Сommon Employer Branding Mistakes You Must Avoid

Even when you’re doing everything right, employer branding involves a considerable amount of trial and error. This blog post will focus on the main employer branding mistakes!

Employer branding in the recruitment industry today

Today, many companies face the challenge of finding talents. And so far, the best solution for this is employer brand management. This is necessary in order to attract and hire talented and promising specialists. It’s extremely important for companies to present themselves convincingly as a great place to work.

We have gathered some statistics to prove the importance of a proper employer branding:

• 86% of employees and job seekers research company reviews and ratings to decide on where to apply for a job (Glassdoor)
• 50% of job seekers don’t consider working for a company with a bad reputation – even for a pay increase. (Glassdoor)
• Investing in the employer brand can decrease employee turnover by 28%. (Office Vibe)
• A negative reputation costs companies at least 10% more per hire. (Harvard Business Review)

The goal of employer branding is very clear: in the competition for specialists and talent, the company wants to attract the best employees and retain them in the long term. The labor market is thus becoming a marketing field in which companies advertise for the best employees. If a company has greater appeal (employer attractiveness), it will be more successful in recruiting.

Authenticity always plays a very important role in employer branding. Empty brand promises are the common mistakes in employer branding. But avoid them at all costs to build an honest image internally and externally.

Consider: New employees (applicants) and existing ones will quickly recognize empty phrases and then lose confidence in your company brand. Employer branding must therefore be tangible for employees. The aim is therefore to build an employee-effective employer brand that does exactly what it promises. Let's talk about the common employer branding mistakes you can avoid to achieve better results!

Top 5 common employer branding mistakes

If you are aware of the most common mistakes in employer branding and other pitfalls, you will be able to avoid them. Here are common mistakes that most companies make when building an employer brand:

1. No long-term plan

Employer branding isn’t a one-time marketing campaign. For the business, this is a long-term commitment. Refreshing a job page with vacancies and posting corporate videos are crucial but quite easy tasks. But a real employer brand is evolving permanently. Employers must demonstrate the importance of their staff and the genuineness of corporate values throughout the company.

Communicate more closely with newcomers and do induction carefully. Start not from the first day of employment, but from the moment the job offer is accepted. Include existing staff in the process - develop mentorship and buddy movement, and implement only those digital tools that are really useful for a beginner.

Also, don’t forget about communication with quitting employees. Work proactively, preventing the spread of negativity from those who decide to leave. This will minimize the likelihood of negative reviews about the company throughout the Internet.

2. Exaggerated promises in employer branding strategy

Sometimes employers use reticence in communicating with job seekers. For example, when offering a decent salary to an applicant, they are silent about delays. And when describing brilliant career prospects, they omit the overworking fact.

Such a strategy is losing because it gives a short-term effect and only increases the resource burden on recruiting - realizing that expectations are far from the truth, the employee will leave the company during the first year, and all investments invested in attracting, adapting, and training will be unjustified. Also, such candidates will disseminate unfavorable information about your company. Avoid such employer branding mistakes.

How to improve an employer brand? Communicate transparently and honestly with the candidate. Talk openly about shortcomings, emphasizing that the company is underway to eliminate them. Prove it with examples.

3. Lack of internal employer branding

It is common for HR departments to promote employer branding for the external environment that it completely forgets about the internal one. Such content is no longer relevant, as it raises a lot of doubts among the audience. The voice of an employee often sounds louder than the voice of top management. And it provides more confidence when measuring employer brand. 

We advise you to look for employees with a high NPS (Net Promoter Score) who can become “company ambassadors”. Such employees will demonstrate by their own example that, if desired, one can develop professionally and grow here, and that the corporate atmosphere contributes to this.

4. Ineffective employer branding content

Sometimes HRs produce a record number of employer branding content posts, but the efficiency of these efforts remains negligible. Such employer branding mistakes are inevitable.

Before building an employer brand strategy, you need to study your target audience, and their key needs, and based on this, develop a roadmap of actions and customize content plans. What is good for young people is unlikely to work just as well for older employees. And ideas that will attract technical people are likely to be vain for administrative staff.

5. Little focus on technologies

Many companies turn a blind eye to their weaknesses and can’t overcome them. Building a strong employer brand requires an accurate vision of the current situation. Try to realistically assess your shortcomings and areas of growth.

Also, use all kinds of technological platforms so that you can transform your strategy and continue to develop the employer brand. Don’t hesitate to delegate to the technological tools the most time-consuming processes and focus on strategic goals.

For example, Axterior is a talent recruitment platform that facilitates and optimizes the work of the recruitment departments. This recruitment software can change the situation in the management of routine HR processes, providing convenient software for recruiters and decreasing overload at work.

6. Uncertain Company-Identity

Innovative industry, perfect customer service, or highly demanded product/service are not enough for your company to be a true lovemark and gain customers’ loyalty. It’s company identity that forces clients to return to you at once.

There are some common mistakes in employer branding, such as spending money on evident but ineffective attributes. Your company’s identity isn’t a logo, company name, and brand book. This term is much broader and includes company’s purpose, vision, mission, and values. All these points must be integral to the employer branding and demonstrated in the company’s work, employee attitude, recruitment approach, etc. They must be unambiguous.

7. Not Staying Up-to-Date

We have already mentioned focus on technology, but this point concerns the other aspect of employer branding. It would help if you always communicated to the target audience via the clearest, most popular, and trendy channels, such as social media. LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram accounts are already a must-have for both corporations and SMEs. According to statistics, only 7 out of 10 businesses use Instagram to boost their online visibility and communicate with the audience.

To be known and heard, you must accept the trends and follow them!

Conclusion

In today's job market, employees choose their job very consciously and inform themselves specifically about an employer brand. On the other hand, companies without a strong employer brand lose out. The solution is a well-structured employer branding process.

Building a great employer brand is the key to attracting talent and creating a wider pool of candidates with the right skills.

Mistakes are inevitable. However, they should not interfere with continuing the company's brand management. Companies should look at the development of the employer brand in a strategic way. Keep all of the above common mistakes in mind to avoid them in your employer branding!