Building a Talent Magnet: How Social Media Enhances Your Employer Brand

According to LinkedIn, a great employer brand leads to:

28% lower employee turnover
50% lower cost-per-hire
50% more qualified applicants
1-2x faster time to hire

In a recent LinkedIn Live, Steven Brand, Head of Employer Brand at EY UK & Ireland, spoke to Tribal chief Sarah Goodall about how social media enhances employer branding.

He said that businesses should: “Give storytelling skills to your employees, then step back to give them a voice.”

EY doesn’t want to be the headline – they want to give their people the freedom to share their true passions.

To learn more from Steven’s advice, check out our summary below, watch the replay, or listen to the podcast.

What Is Employer Branding?

Steven explained that employer branding is about influencing the reputation of an organisation as a place to work.

It’s about keeping the company’s promises to new joiners, keeping people connected with the organisation, and maintaining connections with them if they move on.

How Are Employer Branding And Talent Acquisition Connected?

Steven has found that much of EY’s potential audience haven’t come across them before and don’t know what professional services are. So, they need to educate those prospects on what it is, and what it’s like to work there.

It’s not about gathering more applications, but giving people the information to make smarter decisions about whether to apply or not.

The people who go on to apply have already bought into the company’s values and feel like they belong there, even if they haven’t joined yet. So, they’re more likely to be successful because they understand the business. And the business should have fewer candidates to filter through.

Sarah described it as building a pipeline of relationships, rather than having a talent pool.

How To Attract Younger Talent

Brands now need to be visible on multiple platforms because candidates are. This helps grow a following and enhance relationships – some people engage with EY on several platforms.

Sharing content on multiple platforms isn’t about hiring more people. Instead, it’s about efficiency. It’s more about finding the right platform and content type to attract quality candidates.

How To Choose The Right Employees To Create Content

EY has a video series called That’s why, EY. They worked with people from across their business, starting with 10 people from diverse backgrounds and with different experiences.

From an established equity Partner talking about integrating tech for clients, to a senior consultant early into their career and finding their feet, each individual shares their own story on how they’re making an impact in different ways.

Example of That’s why, EY. See more examples here.

The focus for That’s why EY was to open up the possibility that although they may not hear their own life experiences, there’s enough breadth and variety to show them they could fit in there. Steven explains, “We can still be seen as a very exclusive place to work and part of our job is to ensure we show how inclusive EY strives to be.”

The Benefits Of Employee-generated Content

Every time an employee’s content takes off, it tells their audience that they work at EY. Even if they don’t mention the brand directly, the viral post works wonders for it.

EY wants to create relationships with people where they have the freedom to talk about what they’re genuinely passionate about.

Steven said that not insisting that EY is the headline/story helps build trust and belief. People are smart and proactive in their research. They’ll find EY and will understand what an employee posting online indicates from a cultural point of view.

Where Do CEOs And Leadership Teams Sit When It Comes To Employer Branding?

Steven has found that some CEOs buy into employer branding and embrace their role in it. Others need to go on a journey.

Either way, leaders can role-model sharing their journeys, stories, advice, and experience. But they shouldn’t be the only voices.

When employees see the leadership team posting, it enables and empowers them. It’s hard to have a theoretical policy and get momentum going if leaders don’t set an example.

CEOs are the ultimate beneficiaries of employer branding because it has a broad business impact. It improves business stability, saves time, wins business, drives profit, and much more.

What Metrics Do You Need To Track?

Steven explained that the transparency of social media means that they can see which posts perform well. They get a good idea of what types of content take off, spark debates, etc.

Next, they want to look at the content new hires engage with before they join.

They also want to track things like growth rate, tenure length, and number of qualified job applicants as markers of real impact on the business, not the recruitment funnel.

It’s about more than data points and graphs going up, though. It’s about giving the business back money and time. When you talk about that, rather than more tactical stuff, that’s when you get people really interested in employer branding.

Steven gave the example that if it costs £5 to screen an applicant, and EY receives 10,000 fewer applications per year, they save £50,000. Applicants don’t feel disappointed because they haven’t been screened out, and hiring managers get more time. Everyone wins.

Activate Your Leaders On Social Media

Employer branding provides huge benefits to a business, impacting everything from profit margins to candidate experience. Leaders benefit from it the most because of the time and cost savings it provides, but they can be reluctant to make it a priority.

If you need help convincing your leaders to get active on social, and to grow your employer brand, get in touch today to find out more about our executive branding solution.