3 Kinds of Employer Brand Content You May Have Overlooked

Being honest, when I think employer brand content, I think over polished, over cautious, over branded sameness and shudder-worthy stock images.

But in this age of transparency, where you and your company are under review on Google, what content should you be adding to get real results? What do future employees really want to see—and what will truly help you build a relationship with them and convince them that your company is a great place to work?

Without asking them, it’s hard to know, but I’d definitely add these 3.

Employer Brand Content that Raises Awareness

This is content that helps anyone get ahead in their career. It’s not about your company; rather it takes the form of useful and relevant guides that attract potential candidates by providing valuable information and generating goodwill.

Adam Gordon, CEO & Co-Founder of Candidate.ID, a unique talent pipeline technology says, “You’ve got to understand where candidates are in the recruitment process, be that in the awareness, education or consideration phase, and you need to know what their interests are so you can personalise individual nurturing and make sense of your talent pool.”

He goes on to say that almost every employer misses the top of the funnel where over 85% of potential candidates are.

Zalando, Europe’s leading online platform for fashion, is especially good at creating employer brand content that raises awareness. Recruiting in a space where designers and developers are in short supply, they write blogs like Top 5 Career Tips of 2016: UX & Beyond and Student CVs for UX careers: Tips & Tricks.

They also write posts on LinkedIn and share them on Twitter, like in this example from Product Design Manager Jay Haufmann.

.@ZalandoTech #UX expert @jaykaufmann gives advice on how to pimp the UX of your #CV (not only for UX designers): https://t.co/PzDG0Cnamr pic.twitter.com/HvPD2yVqlv
— Zalando_Press (@Zalando_Press) January 23, 2017

Employer Brand Content that Showcases Career Path

Steve Usher, Founder & Director at Koppla Comms, sensibly suggests that you start by asking candidates what kind of content they actually want to see when considering a prospective employer. Makes sense, right?

He goes on to say, “If there’s one type of content that stands out, it’s career path [content]. Help people visualize where they are now, how they’ll contribute when joining, and the real progression on offer. Create employee timelines, sharing real life examples of people’s journey into your business, showcasing their backgrounds prior to joining and how they’ve progressed. This is particularly useful when targeting people from a parallel industry, where you’ve previously secured great people”.

Employer Brand Content that Uses Video to do “Outreach”

Did you know that there are 156 million emails sent every single minute? And even being different and using Whatsapp, you’re up against the 29.2 million messages sent every minute. We live in a world of distraction so you need to be creative.

One way to do that is through SparcStart, where you create 20-second employee spotlight videos that are peer-to-peer and easy to digest. According to the company, they’re viewed twice as long as traditional text-based job specs, shared 4 times more across social media, and – more importantly – opened 8 times more often! What a great way to standout from all that noise and up your sourcing ROI.

This example from SSM Health is great because Mimi Steal shares her longevity within the hospital and why she stays, which is my favorite question to ask employees.

It speaks directly to a future employee and is authentic, unpolished communication. There are more to check out here too.

SkillScout put a great spin on video job descriptions too by helping you take your video and make it experiential, tangible, and human-centered. This one is particularly great because you’re hearing about what the role entails day-to-day—not just hearing “we need… insert boring list of requirements…”

If you want to remove the boring from your job videos, you’ll definitely want to download their free video recipe.

Mark Lundgren, Recruiter at Anaplan, has been using BombBomb to send simple video emails, and it’s improving his response rates, especially for people who have highly sought-after skills and are being bombarded by recruiter emails. They see your face, hear your voice, and will be more likely to watch to the end.

Want more info on how you can stand out from the noise? Read our article on inspiring and leveraging employee-centered content.