Picture a job seeker at the start of his or her job search. One of the most common things searched for is “top companies to work for in 20xx” (the current year) or “top companies in xx industry” (the industry of choice). And it makes complete sense to look for this – after all, a company’s reputation matters nowadays more than ever, and a massive majority of employees says it would not apply for a company that has a bad reputation among former or current employees, as a place to work for.

Branding efforts have typically concentrated on creating a compelling story for the brand and the portfolio of products and services offered by the company. There is relatively little – if any – effort on cultivating a powerful employer brand to attract and retain top talent. This is one area where talent management efforts often fall short.

Let us look at the top reasons why a good talent brand is important:

• Retain current talent: Existing employees need to be retained too, and good talent branding does not ignore this set. Branding efforts could focus on ensuring the fulfillment of promises made during the recruitment process. Set the expectations right and avoid any potential mismatches.

• Engage passive candidates: Not all skilled candidates are actively looking for jobs! They are estimated to make up a significant majority of the workforce, thus calling for more focus from the recruitment efforts.

• Control your public reputation: Employer review sites allow laid-off as well as other exiting employees a platform to vent their frustrations. A strong talent brand can help you offset negative comments with personal stories of happy employees.

• More employee referrals: Employees happy working for a company tend to be happy to tell others about their experience. Talent branding can encourage them to represent the company on social media, giving a boost to recruitment efforts.

Marketing to attract new talent is not too different than that expended on a potential client. HR professionals must focus on similar primary strategic components:

• Understand your audience well

• Create the right content

• Have a game plan leveraging modern marketing techniques

The above requires the talent management team to incorporate strong marketing competencies, along with a measurable process and purpose-built technology. A talent acquisition certification can work wonders in this regard. The team must look at every job opening as not just an opportunity to bring in new, good talent, but to in fact market the organization, share its goals and objectives and create compelling content. A well-crafted job description (JD) incorporating the above would be something that people would be encouraged to share on their social networks; the way many current JDs are drafted, though, would make people completely banish the thought of putting them up on their social media walls!

HR professionals must keep in mind a significant reason that compels people to leave their current role in search of a new one: allure. They want a job that attracts them with its brand, reputation, leadership team, size of operations, industry presence, the role at hand, or possibly any other factor. They come with notions in their head, which a JD can subtly turn from imagination into reality in the blink of an eye – or the typing of a statement, as it were. A JD must thus be looked at as more than just a document with detailed, boring statements; the effort should be to make every statement count. If the JD does not make the recruiter proud of the job on offer, it will in effect do a disservice to the company, and should thus not be put out at all.

Marketing and HR must thus work more closely – their outcomes are more closely aligned than could be imagined. Harmonize the value proposition of the employer and the company of choice!