What is an Employer Brand?

Your Employer Brand is how you are perceived as an employer by potential candidates, existing employees and former employees. A strong Employer Brand results on average in more relevant applications, faster recruitment, reduced recruitment costs and lower staff turnover. A weak Employer Brand, on the other hand, can make it difficult to fill vacancies - which often contributes to increased workloads for existing staff, turning down assignments or failing to expand.

What is Employer Branding?

But what does Employer Branding really mean? And why is it so important? Employer branding means that you actively work to be perceived as an attractive employer by potential candidates, existing employees and former employees.

The difference between an Employer Brand and Employer Branding is that an Employer Brand is how you are perceived as an employer, while Employer Branding is how you work to influence the perception of you as an employer. By working smart and strategically with Employer Branding, you can reinforce, improve or change the perception of you as an employer.

"I like to think of it as an Employer Branding machine, where Employer Branding is the actual machine, your EVP is the material you feed into the machine and your Employer Brand is the end product. The better the EVP you feed into the Employer Branding machine, the stronger your Employer Brand will be." - Amy Dyvelcrona, Employer Branding and Job Advertising Specialist at We Select.

Examples of Employer Branding activities:

• Creating targeted social media ads about working at your company
• Creating an attractive and engaging career site
• Attending recruitment events and career fairs
• Conducting team or company activities
• Conducting employee surveys or in-depth interviews
• Offering a competitive salary, occupational pension or commission.
• Providing leadership training
• Developing a clear career development model
• Building networks with schools and organizations
• Working with outdoor advertising
• Working with radio or podcast advertising
• Offering unique benefits
• Offering the possibility to work on site, hybrid-remote or remote.
• Offering the possibility to control how much you work (e.g. offering a 4-day working week or shorter working days).
• Offering the possibility to control when you work
• Developing a wellness program
• Rewarding performance and commitment

A strong Employer Brand leads on average to:

→ More applications per open position

→ More top candidates per open position

→ Faster recruitment processes

→ Lower employee turnover

→ Lower cost per hire

→ Higher employment rate

→ Long-term matches

A weak Employer Brand yields on average:

→ Fewer applications per open position

→ Fewer top candidates per open position

→ Difficult to fill open positions

→ High employee turnover

→ Higher recruitment costs

→ High workload

→ Short-term matches

What is the difference between internal and external Employer Branding?

When working with Employer Branding, it is also common to distinguish between internal and external Employer Branding. Internal Employer Branding means actively working to be perceived as an attractive employer among existing staff. External Employer Branding, on the other hand, means working to be perceived as an attractive employer by potential candidates, consumers or suppliers.

"Building a strong Employer Brand requires a good balance between internal and external employer branding. For example, if you only work with external Employer Branding, there is a risk that your existing staff feels overlooked or that the image you protray of yourself doesn't match what it's actually like to work for you. On the other hand, if you only work with internal Employer Branding, you risk limiting your ability to reach out to potential top candidates and making it difficult to fill open positions." - Amy Dyvelcrona, Employer Branding and Job advertising Specialist at We Select.

Why is Employer Branding important?

The increased competition for top talent, combined with the growing skills shortage, has made it more difficult than ever to attract, hire and retain the right employees. The problem is so widespread that 7 out of 10 Swedish companies experience difficulties in recruiting and the skills shortage is identified as the biggest obstacle to company growth. To succeed with your recruitment process and continue to grow, it is therefore crucial that you are perceived as an attractive employer - both among existing employees and potential candidates. Surveys show that 9 out of 10 candidates believe that a company's reputation influences their decision when applying for a job.

• 3 out of 10 candidates are actively looking for a new job(LinkedIn)
• 7 out of 10 candidates are not actively looking for a new job(LinkedIn)
• 7 out of 10 companies experience difficulties with hiring(Confederation of Swedish Enterprise).
• +50% more applications to companies that actively work with Employer Branding(LinkedIn)
• -50% lower cost-per-hire(LinkedIn)
• 1-2X faster hires(LinkedIn)

How do you know that your company is in need of Employer Branding?

How do you know you need employer branding? There are three clear signs that you will need to work with Employer Branding:

1. You plan to grow

For example, you may know that you have ambitious growth plans in the coming years and will need to hire salespeople.

2. You are planning a transition

For example, you may have identified that you will need to make a transition as a company and focus more on digitalization. In this case, you may need to attract a new candidate target group.

3. You have identified challenges

For example, it may be that it receives few relevant applications for its vacancies, it fails in its recruitment attempts, recruitment processes take a long time and it may have to use recruitment agencies to succeed. These can also be challenges related to staff retention, such as problems with high staff turnover.

And this is exactly where we recommend starting your Employer Branding efforts - by clearly identifying how Employer Branding can help companies achieve their goals.

How to get started with Employer Branding?

Getting started with Employer Branding can sometimes feel like a big and time-consuming process, but by continuously working data-driven and insight-based according to a clear strategy, you will be able to get started in no time:

1. Current situation analysis, goal setting & research
2. Development of your EVP
3. Evaluation & feedback
4. Launch, activation & advertising
5. Reporting & insights
6. Repeat

How do you measure your Employer Branding efforts?

In order to measure the impact of your employer branding work, it is important that you clearly define the purpose of your employer branding work. Is the main purpose of your employer branding work linked to your growth, a future transition or specific challenges? When you then have a clear picture of the purpose of your work, you will be able to more easily choose which key figures are relevant to follow during the work. Once you have identified which KPIs you will be able to monitor during the process, the next step is to conduct a current situation analysis of the KPIs you have chosen. By analyzing your current situation, you will be able to clearly demonstrate the effect of your work over time.

Common examples of Employer Branding metrics:

• Average cost per hire per department / Month
• Average number of career page visitors / Month
• Average number of applications per department / Month
• Average number of relevant applications per department / Month
• Average Time-to-fill / Month
• Number of job subscribers / Month
• Average % Staffing rate per department / Quarter
• % Staff turnover / Quarter
• % Quality of Hire / Quarter

Key figures also available via We Select:

• Your average cost per recruitment per department/month vs. industry average
• Your average number of career site visitors / month vs. industry average
• Your average number of applications per department/month vs. industry average
• Your average number of relevant applications per department/month vs. industry average
• Your average Time-to-fill / Month vs. Industry average
• Your number of job subscribers / month vs. industry average
• Your average % Staffing rate per department / Quarter vs. industry average
• Your % Employee turnover / Quarter vs. industry average
• % Quality of Hire / Quarter vs. industry average