Strengthening your employer brand with video

Employer brand: what is that anyway?

Your employer brand is your reputation as an employer among a specific target group of (potential) employees. It comprises a collection of characteristics and values that you as an employer consider important and have to offer your employees. You bring your employer brand to the attention of the public by means of employer branding activities. In this way you can influence how your image and reputation are formed with your (potential) employees. And you can attract the right candidates that fit your organisation.

Employer branding is more than ping-pong competitions in the breaks and fun team outings. It encompasses the company culture, the core values, the way of communicating, the purpose and impact of the organisation and the way of dealing with the various stakeholders.

Why strengthen your employer brand?

If you want to be the employer of choice for your target group, a single branding campaign around the application process doesn’t do the trick. As with all other branding activities, you will have to keep working on it continuously. It is definitely a long-term effort. But if you keep at it, you will really reap the benefits. Because organisations that invest in employer branding:

• fill their vacancies faster,
• recruit better candidates, and
• keep their staff in-house for longer.

Formulate an employer branding strategy

Having a clearly defined employer brand helps you find, attract and retain the right candidates. But how do you approach this strategically? You can read about it in the following step-by-step plan.

Step 1: Determine your employer branding goals

Think about what you want to achieve with your employer branding. Some common objectives are:

• Attract more applicants
• Attract higher quality candidates
• Increase online engagement
• Increase brand awareness
• Attract more applicants through social media
• Increase the acceptance rate

Step 2: Define the candidate persona

Defining the candidate persona is a crucial step. If you do not know who the perfect candidate is, you cannot set up targeted campaigns and present them to the desired candidates.

Step 3: Determine the Employee Value Proposition

Why did your current employees choose your organisation? Why do they stay? What do they like most about you as an employer? Find answers to these questions and you can define your Employee Value Proposition (EVP). With your EVP you can formulate the message you want to send to your desired candidates. The EVP consists of the following 5 components:

• Financial: salary, compensation, promotions, evaluation and bonus system
• Benefits: holidays, insurance, pension scheme, flexibility
• Career opportunities: development opportunities, training, evaluation and feedback
• Work environment: recognition, work-life balance, challenge, personal development
• Culture: team spirit, guidance and management, support, norms and values

Step 4: Determine the channels through which you will promote your employer brand

Each candidate walks the so-called ‘candidate journey’. On this journey there are about 10 touch points between the organisation and the candidate. Define on which channels these touch points lie and how you can promote your employer brand on these channels. These channels could be, for instance:

• Job and career sites
• Social media channels
• Trade fairs, workshops and lectures
• Vacancy advertisements
• Inbound recruiting
• (Online) application procedure
• Direct contact with the candidate
• Current employees (word of mouth)

Step 5: Developing employer branding content and measuring results

Based on the formulated goals, personas, EVP, and channels, you can start developing and rolling out your employer branding content. It is crucial to continuously monitor the activities, measure the results and fine-tune the campaigns. Nowadays there are all kinds of tools available to measure the results. This allows you to work strategically and data-driven.

Using video for employer branding

Video is an extremely suitable medium for employer branding. Video is already used by many companies as a recruitment tool, but it can also be used for many other purposes. And because working on your branding is an ongoing process, we would like to highlight some examples of good employer branding videos.

Corporate video

With a good corporate film, you can show in an attractive way what your organisation stands for and why you actually do what you do. Although this type of video is of course primarily aimed at (potential) customers, it is also an excellent opportunity to paint a picture of your company’s core values, culture, purpose and impact for future employees.

Recruitment video

In a recruitment video you give potential candidates a good idea of the vacancy they are applying for, the organisational structure and their future colleagues. If you make the video interactive or personalised, you hold the attention even better, create more involvement with the viewer and the information will be better remembered.

Onboarding video

The onboarding period is a crucial period for a new colleague. During this period, providing good information and training ensures a quick connection with the team and the work. An onboarding video gives your new employee a good idea of the working atmosphere within the company, the facilities, the various departments and teams.

Safety video and instructional video

Are there certain safety requirements on the shop floor, or will the new employee be performing complicated procedures that he or she has to learn? Then the use of a safety video or instructional video is ideal. By adding interactive elements to the video, the information is stored even better. It also allows the viewer to decide whether to skip certain parts or repeat them. And if you add an interactive quiz element to the video, the knowledge gained can be tested immediately!