Putting your employer brand to work: reaching people who are not looking

The gap between brand and recruitment

Organisations invest a great deal of time and money in their employer brand: a careers site, videos, social media campaigns. Yet recruitment often stops at posting a vacancy and waiting for applications.

That only reaches the people who happen to be searching at that moment. The professionals you really want to talk to already have a job and do not look at vacancies.

What putting it to work means

Proactive recruitment means you take the first step. You decide who you want to reach and approach those people personally, from within your own organisation. Your employer brand is no longer a shop window, but the story you open the conversation with.

The difference lies in the sender. A message from a recruiter quickly feels like advertising. A personal invitation from someone inside the organisation, such as the owner or a manager, feels like a real conversation.

How to approach it

1. 1

   Decide who you want to reach. Consider role, experience and region, and include related job titles.

2. 2

   Choose a sender from your own organisation. A personal invitation from a colleague feels different from a generic job ad.

3. 3

   Show who you are. A landing page in your own visual identity tells your story as an employer and lets candidates check for themselves whether the role suits them.

4. 4

   Follow up quickly and stay in touch. Anyone who waits days for a reply is often already talking to someone else. People who say no today stay in your talent network.

In practice

What your brand builds stays yours

With an agency, the network typically stays with the agency. When you are the sender, you build your own talent network: people who know your brand and whom you can approach again for a future vacancy.

Frequently asked questions