How to Conduct an Employer Brand Audit

Having a strong and well-defined employer brand is is essential to attracting and retaining the top talent you need to meet your organizational goals. But how do you know your employer brand is strong?

That’s where an employer brand audit comes in. A brand audit is a thorough review of all of the components that contribute to current and potential employees’ experience with your employer brand. Here’s how to successfully conduct an employer brand audit:

• Define what your employer brand stands for. In order to measure how successfully you’re communicating your employer brand, you need to expressly describe what your mission and employee value proposition entail. For example, if you promise an open, collaborative culture that supports employee advancement, write this down.
• Review all of your communication channels to see if the messaging is aligned with your brand and company culture. These channels should include your website, career website, LinkedIn page and groups, social media and Glassdoor page. For the best results, create a SWOT (strengths – weaknesses – opportunities – threats) analysis for each. Consider factors such as:

– Language: Is content written from the perspective of the employee and job seeker?

– Appearance: Is the look consistent with your overall messaging?

– Messaging: Does the content address the issues that are important to both current and                 potential employees?

– Comprehensiveness: Are you addressing all of the issues that matter, such as                                 mission, values and workplace experience?

• Conduct an employee satisfaction survey. Living up to your employer brand is critical to retaining talent. Put together an employee satisfaction survey that asks about the workplace experience, whether the company is living up to its employee value proposition and areas where there could be room for improvement.
• Review the candidate experience. How job applicants perceive your company is an essential aspect of attracting top talent — but a drawn-out, one-sided application process can deter even the most motivated candidate from a great job. Objectively assess each step of the candidate experience. Look at factors such as ease of applying from multiple types of devices, speed of response, and how often applicants are informed about the search status. Again, creating a SWOT analysis can be extremely helpful in this step.
• Analyze recruitment results. A strong employer brand attracts quality talent that stays with the company. Examine your recruiting statistics, looking at factors such as quality of hires, time to hire, and length of the hire (i.e. retention).
• Study external reviews. Sites like Glassdoor and Indeed feature company reviews written by current and former employees. Read the reviews to find out what people say are positive and negative aspects of working for your company.
• Put it all together. When you have collected all of your data, analyze it to see where your employer branding is strong, where it’s weak or lacking, and where it can be improved.

When you’ve completed your employer brand audit, you’ll have a comprehensive overview of how current and potential employees experience your brand; you’ll also know where your strengths and weaknesses lie. With that knowledge, you can create a strategy to further clarify, strengthen and communicate your employer brand in order to attract and retain top talent for the long term.