How to play the numbers game with your employer branding strategy

What’s your return on investing 100€ in employer branding? How many new job applications do you receive? How much does employee turnover drop? How much does the eNPS increase? Can you measure your efforts and report the results? 

Suppose you can answer what your employer branding strategy has generated. In that case, you’ve come further than most of your peers. 

My name is Alexandra Åhré; I’m Head of Digital at Oddwork Employer Branding. I work daily to develop and improve employer brands. This article is about measuring and following up on your employer branding strategies, so you and your team can understand when, where, and how you get the most out of your hard-earned budget. 

Join live stream about employer branding metrics | October 17, 12:00 CEST

It’s time for organisations to start measuring employer branding just as we measure marketing

In marketing and communication, measurability is as vital as a personnel handbook is for HR. Without the ability to measure, there is no basis for budgets or investing in new activities. You must show what you get in return if you do X or Y and how it connects with the company’s strategic goals. 

So why is measuring your efforts not as vital for employer branding? It is, of course, just as significant. But, employer branding professionals are less used to thinking about measurability and goals than, for example, your colleagues in the marketing department. It’s time to change that. It’s time to get the most bang for the buck from your employer branding strategies and activities.   

Three reasons to set a proper measurement plan for the development of your employer brand:

• To clearly tell what your efforts have generate
• Support in matters of budget
• To make it easier to determine where you achieve the best results and when you should iterate on your strategy

It is crucial to have a foundation for making decisions and validating where to direct your focus and what to discard. This positions your department as a key player in shaping strategic decisions for the entire company. Moreover, presenting your proposals becomes more effective when you can communicate with the CEO, CMO, or CFO using their language. It also provides validation for both you and your team, affirming that you are heading in the right direction 

Your employer branding efforts, whether directed at external or internal communication, must have well-defined goals. As the person responsible, it’s crucial for you to track these objectives. Looking for help in achieving measurability? Grab two cups of coffee and head over to your colleague in the communications department — or continue reading. 

Anchor your goals and objectives in the company’s strategic goals

The goals you set must relate to your company’s strategic goals or be anchored in an existing people plan. 

Example: You are to recruit colleagues for the finance department 

Your company’s people plan states that you should recruit two new employees for the finance department during the coming quarter. You’ll be able to find one of these new colleagues by searching on LinkedIn, but you will need to find the other elsewhere. Because you’ve done job postings before, you know that about 10% of people who get to the job ad actually apply and that 1% of those applications are viable. 

• You need one good application
• 1% of applications are good: 1/0.01 = 100 people applying
• 10% of all people who get to the job ad will send in an application: 100/0.1 = 1,000 people who visit the job ad 

To be successful, you need at least 1,000 visitors to the job ad, 100 of which will apply and one of which will be good. Voila! There you have your target numbers.  

This is, of course, oversimplified and based on your grasp of the numbers above. Still, it’s actually not that difficult. It will also be easy to see if you’re on the right track. If your job ad only generates 500 visitors, then you need to review it. And if only two people are applying – try to identify the weak spots. Here are a few examples of weak spots:  

• How is the job ad written? Does it appeal to your candidate audience?
• What images and texts do you use to spread the message?
• Is your list of requirements reasonable and accurate?
• Which channels are you using?
• Do you use any target group optimisation, and if so, what does it look like?
• And so on!

Attract, recruit and retain as the three pillars of your employer branding strategy

These 1,000 people may need to be familiar the company to actually decide to click on a job ad. In other words, your employer branding communication aims to create a positive relationship with potential candidates (attract), ensure that more people apply for your vacancies (recruit), and create a positive relationship with employees (retain). So campaigns can have different objectives – make sure you have efforts that cover all three areas and measure your efforts with this in mind.   

Common mistakes teams make when measuring success in employer branding

We often see teams measuring the wrong things. Sometimes the metrics in question are pure vanity metrics – sometimes, the numbers only show what everyone else is doing. 

Imagine you’re planning to run a marathon. Sure, it can help to measure heart rate or count the weight of shoes and clothes (because you saw an article where Usain Bolt did it) – but for a recreational runner, it’s probably more worthwhile to focus on counting the number of sessions, kilometres you run and possibly your average time per kilometre.   

Start small – and you will find your metrics

You can measure virtually anything, and there’s data everywhere! Therefore, I recommend choosing a maximum of three main metrics per project. Start by identifying your overall goals and then break these down into actions. When you have your actions, you start thinking about what you as a team need to know to determine if the work is going in the right direction.  

We always recommend starting small! You could begin to measure something as simple as the number of job applications each month. When you’ve got this covered, it’s time to start working your way backwards and look at how many visitors a job ad gets on average. Then you look at what percentage of these visitors actually apply. After that, you can try to find evidence that will help you understand what needs to be done to improve the number of applications. 

As a specialist or expert, you can, of course, keep an eye on more than three metrics. But when you present to colleagues and managers, the purpose is not to confuse them but to get them on board. 

Here are some tips:

1. Set up measurement points throughout the candidate journey

A person who has no prior relationship with your company will behave differently compared to, for instance, a candidate applying for a job. Consequently, the outcomes of various campaigns might differ. Suppose your campaign targets individuals with no prior relationship with your company. In that case, a suitable metric might be to explore the extent to which they’ve engaged with a video. If your campaign aims to get more job applications, you should probably measure the number of interviews generated.

2. Find something to compare to

You can easily google the industry standard or benchmark – or your colleagues/managers might already know about it! I suggest comparing against your own performance, as you should ideally (hopefully) be surpassing your scores from yesterday. You’ll soon be at the front if you always take a step forward. 

3. Hang in there

The first time will not be a home run – just like the first time you play the violin is not your best. It’s hard, but you use metrics to find easy ways to improve; that’s what you should look for in the data.

4. Don’t be cheap!

Decide how often you measure and ensure enough time and resources to get proper data. It is easy to say that the summer was sunny and warm if you checked the thermostat once at 2.25 pm one lovely day in June. Measurability within communication is about observing changes, and some changes take time. Audiences need time and reminders to adjust opinions and behaviours.

5. Create hypotheses that you test

We are curious by nature! Here’s an example: You have data that tells you most candidates stop filling out the application form at the fourth question. You have a suggestion to cut the form down to just three questions, while your colleague suggests improving the phrasing of the fourth question. Instead of fighting over it, you initiatie a A/B test on the different options and measure the outcome. Then you select the winning alternative. By testing both hypotheses simultaneously, you provide them with identical conditions, and get a clear result.