There’s a new candidate attraction sheriff in town, and it might surprise you!
Job seekers now place more importance on a company’s culture and values than they do on compensation when deciding whether or not to apply.
This interesting insight into what job seekers consider when looking at new career opportunities and potential employers comes from Glassdoor’s 2019 Mission & Culture Survey. Take a look at the specifics:
- 79% of candidates say they would consider a company’s mission and purpose before filling out and submitting an application. 77% say they would consider a company’s culture before applying.
- 73% of job seekers would not apply at an organization that did not share the same values with their own.
- 89% of candidates say they believe it’s important for organizations to have a clear mission and purpose.
- 56% of candidates say that in terms of work satisfaction, company culture ranks above salary.
For Recruitment Marketing and employer branding practitioners, this means your company culture, mission and values need to be a strong focus within the content you share with talent and the communications you have with them. Candidates are seeking out information about these workplace elements that matter most to them, and if your organization can demonstrate your commitment to providing employees with these aspects, you’ll be in a prime position to better attract talented professionals.
So how can you ensure your content encapsulates your company culture, mission and values so that you can create an attractive employer brand? Try these strategies:
Thread throughout your journey
While communicating your culture and mission are key ways to attract job seekers, that doesn’t mean you should stop at the attraction stage of the candidate journey. Even after talent has applied, moved to the interview stage and been extended an offer, you should still be sharing these elements with them.
To do this, make sure you are developing content centered around your culture, mission and values that you can share with job seekers at any stage. For example, your social channels and job descriptions are ideal spots for culture-focused content to generate awareness. When job seekers are considering an open role with your company, they’ll check out your website and careers page, so including messaging there is vital. Once they’re interested, they might head to an employer review site, so photos, videos and other content can push them to apply.
Once they’ve applied, you’ve got an opportunity to showcase your culture, values and mission even more by sending them content via email. This could even move the needle in your favor when a candidate is deciding whether or not to accept an offer. Developing content and finding ways to share with job seekers at every stage means you’re communicating those factors that matter most to them in their search.
Zappos (which gets bonus points for having a Twitter profile dedicated to the company culture!) shares a wide range of content and insight on the fun and innovative things employees participate in, as well as how team members are working together for the common purpose of providing an excellent customer experience.
Fun and an exceptional customer experience are at the core of the Zappos culture.
Get employees on board
You current employees are the ones who know best about your company culture and the mission everyone works to achieve. So why not give them the microphone and let them share their experiences with candidates?
Employee-generated and -centric content can amplify your culture and values, and job seekers actually want to see this type of content straight from them: Research from LinkedIn found that candidates are trust an organization’s employees 3 times more than the organization itself on what it’s like to work there.
Photos, videos and even written content from your employees and that feature their insights are an effective strategy for boosting awareness of your culture, mission and values. A structured employee advocacy program with the right tools can help you spread that message even further.
This is the strategy that Taco Bell takes with their employee-centric content on their careers page. This video features company employees talking about the culture they enjoy and the work they’re doing — and not just when it comes to food!
Taco Bell employees provide candidates with a front row seat to the company culture and mission.
Create and communicate your TVP
Like your EVP, your TVP — known as your Team Value Proposition — tells candidates what’s special about a unique team, department, business unit or location within your company, the culture they experience as part of it and how that team contributes to the overall mission.
Why do you need a TVP? Another LinkedIn report revealed that 42 percent of job seekers want to know what it’s like to work on a specific team or department when looking at a new opportunity. Drilling down into the team specifics helps job seekers see the individual cultures of those units and demonstrates the shared values of employees within those teams.
Take, for instance, this video from CVS Health, which is a great example of team-centric content that showcases the company’s mission. It highlights members of the Pharmacy Benefits Management Innovation team and features these employees discussing how they work together toward the CVS Health mission of helping patients achieve better health.
Job seekers get to learn how the teams at CVS Health work together to achieve the company mission.
To learn more about the TVP content CVS Health offers and see additional examples from top employers, download our ideabook 12 Ways to Tell Team Stories!
Culture, mission and values are now what matter most to candidates. Making these factors a focal point of your Recruitment Marketing strategy means you stay on top of the talent attraction game during the most crucial stages of a job seeker’s search for new opportunities.