6 ways to improve employment branding

In order for a company to attract the right talent, it is essential to build a strong employer branding strategy. In the process of creating this strategy, one key consideration should be how to optimize your career page. Often, the career page is a candidate's first stop to familiarizing themselves with an organization and its values. Thus, it is necessary to portray the right message in order to attract talent that aligns with your business. Whether candidate exploration is active or passive, if a company brand is not portrayed correctly through its career site, it could lose out on potential top talent and/or not attract the right candidates. So how do you enhance employer branding through your career page?

1. PORTRAY THE VALUE OF YOUR COMPANY CULTURE

To help a potential candidate see the value of your company culture, offer them direct insight by creating a company hashtag and hashtag aggregator, like the one seen here. That way candidates get a visual glimpse of your company culture from the employees' themselves. Your company culture should be apparent throughout the entire employee lifecycle, the candidate experience, onboarding and, of course, your career site. Include your company’s employee value proposition (EVP) on your career page.

2. OPTIMIZE YOUR CAREER SITE

To help viewers navigate easily, provide candidates with an organized webpage layout. It is important to be innovative and optimize your career site, whether that be through the use of employee testimonials, employee pictures, and links to social networks. This will help foster the attention of the candidates that are looking for a particular company culture. Integrate social networks into your career site by creating a Twitter account geared toward potential candidates. Include a link to your talent community. Incorporate your diversity and inclusion statement, benefits, company perks and an “Apply Now” link.

3. CORE VALUES: IT’S WHAT YOU DO!

Your career site should include a company’s mission, values, DNA and corporate responsibility statement. Highlight your core values as an employer so a potential candidate can immediately ascertain whether or not their values match yours. Corporate responsibility is particularly important for candidates today. Consider posting about philanthropic activities taking place or corporate team building activities on your tagboard.

4. BUILD A TALENT COMMUNITY

In many cases, there may not be an open position. However, why lose out on strong talent when a candidate could be a great cultural and skills fit for a position that has yet to be opened? Expedite the process when a new role opens up by developing a talent community.

5. APPLYING FOR POSITIONS

Candidates should be able to apply for positions on a company’s career site and not have to go through a long hassle of figuring out where to apply. A tab at the top of the page should include a title pertaining to open positions and, by clicking on this tab, candidates can easily see the open positions and apply. If a position is not open, that is where a candidate can join the talent community.

6. MOBILE

Today there are candidates from many different generations exploring job opportunities and looking at websites via their mobile devices. It's crucial that your careers page be mobile optimized so you don't miss out on any potential candidate groups. Take some time to review your careers page on a phone or tablet and get a pulse for how easy or challening it is to browse and apply for opportunities through a mobile device.

A company's career site fosters and guides viewers to a bigger and better picture of a company. If employer branding is not done correctly, then you might not attract the talent you need. Therefore, take these steps into consideration when viewing and creating your career page.