3 reasons why company branding is more important than ever when trying to hire new staff

If it’s the latter, it could be that your brand and company reputation is letting you down. Here are 3 reasons why a strong company brand is so important when hiring great talent.

It’s not just about ‘getting a job’ these days. Candidates are more motivated than ever before to work for organisations they trust and which align with their own values. If your company is perceived poorly in the market, known for having a toxic culture or being inflexible with workers, job-seekers are likely to steer clear. Chances are, you’ll know if any of the above are true, simply because you have poor staff retention or a miserable, disengaged workforce. Facing the problems head on and taking steps to fix them won’t just result in a better company culture –it’ll make it easier to recruit, too. Some positive first steps might involve doing employee surveys and reaching out to past employees to ask for their honest perspective on the company. Take all feedback (good and bad) on board, and create focus groups to help you map out necessary changes. Document your results –everyone loves a comeback story and it’ll help boost your rep in the market.

A strong, well-known company brand doesn’t have to shell out heaps trying to attract the right people. Candidates will naturally be attracted to the company and want to work for you, so you’ll get more applicants to the ads you do put out into the market. A company with strong branding has other positive knock-on effects – less money spent on marketing, because you have great word of mouth. If your company is a great place to work, looks after its customers and has rock-solid values, your employees will talk positively about that, effectively becoming your brand ambassadors. And boosting your brand awareness can naturally boost your sales, which is a win-win.

You may have heard that it’s a job-seeker’s market –and that’s true right now to a large extent. We’re watching a mass exodus of millions quitting their jobs in the US, and there are fears that The Great Resignation, as it’s become known, is happening in Australia, too. We’re not seeing quite the same levels of resignations here, but it is true that there are labour shortages in a lots of industries, including hospitality, nursing, teaching and construction. It’s probably fair to say that COVID has left a lot of job-seekers more empowered and assessing what’s important to them, rather than jumping into the wrong role. While salary is always a key factor candidates look at, they’re also more likely to be enticed by career progression opportunities, flexibility, work-life balance and culture fit. Bottom line: if you’re not tapping into ways to entice candidates and make it about them, your job ads are going to fall flat.

Being aware of your company brand and reputation in the market and making sure it’s as strong as it can be – especially in the face of your competitors – is more important than ever right now. Taking steps to tweak your branding (and your company culture if necessary) can only have benefits for your workforce, productivity, sales and hiring efforts overall. We hope this post has helped give you some ideas if you’re finding hiring tough right now, and don’t forget you can always come to us for advice or help in finding the right candidates.

Did you enjoy this post? Check out our blog for more posts on recruiting and running your company more effectively.