To attract top candidates, improve retention and foster a positive company culture, you have to invest in your employer brand.
The Review-led Talent Acquisitions & Employer Branding Series is designed to guide human resources professionals in thinking about how to capitalize on the power of the employee voice by capturing and distributing their thoughts effectively in forward-thinking recruitment marketing tactics.
In part 5, we will discuss strategies for a successful launch of your talent acquisition brand in a new city or location. If you missed part 4, check out Tips for Responding to Reviews on Glassdoor and Indeed.
As a talent acquisition specialist, you’re constantly brainstorming ways to make your business stand out from the rest and attract the best candidates. Is it your company culture that makes your business appealing to top talent or is it the flexible work schedule? Maybe it’s the competitive pay?
However your brand is represented, the ever-evolving challenge is getting it in front of the right market – especially if you’re opening a new location or trying to target the larger talent pool presented by remote work possibilities these days.
No matter how successfully you promoted your employer brand in the past, targeting a new location will present new challenges for your business and how you hire. To ease the transition and help make you feel at home, we’ve collected a series of strategies you can employ to get the most out of your new market and successfully reestablish your employer brand.
Your employee’s happiness is in part determined by workplace culture, but it’s also heavily influenced by their time spent outside of work.
As you work to grow your team and promote your business in a new city, you need to capitalize on the great things your location has to offer.
Does your city have affordable living costs? Does its proximity to colleges or universities offer opportunities for learning and development? Maybe your city is known for its expansive parks and trails or its up-and-coming music scene. Whatever makes your city special, use it to build trust in your employer brand and promote your business values.
While it feels natural to highlight the perks of your location to your onsite employees, it matters to your remote workers too. Portraying your office and the city it operates out of as a “destination” is a great way to encourage your employees to visit and connect with each other, even if they primarily work somewhere else.
2. Identify yourself as part of the community
A sense of belonging is a crucial component of any employer brand, and when you’re new to a city, you’re inherently at a disadvantage. If you put in the work to get involved in the local community, you’ll significantly increase your brand recognition and business reputation.
While there are endless ways for recruiters to get involved, it all comes down to trust marketing and engagement. To make an impact and establish your company as a resource the community can trust, you need to do more than simply advertise what open positions your company has. You need to offer something of value to professionals in your area.
Speaking at public events, holding seminars, and teaching workshops are all great ways to establish your company as a resource for the community. These tactics are even more effective when you directly involve your current employees. Trust is earned. If your employees are actively willing to advocate for and promote your company, it says a lot about your work culture and works to provide local value for your employer brand.
In-person recruiting events such as job fairs are a great way to establish employer brand recognition and awareness in your new city. They help get your name out there in a cost-effective and approachable manner. They also allow you to meet interested candidates while saving you the work of seeking them out.
Aside from putting you in touch with a new candidate pipeline, attending job fairs gives you the chance to connect with other businesses in your area. This will help you better understand your talent competitors and highlight how you should alter your recruitment and trust marketing strategies in the future.
*Tip: Have some current employees attend job fairs with you to act as a resource for those interested in applying. They can share their personal experiences or answer any questions potential candidates may have in a peer-to-peer format. This builds trust for prospective employees - it gives them a glimpse of your workplace culture. It also provides insight into whether or not they would be a good fit for your team.
Whether it’s a festival, parade, concert, etc., many local events are only made possible by the sponsorship and involvement of local businesses. Participating in community events shows you actively want to be a part of things. It gives you a chance to connect with people and businesses in your area and is a great place to start when it comes to launching an employer brand.
Events draw crowds - take advantage of this by displaying testimonial quotes in the materials you hand out to eventgoers. Show videos of your happy employees/customers at your booth. Hand out free merchandise or discount codes for your service. Even something as simple as sponsoring an event provides valuable exposure in your community and works to cultivate brand association and trust.
Geotargeting is a crucial component of any recruitment strategy in that it allows you to connect simply and efficiently with interested candidates in your target area.
Most, if not all, hiring and recruitment sites (LinkedIn, Indeed, CareerBuilder, etc.) allow both recruiters and candidates to filter by city or zip code. If you’re looking to hire candidates only in your area, this is a simple way to sort through a long list of applicants.
*Tip: Don’t rule out out-of-state candidates. If your business operates out of a small city, you likely won't be able to rely solely on local recruitment tactics - you’ll need to expand your candidate search. If you have a strong and recognizable employer brand, candidates will be able to identify whether or not they feel a sense of belonging at your company. They might even be open to relocating themselves.
Overall, the well-being and comfort of your employees is the key to a successful employer brand, no matter where you are. By actively working to distribute the voices of your happy employees and connect with the surrounding community, you are building trust in your employer brand and increasing hiring potential for your business.
To learn more about how to strengthen your employer branding and recruitment marketing strategies, check out the other posts in our Talent Acquisition series.