Top 31 Most Important Employer Branding Statistics
It's 2018 and it's time to get more analytical about our activities, whether you're dealing with sales, marketing or recruitment! At tomlaine.com January is a Tips and Stats -month! I'll be publishing a great number of tips and stats related to my core expertise; Linkedin, social selling, social recruitment and employer branding. Here you will find a new employer branding statistic each and every day of January 2018.
86% of HR professionals agree that recruitment is becoming more like marketing. (iCIMS 2016)
Modern marketers need to become experts in social selling, marketing, and social technologies. The work consists of an increasing number of (content) marketing tactics, outbound sales activities, branding techniques, and understanding of measuring all activities. And I'm glad so many recruiters out there have understood this!
Companies believe that social media marketing will be the most in demand HR skill by 2020, 2nd being data analysis, followed by predictive modeling skills. (CareerArc 2017)
Which, again, supports the point stated at #1. So, why do HR/recruitment and marketing departments not work together with this? Why do we still have silos, marketing "owning" social media, and recruitment happening at job boards? Collaboration between these 2 is a must if we want to build strong employer brands.
Nearly 60% of candidates have had a poor candidate experience and 72% of them shared that experience either online or with someone directly. (CareerArc, 2017)
We've come to understand that all recruitment is marketing and all marketing builds employer brand, right? One major part of employer brand, one of the most important ones, is the candidate experience. And that's the one that sucks most often! Candidate experience is at the corridor between internal (employee experience) and external (job seeker) experience, and as such may make or break a candidate. Did the external image come to reality at first counter with an actual human being instead of all those fancy (NOT!) ATS tools and application methods? Did we live up to the expectation and the promise we'd given while looking at our organisation from the outside? Unfortunately not too often...
Candidates trust employees 3x more than the employer to provide information on working at the company. (LinkedIn, 2016)
All communications studies from recent years say the same: corporate communications is in crisis! It's not interesting, credible, and in general something that people want to see in their social media feeds. That's why employee advocacy programs are no-brainers! Empower your employees, make sure your employee experience is the best possible, and let them loose, let them talk about what they do, what they are good at, how they do it, what their work is all about, how they are treated and respected, etc. Don't us the Force, use employees.
78% of candidates say the overall candidate experience they get is an indicator of how a company values its people. (Talent Adore 2017).
So it's not just about what you say about how you treat people, nor is it about what employees say themselves, but the candidate experience influences the brand and the feeling about how you treat your employees heavily as well. Not a major surprise to many, but good to see actual figures proving the point!
Job seekers rank social and professional networks as the most useful job search resource compared to job boards, job ads, employee referrals, recruiting agencies, and recruiting events. (CareerArc, 2017)
So where do you post your jobs, build your employer brand, engage your employees to share content? Still trusting the good ol' webpages to work for you? Think again! YOU need to go out and sell your company, your jobs, your culture and whatnot! It's applicants' market, stupid! It always was! If you wish not to die a slow, painful death (as a company), put that warface on and start fighting the war of talent. The winter is upon you...
Employee turnover can be reduced by 28% by investing in employer brand. (Job Vibe, 2017)
Employer branding - at its best - starts within the organisation. It starts with employee experience, then employee advocacy, and finally the external employer brand, which, by the way, is most credible and interesting when it's communicated by employees!
When making a decision on where to apply for a job, 84% of job seekers say reputation of a company as an employer is important. (Glassdoor, Harris Poll, April 2017)
Performing online searches to support decision making and seeking peer support has gained major momentum across all walks of life and in all situations, so why not when seeking for a new career opportunities. Are you aware what old and existing employees or past candidates are saying about you? What's your reputation like?
Organizations investing in employer brand are 3x more likely to make a quality hire. (Brandon Hall, The True Cost of a Bad Hire, September 2015)
Employer branding is important in so many ways. And quality of hire is one of the most important metrics for it! If you'd only remember to measure and analyze it. 'nuf said!
45% of job seekers say they use their mobile device specifically to search for jobs at least once a day (Glassdoor 2016).
At the same time, by 2016, only 19% of recruiters (companies) were investing in a mobile career website (Jobvite Recruiter Nation Report 2016). Are companies really following up on whats happening with their career pages, job seeking trends, where their applicants are coming from, where they seek for information, how they engage with the company and job ads, what tools and devices they are using when ending up to the company career pages, visiting social media profiles, etc.? I don't think so!
Organizations that invest in strong candidate experience improve quality of hire by 70%. (Source: Brandon Hall, The True Cost of a Bad Hire, September 2015)
Applicant/Candidate experience is a significant part of the whole Employer Brand Journey (EBJ, reference to: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stop-employer-branding-start-employee-tom-laine/). It's the culmination point of external experience on employer brand, and can make or brake a candidate. If applicant's first personal experience with the company is contradicting with the external image, that may remove the candidate from discussion for good.
79% of job seekers use social media in their job search. (SHRM 2016)
79% of all job seekers is a huge number when there are still so many industries, skillsets, etc. where people are not active in social media (yet). So, the industries and skillsets where people are active, the percentage must be enormous.
Over 14% of candidates stated that the most important marketing material influencing their decision to apply was company’s values, more than awards like Best Places to Work Lists (12.7%) or corporate social responsibility (13.8%). (Recruiting Daily 2015)
Values and culture have fast become the most important factors for especially millenials and younger generations to investigate and influence application decision.
80% of people would take one job over another based on personal relationships formed during the interview process. (Source: Mattersight)
One more statistic about the importance of candidate/applicant experience. The critical point break between external and internal experience. The first point where we are 100% able to influence the applicant that the external employer brand matches with internal employee experience.
60% of job seekers have quit an application process due to its length or complexity. (CareerBuilder, How Candidate Experience is transforming HR Technology)
This is not the first research of its kind. There have been similar findings about application process being quit half way due to either poor recruitment systems or career sites, application process length and complexity, employer image having changed during the process, etc. These days it shouldn't be too hard to find a reasonably priced ATS or CV database tool to make applying easy. Just check out either https://www.softwareadvice.com/hr/applicant-tracking-software-comparison/ or https://blog.ongig.com/applicant-tracking-system/the-top-applicant-tracking-systems-annual-report-2017.
80% of job seekers say they wouldn't re-apply to a company that didn't notify them of their application status. 61% of employers say they notify declined candidates about their decision, but 65% of job seekers say they never or rarely receive notice. 78% of job seekers report never having been asked for feedback on their candidate experience. (WorkplaceTrends, Candidate Experience Study)
I know, it's sometimes a burden to reply to all applicants and keep them updated about their application status. I've not always been able to do things the way they should be done and how I've wanted to do things, there's just way too much work, too many open jobs and too many applicants to keep up with. BUT! It's still best practice to do that! These days the ATS:s are already so good, that there shouldn't be room for lame excuses! And at this age of transparency we now live in, there's not much room for error.
60% of recruiters believe culture fit is of highest importance when making a decision whether to hire or not. (Source: Jobvite)
The mythical "cultural fit" raises its ugly head once again! I recently posted an article about this topic in Finnish (https://www.somehow.fi/kulttuurinen-match/), and will touch it soon in English as well. Cultural fit is important and is becoming even more so, but at the same time it may a terrible, terrible reason to hire a person. Cultural fit is NOT about finding people similar to the employees you have now, but actually finding people that add to the team from the skills and experience point of view. The fit meaning, that the new hires should fit into similar communication and leadership culture, and have similar values to other team members and/or company values, not be clones of your best performers. More about this later... I actually posted a quite popular Linkedin article about cultural fit back in 2014 (Wow, that's like almost 4 years ago already!) with startup hiring in mind, here's the link: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140409220918-897803-the-cultural-fit-in-recruitment-a-startup-syndrome/
When researching employment opportunities, job seekers expect employers to provide: 1) Salary/compensation, 2) Benefits, 3) Basic company information, 4) What makes it an attractive place to work, 5) Company mission, vision, values. (Source: Glassdoor)
So, what are you telling about your opportunities and organisation?
50% of candidates say they wouldn't work for a company with a bad reputation - even for a pay increase. (Betterteam Blog 2017)
Especially the younger generations are critically evaluating employers and the employer brand, whether to apply or not, or whether to accept the offer or not if the external image contradicts with applicant experience.
92% would consider leaving their current jobs if offered another role with a company that had an excellent corporate reputation. (Corporate Responsibility Magazine, September 2015)
Strong, positive employer brand works in curious ways, whether external image, applicant experience, or employee experience. Organisations with strong, positive employee experience have longer employment tenures, pay 10% lower salaries, and have several others measurable positive outcomes.
Nearly 80% of millennials look for people and culture fit with employers, followed by career potential. (Source: Collegefeed, March 2014)
According to quite a few studies from recent years, millenials are especially aware and interested in finding a cultural match at work, and to understand the values they are expected to work for. Investigating organisations especially thru employees' social profiles has become a frequent habit for many. Make sure your employees look, sound and feel like the professionals they are!
82% of respondents believe that culture is a potential competitive advantage (Bersin by Deloitte, 2016). Fewer than 12% of companies believe they truly understand their culture. (Source: Deloitte University Press)
Culture may be hard to define and communicate if not written or visualized clearly for all to see and commit to, but the importance of culture and values keep rising year by year! And not just for employer branding purposes, but customer acquisition and retention, too!
83% of job seekers are likely to research company reviews and ratings online when deciding on where to apply for a job. (Glassdoor, Harris Poll, April 2017)
Of course a study by Glassdoor would support the assumption that online reviews and researching potential employers is popular, but this is by far not the only study to support the fact, there are several more that point to the same trend.
Almost 60% of job seekers report having a poor candidate experience. Of those 60% who had a poor candidate experience, 72% shared information on it “online on an employer review site, such as Glassdoor, on a social networking site, or directly with a colleague or friend”. (Source: Future Workplace & CareerArc study via workplacetrends.com).
This should come by no surprise, but people talk to their friends about just about anything these days on Facebook. So why not bad customer or applicant experience? Rumour spreads, even if not always true. Worse, most of the time there's at least some truth in it.
Interviews (47%) and online research (36%) are most important in forming opinion of a prospective job. 3rd is initial contact and 4th conversations with others and company reputation. (Source: Jobvite). 80–90% of talent say a positive or negative interview experience can change their mind about a role or company. (Source: LinkedIn, 2015 Talent Trends)
So, the corner point between external applicant experience and the first actual personal experience with an organisation sometimes differ and even contradict with each other. Not good! You can't build illusions about your employer brand, they don't last! Worst being a fake image leading to an actual hire, and the first day shock being shared with employee's social media friends, fans and followers. It's like customer journey, the first actual personal touch point should be considered critical!
#1 obstacle to candidates in the application process is not knowing what it’s like to work at an organization. (Source: https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/c/16/3/employer-branding-statistics). 76% of candidates want to know what their day to day will be like. (Source: http://corporate.careerbuilder.com/candidatebehavior)
We live in a glass house, in the age of employee advocacy. If we treat our employees right, we should let them do the talking. If not... perhaps first thing to consider would be improving the employee experience, and only then start considering employer branding.
Companies are overpaying on salaries by 10% if they don’t have a strong brand. (https://hbr.org/2016/03/a-bad-reputation-costs-company-at-least-10-more-per-hire)
Brand matters, and in this case, especially the employer brand matters. Similar studies have appeared in recent years, stating that companies with poor employer brand end up paying more if they wish to attract the bet of the best, than those with great employer brand.
69% of candidates wouldn’t take a job at a company with bad reputation, even if they were unemployed. (Source: http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/cc/COMMITForumPowerpointdocumentSeptember232013Final.pdf)
The employer brand has significant impact, and an increasing number of applicants absolutely refuse to apply with companies that are seen as bad choices... even if they didn't have another option.
The average candidate uses 18 different resources to research a company before applying for a job. (Source: http://www.careerbuildercommunications.com/candidatebehavior/)
The same trend has been seen across industries and situations from recruitment to sales to marketing and communications: Online research defines a great deal of our lives' big decisions, including career-related decisions. We live in a "peer age", where people are turning into friends and family (and fools, i.e. anyone anywhere online) for support when deciding which way to go with their lives.
Referrals are hired 55% faster than those hired through a career site. (Jobvite Index)
Referrals are the next big thing. if you're wondering where the job market is going to. Are you using referrals or employee advocacy programs yet? Better start now, before it's too late!
To get quality referrals, 64% of recruiters report awarding monetary bonuses as incentive. (Jobvite Recruiter Nation Report 2016)
If your employees are happy and employee turnover is low, people run long tenures with the company and feel engaged, you have all the ingredients in place to cook one hell of an employee advocacy and referral program! Not necessary needing monetary bonuses, but a little push never hurt anyone. Internal communication is key, you need to explain why you want people to play a part in this, and they have a chance to influence who they get to work with in the future, and many will be happy to refer and advocate.
NOW, GO GET 'EM, TIGER!