Creating awareness of an
employer brand will vary in difficulty depending on the size, type and sector in which a business operates. A well known consumer brand such as Sainsburys, ASDA, Pepsi or Apple has a wealth of brand awareness generated through its mainstream marketing, whereas a niche business to business manufacturing company is unlikely to have the employer brand awareness outside their customers.
Creating awareness comes down to choosing the right media channel for your target candidate market and this is where a research based approach will save time and effort. Understand what your candidates are interested in, where they ‘hang out’ and what messages to use.
This may be traditional advertising and there is no reason why print shouldn’t be used, especially if the business recruits primarily within the immediate vicinity. More likely this could include online, ranging from job boards for active job seekers to specific relevant websites and the use of
Social Media and Networking to target the more passive individual.
Awareness can also be created through good use of
recruitment search engine optimisation and ensuring that your career website is targeting the relevant keywords. For active candidates, it’s essential that your vacancies are indexed by Google with the relevant keywords. As job title and location account for over half of job related searches it is extremely important that vacancy SEO is focussed in this direction. Additional content, such as blogs, news and white papers can be effectively used to target the more passive candidate with careful keyword research and selection.
Once you have a presence in the relevant locations and start creating an employer brand awareness the next step is to get their interest.
1. AWARENESS
2. INTEREST
3. DESIRE
4. ACTION
Return to A Candidate is a Person and a Consumer
David Johnston
