How To Kill Your Employer Brand

By March 15, 2017For Companies

Your employer brand is how people perceive you as an employer – your values, your culture, what you do and why you do it. As the race for talent intensifies, your employer brand can be the key factor in converting that game changing candidate. Here’s what not to do if you want to establish a strong employer brand.

Post poor job ads

The first step in ruining your employer brand is posting poor job ads. Using discriminatory or preferential language and being vague or unclear about the details of the role are all factors here. What is the salary? What is the remit of the role? What does a regular day look like? Give the people what they want (to know)!

Don’t consider the candidate journey

Having unnecessary or time consuming application processes is a great way to irk potential candidates and put them off applying. The candidate’s journey should be as quick, simple and direct as possible. Being mobile optimised is a must!

employer brand

Ignore applications

Not responding to applicants is high on the list of ways to kill your employer brand. If a candidate has taken the time to apply for a position, at the very least they deserve a response. Acknowledging their application and thanking them for their interest in your company fosters goodwill towards your brand, even if you’re essentially rejecting them for the position.

Misrepresent your culture

Not being fully truthful about your company culture is a great way to disillusion candidates. While you might be tempted to oversell your business in an attempt to attract high calibre talent, once they realise the role or company is not as described, they’re likely to move on again. This leads to high rates of employee turnover and even higher costs.

Abuse the interview

Tasking candidates with real work assignments can be a great way to test their skills and evaluate their suitability for a role. However it should not be used as a means for extracting free labour from candidates. Using work that they provided during an unsuccessful interview or application process is a great way to ruin your reputation as an employer.

Avoid transparency

If you want to destroy your employer brand be as secretive and ambiguous as possible. Compartmentalise your team and the information each person is privy to to ensure poor relationships among coworkers and management.

Don’t onboard thoroughly

Hiring an employee is a lengthy process, one that doesn’t stop once the contracts are signed. Good onboarding is essential for employee retention. A new hire should be given a thorough introduction to the company – the team, management, the history, the values, the vision and the future. It’s important to make an employee feel welcome and make them feel invested in the company from the get-go.

Don’t offer feedback

Failing to give feedback on an employee’s progress is guaranteed to decrease morale and damage your reputation as an employer. It means any issues around performance aren’t dealt with and and that an employee is left in limbo with regards to how they’re doing.


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Author Aoife Geary

Aoife Geary is the Content Editor at Jobbio specialising in the areas of Workplace Culture, Diversity, Startups and Digital Trends. She's partial to a burrito, a bad pun and living way beyond her means.

More posts by Aoife Geary

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