived. For them, you are now a potential employer, and rest assured, there will be thorough research conducted, including on your competitors. This is where impressing them by leveraging your employees becomes crucial. Authentic and honest employee stories always resonate well and leave a lasting impression.

Phase 2: The ultimate seduction during your recruitment process

Now it’s time to showcase your flirting skills because you need to ensure that the big fish in the pond takes the bait. And make sure it takes the bait in an application process that’s both simple and efficient.

Incorporate your employer brand into your job postings.

Capture the attention of applicants in the War For Talent using the ultimate weapon: a bold and original job posting on your career site. Ensure your job posting doesn’t get lost in the sea of vacancies and dare to stand out. Speak the language of your ideal candidate.

Simplicity adorns your application process.

Ultimately, your candidate reaches the final stage: the application phase. This is where they decide whether to submit their CV and cover letter. Ensure the application process is as straightforward as possible and save any hurdles for another aspect of your employer branding—subtly hinting at team building. Poor user experience indicates that applicants would rather lose you as an employer than navigate through obstacles.

Phase 3: (Re)securing your employer brand after recruitment

The tension is palpable. In this final phase, assessments commence, and the ideal candidate—hopefully—signs the contract. Communicate openly and honestly about the subsequent steps in your recruitment process.

Don’t leave your candidates in the dark. It’s simply a matter of basic courtesy to send an email upon receiving their application, isn’t it? Radio silence communicates more about your company than you realize: poor organization, fictitious vacancies… Talent won’t wait indefinitely!

Contract signed, mission accomplished! Or so you think. Even in the very last phase of your recruitment process, employer branding remains essential. Share the good news internally, inform your clients through a newsletter or a social media announcement. The possibilities and ideas are abundant!