15 Questions to Align Talent Acquisition & Employer Branding

Leading edge and ‘best place to work’ companies recognize the critical need to synch up their talent acquisition strategy with their employer branding. These companies achieve this synergy (and alignment) by reviewing their practices and incorporating numerous best practices into their plans. To align your talent acquisition strategy and your employer branding, start by asking yourself and your team, these 15 questions:

Talent Acquisition Questions

1. Are our recruiters embodying (and promoting) our employer branding?
2. How well does our talent acquisition department know what our employment brand and employee value proposition are?
3. Are our recruiters/HR generalists sharing valuable content about our “Brand” i.e. its culture, values, mission, goals, benefits, training, etc. on social media?
4. How are we showcasing our hiring managers? And their attributes?
5. Are we showcasing our firm’s opportunities? On our careers page? Our Facebook page? Our status updates?
6. Is talent acquisition truly working with other corporate departments in delivering the employer branding?
7. Are all company interviewers trained to sell our employer brand?
8. How – specifically – are our business leaders delivering on our employer branding promise and our employee value proposition?
9. Is our onboarding, induction, orientation processes showcasing and highlighting our firm’s employer branding?
10. Are we working with our in-house employee groups to improve our candidate experience and on-boarding programs?
11. Are we showcasing our employer brand on college campuses with our interns and with our University employee contacts?
12. What influence does our employer branding have on a candidate’s decision to join our company?
13. What are our current employees saying about our employer branding on review websites, such as Glassdoor?
14. What do our alumni say about our employer brand? What’s our percentage of boomerang hires?
15. What are candidates who “turn us down,” saying about our talent acquisition department and our employer branding?

When you look at some of the firms on the most recent Fortune magazine’s “Top 100 companies to work for” list, you will find leading edge companies which have successfully answered these questions. They are sought after employers in any type of job market. In a word, they are the most selective and they garner a lion’s share of the best candidates.

Hopefully these questions will engender some analysis and focus on the alignment of your Talent Acquisition strategy with your Employment Brand. Lastly, be aware of your candidate experience and social media. Seek out new technologies which can improve your candidate experience. For example, the SmartRecruiters’ Hiring Platform has hundreds of candidates each week tweeting about how much they enjoy the candidate experience of this new platform as opposed to the traditional “job application” experience.

Johnny Torrance-Nesbitt, MBA is an award-winning Global HR professional across several industries and with outstanding successes in Global University Relations, Employment Branding and Global Talent Acquisition, and Diversity Strategies. Photo Credit flickr Glyn Lowe.

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