The employer branding process: step-by-step

Employer branding is more than a logo, colour palettes, fonts and a catchy tagline. It’s your reputation as an employer and a comprehensive look at everything that makes your company a great place to work.

Here’s a step-by-step process for creating, implementing and managing a successful employer branding strategy.

Audit the perception of your current employer brand

Take a look at your company through the eyes of your current employees. This can help you identify problems that may be affecting your ability to attract and retain talent. For example, you may discover that employees feel like they don’t have enough career development opportunities. In this case, offering more opportunities for growth at work could help you improve your employer brand.

Here are some ways to audit your current employer brand:

Employer review websites: read online reviews and ratings of your company on Indeed Company Pages to pinpoint any common complaints, concerns or feedback. Find your Company Page here.

Employee feedback: conduct an internal employee survey to find out how your current employees feel about working at your company. Ask questions like ‘Why did you join our company?’, ‘​​What do you enjoy most about working here?’ and ‘What do you enjoy least about working here?’

Social media: track your brand mentions on social media to get unfiltered opinions about your company. There are several social listening software tools that can help you do this.

Define your company’s unique value proposition

Your employee value proposition (EVP) is what your company stands for, including your company’s core values, mission, vision and culture.

Many jobseekers want to work for companies that align with their interests and values. In fact, according to an Indeed survey, 29% of job seekers say they would reconsider accepting an offer from a company if the mission/vision does not resonate with their values, even if the job is perfect for them otherwise.[2]

When a candidate sees an EVP that reflects their personal goals and passions, it may convince them to choose your company over another. Here’s how to define your own employee value proposition.

Develop an employer branding promotion strategy

Once you have established your employer brand, decide how you’ll promote it. Both written and visual brand storytelling can be powerful ways to share your employer brand with more people.

Here are some employer branding promotion ideas to consider:

• Create an attractive career page on your website with behind-the-scenes photos, employee testimonials and other employer branding elements.
• Optimise your Indeed Company Page with photos and videos that show what it’s like to work at your company. Consider upgrading to Company Pages Premium for more custom branding options, such as your brand colours, videos and images, page localization and more.
• Monitor company reviews and consider responding to both positive and negative employee comments.
• Add branding elements, such as your logo, to your job postings to make them stand out.
• Start a company blog and write posts about your employee experience, company news and updates, unique benefits/perks, etc.
• Ask employees to share their experiences working for your company on social media.

Track the success of your employer brand

Start by monitoring your Indeed Company Page to see if there’s any improvement in ratings and reviews. Next, watch for changes in your Work Wellbeing Score, which measures how people feel at work. Your Work Wellbeing Score automatically appears on your Indeed Company Page once respondents have completed at least 10 surveys for your company.

Other ideas to gauge the success of your employer brand include tracking retention rate and source of recruit and sending out occasional surveys to measure employee satisfaction. You can also conduct exit interviews with departing employees to gain more insight into your employee experience and learn about any weaknesses in processes and company culture.

How to improve employer branding with Indeed

Building an employer brand from scratch is not always easy, but Indeed can help you get started by putting your jobs and employee experience in front of the right potential candidates. Here’s how Indeed can help you create and promote a compelling employer brand:

Claim your free Indeed Company Page

According to an Indeed survey, 64% of jobseekers say reading reviews from previous or current employees is ‘significantly’ or ‘very’ influential on their perception of what it’s like to work at a company.[3]

With Indeed Company Pages, current and past employees can leave ratings and reviews and respond to a survey about what it’s like to work at your company. On average, jobseekers who visit an Indeed Company Page are 3.4 times more likely to apply to a job at that company.[4]

Company Pages is free for all employers, with a premium version that gives you access to more advanced branding options and analytics. In fact, employers can tell their story to 5 times more jobseekers with Indeed Company Pages Premium.[5]

Your Company Page is generated automatically when you post a job, all you have to do is claim it. Here are more details about how to claim your Indeed Company Page.

Tell your brand story with Indeed

Beyond being a place for past and present employees to leave ratings and reviews, Indeed Company Pages also allows you to take charge and give jobseekers an overview of your company culture, work environment, mission, core values and benefits/perks.

Use Company Pages to tell your brand story and give a snapshot of your culture. Use rich media like photos and videos to show off your culture, fill out the ‘Why Join Us’ section and connect your social media accounts. Consider upgrading to Company Pages Premium for additional branding options like brand colours, a banner image and videos.

Brand your job postings

To make your job descriptions stand out, include details about your mission/vision, company culture and the overall impact the role will have on the company. Here are some other ways to brand your job postings with Indeed:

Branded Jobs pulls branding elements like your logo, banner and company information from existing Indeed Company Pages into your job postings on Indeed. This creates a more appealing and engaging job that will stand out to job seekers, inspiring interest in your roles and company. Branded Jobs is included with Indeed Company Pages Premium.

It’s also available to Featured Employers, which is Indeed’s rewards programme that comes with exclusive branding benefits. When you’re a Featured Employer, your Sponsored Job shows up on the Indeed search results page with your company logo — making it easier for jobseekers to recognise your company. In fact, candidates are 25% more likely to click ‘Apply’ when a mobile job post prominently displays a company logo.[6]

You may qualify for Featured Employer benefits by spending at the required threshold per volume of jobs.

Expand your reach to new, unique audiences

Indeed Targeted Ads | Brand is another way to share your employer brand with the candidates you are looking for. These are custom banner ads that reflect your employer brand and appear on the right-hand side of the search results when jobseekers are looking for work.

Target the specific kind of candidates you’re looking for, customise your ads to reflect the message you’d like to share about your company and include a call to action (CTA). For example, you can invite candidates to become followers of your company on Indeed or direct them to your Indeed Company Page to learn more about your company culture and values.

This can be a great tool if you need to recruit certain candidates who may not be actively searching for jobs in your industry.

1. Indeed survey (worldwide), n=7,101↩
2. Indeed survey, n=750↩
3. Indeed survey, n=837↩
4. Indeed data UK (Q1, 2023)↩
5. Indeed data UK (Q3, 2022)↩
6. Indeed data UK (Q1 2023)↩