Corporate branding - How to attract (more) qualified applicants

Corporate branding 

With corporate branding, you can attract more qualified applicants, increase well being among your employees and save money on the recruitment process.

The sole goal of a company is no longer to just secure the most profit in the shortest time. It has also become important for companies to seek greater responsibility and thereby create an identity. This is because the company's image is what attracts new employees and customers to a greater extent.

In this article, we will clarify what is needed to create a solid corporate brand and look at how this can strengthen your employer branding strategy.

Branding strategy 

It is clear that the companies that succeeded in recruiting the most talented employees are those that have created a unique brand that the right employees can identify with.

Corporate branding is about marketing your company to be a product in itself. You can do this by selling a lifestyle, feeling and atmosphere. With the help of your brand strategy, your brand must be communicated in a strategic and coherent way that is in line with your brand's image.

But to remain one of the winners in the market, it is important that your company is persistent with corporate branding to reap the rewards in the long term. It's no use getting off to a good start if you don't do it continuously.

Now that you have gained insight into what corporate branding is, you can read on about how to incorporate corporate branding into your business.

Employer branding strategy 

It has never been more important for companies to decide what their values are and what they stand for. After the financial crisis, consumers and employees opened their eyes to how companies make their money.

Precisely, this sharpened attention to the moral compass of companies and how they influence the world. You must show your employees what values your company stands for, so that you can attract the right employees to your company.

When creating a strategy, there must be synergy between these three factors:

• What can the workplace offer?
• What is it that the target group wants?
• How does your company stand out from the competition?

In this way, a connection is created between what the company stands for and what it attracts. All this contributes to you having a clearly defined employer branding strategy.

If you don't know where to start, you can get inspiration for how to create a good strategy based on the following template below.

Who are we?

This question is extremely relevant to ask to find out what your company stands for.

It is important that you remain authentic and credible in your presentation of the company, so that the entire organisation can see the coherence of the communication.

One way to approach this question could be to ask employees of the company what they think the company stands for. What kind of workplace are you and why is it advantageous to work for you?

Once this is in place, you can continue to the next step:

Who are we not?

Just as important as finding out who you are is finding out who you are not.

The reason this is a central part of the strategy is that you need to find out where you differ from your competitors. Use this step to become even sharper about who you are by seeing where you differentiate yourselves.

Once you have found this out, you can move on to see who you would like to attract with your branding. Read more about this below.

Who do we communicate to?

Finding your target group is extremely important for the company's corporate branding. Who would you like to attract with your company's image? For example, via an employer branding video. This means something in relation to the channels on which you choose to communicate.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to learn more about your target group, for example generation Z:

• What drives your employees?
• Where are the employees you want to recruit in their careers?
• What channels do you use?
• How is the company perceived by your current employees?

Use these questions the next time you have to produce a job posting or make an employer branding video so you ensure that you reach the right people and thereby use your resources in the best possible way.

Now that you have a handle on your target group, you can move on to setting goals and evaluating your branding while it is in process. Get the right tools to use in this process in the next section.

Where do we want to go?

What is the goal of your corporate branding? Once you have made it clear what kind of goals you want to achieve, you can advantageously evaluate these goals during the year. In this way, you avoid the branding coming to a standstill, as the ongoing evaluation will constantly be under development.

You can ask yourself these questions regarding goal setting:

• What goals do we have for our corporate branding?
• What is the success criteria for these goals?
• How and when do we evaluate these goals?

With these questions you are well on your way to being able to set goals and complete them. It is absolutely essential to evaluate so that you can learn from your mistakes and do more of what works.

See also how to make one: