3 Ways You Can Brand Your Candidate Experience to Attract Top Talent

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In an economic climate that has record numbers of people quitting their jobs, it can be hard to attract great talent. You can try offering bigger benefits and more pay — but most candidates aren’t looking for higher salaries and better benefits.

They’re searching for a better work-life balance.

So how can your company cut through the noise to showcase an organizational culture that offers potential employees the lifestyle they’re looking for? It comes down to branding your company culture to attract the right staff.

A brilliant candidate experience makes your brand shine

Most companies invest time and money into branding their customer experience. They make sure every customer touchpoint is on-brand and highlights their values, differentiation and unique value proposition.

But rarely do organizations do the same for their candidate experience. By failing to brand to prospective employees, companies miss out on attracting top talent.

Candidate branding is especially important if you run an organization that doesn’t have the budget to offer above-market pay and competitive benefits. By branding your candidate experiences, you can make the most of what you do have to hire great employees.

Here are three practical ways to create candidate touchpoints that ensure you hire the people you need to launch your business ahead of the competition.

1. Showcase your culture on your website and social media

Most organizations treat their websites and social media posts as branding tools for reaching and selling to a pool of prospects, but websites and social media also sell to potential employees.

These public platforms are your chance to make a solid first impression and introduce prospective employees to your organization. Leverage them to highlight what drives your brand and help people determine whether they’re a good culture fit.

First, talk about your values.

Your customers may not care much about your values. But future employees do. Use your social media posts and website to put a spotlight on the principles that define and drive your brand. Then describe how your team lives out these values. Detail the specific on-brand behaviors, decisions and actions championed by every staff member at every level of your organization.

Second, show what it looks like to work for you.

Pull back the curtain on day-to-day life inside your company by displaying what it looks like to be part of the team. For example, use professional photos of your team at work around your office, in their remote locations or while serving clients and customers.

2. Infuse your brand into job descriptions

As you seek to brand your hiring process, don’t forget your job descriptions.

Be sure your job descriptions reflect the voice and tone of your culture. Use every line to point back to your culture and how your organization brings your values to life. Talk about how you hold people accountable for living out on-brand behaviors. This shows your candidates that your company takes its values seriously.

Include key employee benefits that reflect your culture, particularly smaller benefits that may not cost much (or anything at all) but are highly valued by your staff. These could include virtual happy hours, access to free training or what our team calls travel pizza (when a staff member goes on an overnight work trip, we send their family pizza the first night so they don’t have to worry about dinner). Such low-cost, big-impact benefits are not only appealing, but also show how your company sustains your culture.

3. Highlight your values in the interview process

Last tip: Align your interview questions to reflect your culture.

Consider how you interact with potential team members. What steps do you ask them to walk through during the candidate review process? Identify key touchpoints, then infuse your culture into each one.

For example, if your culture values celebration, find ways to celebrate your candidate at key points. After they submit their application, send a personalized thank you pointing out one thing that makes them a great candidate. Get creative with how you let applicants know they’ve made it to the final interview, such as sending a personalized cake with a note sharing how your team is excited to consider them a potential employee.

If your culture values transparency, have your staff make short, personalized videos to tell candidates what they love about the company and what they think needs to be improved. Videos such as these allow prospective employees to get to know the team and feel a genuine sense of welcome and connection.

These powerful and low-cost touchpoints are not only memorable but also make you stand out from the crowd of competitors vying for top talent.

Aligning your culture into your candidate experience needn’t be complicated. Simply work with what you’ve already got in place: your website and social media, job descriptions and interview process.

Look for key touchpoints in each of these areas, then start shaping those interactions to reflect your brand.

Every step you take to create an attractive experience will help you win over the best candidates and turn them into brilliant employees who do more for your company than any amount of marketing ever could.