Employer Brand Misconceptions: Customer Brand

OUR CUSTOMER BRAND IS STRONG ENOUGH TO ATTRACT CANDIDATES. WHY SHOULD WE HAVE AN EMPLOYER BRAND?

You have a great customer brand, everyone knows who your company is and that should be enough to attract all the candidates you could ever want. People want to work for a company they're familiar with, right? 

It’s easy to believe great customer brand equity is enough to build your talent pool. It doesn’t seem necessary to invest time and money into defining an employer brand when your customer brand is already attracting talent on its own. 

Although interconnected, your employer and customer brand are not the same. Your customer brand represents the front-facing values of your organization as it pertains to clients and consumers, but it doesn't really address why candidates should work for you. 

Candidates want to know what you offer as an employer.

The best candidates want to work with organizations that have brand equity – but there’s more to it. Great talent has the luxury of being picky when it comes to their employer wishlist. This is why your organization needs to be clear and effective in communicating what you offer (the employee value proposition component of your employer brand). 

You need to define who you’re looking for. 

Without a well-defined employer brand, you run the risk of hiring candidates who aren’t compatible with your culture. Without an explicit roadmap of what makes your organization tick internally, candidates enter the relationship blindly. When you hire employees who have inaccurate expectations, it leads to disappointment, and disappointment leads to low engagement, poor performance, and ultimately, turnover. 

To retain great employees, they need to be engaged. 

It’s about more than just attracting new talent. A well-defined employer brand will build internal brand advocacy that ultimately leads to free and authentic promotion by the very people who make up the fabric of your culture. You’re giving employees something tangible to identify with and a goal for them to strive towards. This empowers them to become advocates, which often leads to referrals, which is the leading source of high-quality hires.

If you want to attract quality candidates who will thrive and remain engaged you can’t rely on a consumer brand, no matter how good it is, to support talent acquisition and retention.