The ten biggest mistakes in employer branding
Not knowing the company's unique selling points, ignoring the needs of existing and future employees, or not making one's own image a top priority - these are just some of the mistakes companies can make when it comes to employer branding.
In order to win over applicants, it is no longer enough to present the economic success of a company. Future employees are interested in what is offered to them apart from sales figures. This also includes a positive reputation as an employer, as employees find out about a company on various platforms.
Satisfied employees as a goal
Companies should also not neglect networking, because contacting potential applicants at an early stage facilitates future recruiting. Keeping an eye on employer rankings on job portals is also a must, as this allows companies to see whether their external image is changing.
Last but not least, employee satisfaction is one of the key objectives in developing a strong employer brand. Because if they like their job, they can act as ambassadors for the company and communicate their liking for their workplace to the outside world. The channels for this vary: among friends and family, on social media, or in business networks.
How to drive employer branding safely against the wall
The dpa subsidiary news aktuell and Faktenkontor show what companies should avoid when developing an employer brand:
- The intern does employer branding. Bosses have more important things to do.
- What do we offer potential employees? Uh... We don't know ourselves. No one has ever thought about that before.
- As an employer, we are interchangeable. So what?! An employer brand with a strong profile is completely overrated.
- Promising much, keeping little. Once the new employees are here, we no longer have to keep our promises.
- We don't care about bad reputations. Anyone who doesn't come to us because of our bad reputation doesn't fit in anyway.
- Top positions in employer rankings are only for nerds. We don't need any additional arguments for applicants that we're great.
- Employee satisfaction is a nice luxury. Worrying about satisfied employees only distracts from our performance standards.
- Networking is only for HR professionals who don't have a hairdresser to talk to. Establishing contacts with applicants at an early stage? Much too time-consuming!
- The best way is printed job ads. Digital channels are newfangled nonsense!
- Once the employer branding budget is spent, it's gone. We don't even measure the strength of the employer brand. That only leads to unnecessarily high expectations on the part of the bosses.
