Employer Branding for Startups: Recruiter Efficiency and Candidate Experience
Focus on how to create a better experience for your recruiters and your candidates—and don't invest in long, tedious branding exercises that usually end in disagreements, stalemates, and nothingness.
30-second read
Employer branding for startups is more like Recruiting Ops combined with asset creation for outbound, LinkedIn, and candidate experience, and less like traditional branding.
Recruiter efficiency and candidate experience are the OKRs.
Here’s how to think about it:
If the following are true for your company:
Doing the “things” that get your recruiters and hiring managers talking with qualified candidates is top of mind.
Outbound sourcing, word of mouth, and referrals drive your recruiting efforts today.
Then you shouldn’t even be thinking about traditional branding stuff. The only “things” to invest in right now are the processes, tools, and enablement assets that your hiring team and their candidates need in order to have a series of productive conversations that are worth everyone's time: from the first message that lands in a candidate's inbox through extending an offer/no offer.
Focus there and your sourcing will be incredibly empathetic to a candidate's needs. You’ll increase new hire referrals. You’ll expand the word of mouth about your company, product, and people. And, your recruiters will be a hell of a lot happier. (Yes, recruiter happiness is a metric.)
Branding problem solved.
All because you’re focusing on how to create a better experience for your recruiters and your candidates—and not investing in long, tedious branding exercises that usually end in disagreements, stalemates, and nothingness.
P.S. If this isn’t what employer branding means for your company then this post is less literal. But probably still worth a think ;)