The role of an attractive employer brand - Why does anyone wanna work for us?

A strong employer brand is important to attract new talent. With a simple exercise, you’ll learn the reasons for being a good employer within your organisation.

I like to spar with people about the role of employer branding in attracting talent. In my conversations with various employers, I notice that there’s an increasing need among companies to build an employer brand. Detailed personnel planning with an appropriate communication strategy is still a step too far. But many organisations are already doing ‘something’ with employer branding so that they won’t miss the boat when the hunt for talent really starts again.

Find out about the employer brand

Every organisation already has an employer brand. It’s the sum of the experiences and expressions that have been disseminated by the company and employees in recent years. After all, an employer brand similar to a corporate brand, except that it’s focused on the employer brand as experienced by current, new, future, and former employees. By doing the following exercise within your organisation, you’ll gain insight into the strength of your organisation as an employer.

Ask colleagues the following question over lunch: “What are the main reasons you want to work at this company?”

• Collect the 10 to 15 most frequently mentioned reasons;


• Look at your communications, and check whether your colleagues’ comments are valuable in your communication to attract the right employees; and


• Adjust the communication of your employer brand.

This simple and fun exercise often leads to surprising findings. You’ll often see that there’s a significant gap between what you recommend and what the job drivers are in reality.

The right job market communication on your ‘work at’ site

The starting point of your employer brand is the ‘work at’ website. A common mistake is not promoting attractive employment practices. In many cases, the site lacks the why, the real culture, and the interesting, fascinating, and surprising examples of working at the organisation. The emphasis is still too often on the technical specifications such as primary and secondary employment conditions, and the special skills you should have. Of course this information must be correct, but it’s not a priority when trying to brand yourself as an attractive employer. Use the honest and up-to-date image that employees have of the organization and take a critical look at the ‘careers’ website. Check to what extent you genuinely and authentically tempt new talent to come and work for you. And finally, take a look at the competitors to determine what makes you distinctive.