What is employer branding?
Employer branding is the work on a company's reputation as a place to work, among candidates, employees and the market. The employer brand is what people think and feel about working for you. Employer branding is what the company does to shape it.
Updated:
Where the term comes from
The concept of "the employer brand" was defined by Tim Ambler and Simon Barrow of London Business School in a 1996 paper in the Journal of Brand Management. They tested whether brand management techniques could apply to human resources, and interviewed top executives at 27 UK companies. Their exploratory conclusion: marketing can indeed be applied to the employment relationship.
How employer branding works
A workplace's reputation is built from many touchpoints:
- What employees say about the company, online and off
- How leadership talks in public about people, culture and decisions
- What the hiring process feels like, including for people who weren't hired
- What appears on the careers page and the company page
LinkedIn's own hiring resources also treat employees as people who amplify the employer brand, not just the company page.
Common mistake
Thinking employer branding is an HR campaign. A polished recruiting video won't help if what employees and managers say online tells a different story. Employer branding starts with what really happens at the company, and only then with how you tell it.
Another confusion: employer branding vs personal branding. Employer branding is about the company as a workplace. Personal branding is about a person. On LinkedIn they meet, because the voice of the leadership is part of what candidates see.
An example, and how it relates to Velut
Say a VP of engineering writes on LinkedIn about how her team makes technical decisions, and what she learned from a mistake she made. Developers who read it get a real sense of what it is like to work there. In the LinkedIn for leadership teams service, I write for several executives at the same company, each in their own voice, with one consistent message. It doesn't replace HR, but it is what candidates read.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between employer brand and employer branding?
The employer brand is the perception itself: what people think about working for you. Employer branding is the work meant to shape that perception.
Who owns employer branding?
Usually HR and marketing, together. In practice, leadership and employees are the strongest voice, because candidates listen to people more than to a company page.
How do you do employer branding on LinkedIn?
An up-to-date company page is the baseline. What matters more is real content from managers and employees on their own profiles: how they work, how they decide, what they learn.