Building a strong employer brand

 Some years ago, I was interviewed by Keka HR on How to Build a Strong Employer Brand.

This is the summary, thanks to Google Gemini

Employer Brand as a Filter (0:30-1:12): Ghosh emphasizes that an employer brand should act as a filter, attracting the right candidates who identify with the company's values and deterring those who don't. The goal is to get the right applications, not just the maximum number.

Criticality of Employer Branding (1:21-3:28): The importance of employer branding depends on how critical talent is to a company's overall costs and operations. If payroll and hiring costs are a significant chunk of expenses, or if specific talent segments are critical and in short supply, then employer branding becomes crucial. HR professionals need to align with business leaders to understand their challenges and how employer branding can address them.

Leveraging Employee Networks (3:31-5:44): Employees' personal networks on social media can be far more influential than official company pages. Companies should encourage and enable employees to share content about their workplace, provided the employees genuinely believe in what they are sharing, as their loyalty is first to their networks.

Leadership as Brand Ambassadors (6:00-9:14, 19:06-19:37): The personal brand of company leaders, especially founders and key executives, significantly impacts the employer brand. Their public statements and social media activity can reflect and amplify the company's image, attracting top talent. Examples include Flipkart's founders and Elon Musk for Tesla.

Candidate Experience and Career Website (9:17-11:00): The company's career website must align with the employer brand story being communicated through social media. A seamless and user-friendly application process is vital; a broken or cumbersome careers site can negate all positive branding efforts.

Measuring Employer Branding Effectiveness (11:05-13:21): Employer branding can be measured through a funnel approach, similar to marketing. This involves tracking impressions, engagement, clicks, applications, interviews, and ultimately, hires. Data from social channels and internal recruitment systems can provide insights into the effectiveness of initiatives.

Continuous Engagement and Advocacy (13:23-14:52): Companies should monitor the funnel weekly, use newsletters to keep potential candidates aware, and encourage employees and alumni to share content. Identifying and incentivizing vocal brand advocates among employees is also key.

Collaboration with Other Departments (14:56-19:05): Employer branding is not solely an HR function. It requires strong collaboration with corporate communications, marketing, and even customer support to ensure consistent messaging and to leverage positive customer stories to humanize the company.

Why #PersonalBranding Matters

How to Build an Employer Brand That Attracts Top Talent

In today’s talent market, filling roles isn’t just about posting vacancies—it’s about telling a story that makes people want to work for you. Recruitment has become as much about marketing, storytelling, and data-driven engagement as it is about interviews and job descriptions.

An effective employer brand can make the difference between attracting top talent and losing them to the competition. But how do you craft one? And who’s responsible for making it happen?

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Who Owns Employer Branding?

The short answer: everyone.

Research shows that 60% of CEOs believe employer branding is their responsibility. Many HR leaders think it belongs to HR, while marketing departments have the tools to reach wide audiences. The truth is that the best employer brands are built collaboratively:

• Marketing brings the skills to target and engage audiences.

• HR understands the company culture and job seeker mindset.

• CEOs provide vision and credibility.

When these groups work together, employer branding stops being a departmental task and becomes a company-wide mission.

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Crafting Your Message

Your employer brand is the story you tell about your workplace.
Your talent brand is what employees and job seekers say about working there.

The most effective brands happen where the two overlap—when the company’s aspirations align with the authentic experiences of employees.

To get there, start by asking:

• What do job seekers really think about us?

• Why do employees stay?

• What’s our true value proposition as an employer?

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What Candidates Care About Most

A survey of job seekers in India revealed what truly connects them to an employer:

• Work that makes a positive impact – 38%

• Mission and values that align with theirs – 37%

• Diversity of opportunities – 33%

• Transparent, responsive recruiters – 32%

If you want to stand out, weave these themes into your employer brand story.

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Choosing the Right Channels

Once your message is clear, it’s time to share it in the right places:

• Career Site – Mobile-friendly, culture-rich, and easy to navigate.

• Social Media – Employee voices are more powerful than corporate press releases.

• Review Sites – Job seekers trust peer reviews.

• Targeted Ads – Ensure your message reaches the right talent.

Every channel should showcase not just what you do, but why you’re worth working for.

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The Power of Reviews

Job seekers behave like consumers—they research before they buy.
98% of candidates read reviews of a potential employer, and 54% do it before they even start job hunting.

Your approach should be:

• Be transparent from the start.

• Respond to reviews—both positive and negative—in a professional and honest manner.

• Share authentic stories from employees to balance the narrative.

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Measuring Success

Employer branding is not a “set it and forget it” exercise. To improve, you need to measure:

• Social Media: Views, likes, shares, reach.

• Career Site: Visitors, applications, conversions.

• Review Sites: Overall ratings, location-based feedback, competitor comparisons.

Consistent tracking lets you refine your message, invest in what’s working, and fix what isn’t.

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The Role of Candidate Personas

Marketing teams know their ideal customer. Recruitment teams should know their ideal candidate.

A candidate persona is a detailed profile of the type of person who would thrive in a specific role. To create one:

1. Study your top performers.

2. Use hiring and performance data.

3. Talk to hiring managers.

4. Ask your employees for insights.

5. Watch industry hiring trends.

With clear personas, you can tailor job descriptions, refine sourcing strategies, and target your messaging effectively.

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The Bottom Line

Thinking like a marketer doesn’t mean turning HR into a sales team—it means applying the same principles of audience understanding, message crafting, channel selection, and performance measurement to talent acquisition.

When employer branding is authentic, consistent, and data-driven, you don’t just fill roles—you attract people who genuinely want to be part of your journey.

My interview with Priyanka Dutta on her YouTube channel #CoolTalksWithPriyanka

It was an absolute pleasure to be interviewed by coach Priyanka Dutta, who asked me questions that only an OD consultant could ask and got me thinking more than I usually do covering a big gamut of topics 

By the way you can find all the videos of my talks and interviews down the years here on this list

My podcast interview on Voice of Achievers Channels

 

My first podcast interview is now available on Voice of Achievers channel on

Spotify

Voice of Achievers on Apple Podcasts 

 Voice of Achievers on Google Podcasts 

Voice of Achievers on Spotify

Voice of Achievers on JioSaavn

Voice of Achievers on Gaana

Voice of Achievers on Wynk by Airtel

 Voice of Achievers on Stitcher

Voice of Achievers on RadioPublic 

(this is the link to be used for anyone who does not have any of the above podcast applications; this does not require an app download and one can listen to the episode seamlessly without an additional download)

Building a strong employer brand - My interview with KekaHR

The folks at Keka HR interviewed me on my thoughts about employer branding 

How to go from EVP to an Employer Brand

 

Many HR departments spend a considerable amount of time, effort and resources to define their EVP (Employee Value Proposition) but are either unsure of what to do with it or they are unable to really  communicate that effectively.

Here's a step by step guide to leverage your EVP and convert it into an effective Employer Brand. Of course, this is an incredibly generic approach, and would need to be customised depending on your company's current reality and business objectives. Reach me on Linkedin if you want to know how I can help

Step 1: Analysis

Identify Target Talent Segments in each category you want to attract, based on:

i.             Demographics

ii.             Education

iii.            Role/Position

iv.           Current Employer

    Identify where the above talent segments can be reached and the appropriate message and media to use to build an awareness of your company, its culture, the various building blocks of the EVP. Leveraging candidate personas can be an incredibly powerful tool in building them.

 Step 2: Crafting the messages

Work along with your Marketing/Corporate Communication teams/external agency to identify employee stories that exemplify the various parts of the EVP. Work with design agencies (or internal design team if you have one) to make images, infographics and videos of the identified stories. 

Undertake a dipstick test to evaluate the efficacy of the content and messaging.

Step 3: Delivering the message

Organic

1. Draw up a content calendar and wotk with internal communication teams/external partners on which content wil be posted when. Leave room for flexibility for impromptu moments

2. Draw up an Employee Advocacy plan to spread the stories across various networks by leveraging your existing employees' reach. 

Inorganic

Draw up a social media advertising campaign to reach identified target groups, experiment, look at what's working and 

 Step 4: Tracking Metrics

Some of the metrics that could be tracked are:

1.            Increase in LinkedIn and Twitter followers and YouTube subscribers. These are, to repeat, just indicative. They might differ depending on the target talent segments.

2.              Engagement of each post on each network (views, comments, likes)

3.             Increase in number of hits to your career website

4.            Growth in application numbers

Points to remember

This is a very simplified guide and would need to be customised to the needs of your company. Each of the above sub-steps are also quite detailed and would need to be planned and executed depending on the maturity of your organization. and if you would want me to consult with you reach out to me on Linkedin. 

       

 

Facebook's Resume Feature - Should LinkedIn be worried? My take

Yesterday it was all over the tech websites, Facebook is reportedly testing a new resume feature called "work histories" that can help users share them privately.

Here are my thoughts about how this can play out:

1. Facebook is making an enterprise play. First with Workplace , the collaboration feature and then with  Facebook Jobs the job advertising feature. However, they haven't really done a great job marketing the jobs feature. If you see currently the number of jobs advertised in India is very low. As I write this is what is shown - 27 jobs in India (plus all of them seem to be with Facebook, not even sure it is used by other employers)
   
2. Facebook's big revenue features come from display advertising, sponsored posts for consumers. LinkedIn has that market cornered when it comes to employers - with their company pages and posts targeted to different kind of talent segments. So cracking this market is going to be tough for Facebook unless it invests in feet on the street to take on LinkedIn's Account Management, Sales and Customer Service. Facebook pages had talked about introducing a jobs/careers tab for adding to their business pages beginning with US and Canada, however I am not sure if this is in the priority for Facebook sales teams to pitch it to their customers
3. The big opportunity, Mobile recruitment. Where Facebook has a big edge over LinkedIn in the developing markets is the users who are solely on the platform as well as being actively engaged - the users for whom the internet is first mobile screen. These would be the blue collar workers which are not a strong point of LinkedIn. However to reach them Facebook would have to give the screen real estate to the product to make jobs a clear feature which might mean compromising on things like its news feed.
4. Microsoft and LinkedIn. Microsoft's acquisition of LinkedIn and its data getting integrated into Outlook and Office 365 is a moat that Facebook may find it difficult to cross.   
5. Facebook's perception problem. The biggest problem for Facebook is its perception of being a "social network" that is for friends and family. Whatever Facebook does in the jobs and careers space would run into that huge perception issue. At least in the white collar workforce, hence IMHO, the best bet for Facebook would be to concentrate on the blue collar workforce and focus on a "apply with Facebook" button with job sites to make the application process friction-less. The question is will they focus on it - at the cost of hurting their other revenue streams like digital advertising? And will they be able to convince the recruiting ecosystem like job sites and staffing agencies and make the products that they see value in? Time will tell, but very unlikely in my view. I hope I am proved wrong because LinkedIn can really do with some competition in this space.

Reflection on the first Rozgar (Employment) Summit in #Lucknow organized by @NHRDN and UP Government

A few weeks ago, I had recieved an invitation from the Director General of the National HRD Network, Dhananjay Singh that NHRDN had partnered with the Department of Labour and Employment of the Government of Uttar Pradesh and they would hold an event on 29th of August.

So yesterday, my colleague from VBeyond, Bala and I made my way towards the Scientific Convention Center at the heart of the city. It was teeming with police and security staff , as the UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the Deputy CM, Minister of Labour and Employment and senior beaureucrats were expected to arrive.

From the NHRDN, Dhananjay Singh, Cheif Mentor of Maruti Suzuki, SY Siddiqui and Former Director of IIM Lucknow Dr. Pritam Singh. Dhananjay in his speech pointed out that UP's job portal Sewayojan is being seen by other states as a best practice. The CM also launched the mobile app of the job search portal on the occasion. It was shared that 600,000 job seekers have registered on the portal

The CM in his speech made a promise that 7 million out of the total unemployed estimated to be 10 million in the state will be ensured employment in the next 5 years. He said that for companies to be attracted to open their enterprises in the state, law and order and simplified labour laws would be a priority, He shared that they have already reformed labour laws and they have been sent to the centre for approval. He stressed that unionisation that is detrimental to the industry will not be tolerated and shared the example of industries in Kanpur and said that UP will not go the way of state like West Bengal. He also stated that he's ordered the engineering colleges who were keen to shut down, to instead use their facilities for skill development and delivering short term dilploma and certificate courses. The government is also looking at each of the 72 districts to have a speciality product for which it has historically been famous and to build the skills in people for that, like shoe-making in Agra, Brassware in Moradabad, Chikan stiching in Lucknow and so on.

Post lunch there were two panel discussions - one was on "Building a seamless Public Private partnership Model for Promoting Employment in State" which was moderated by Muninder Anand (MD - India and South Asia of Center for Creative Leadership). The private industry was represented by R Anand , Sr. VP - HR of HCL. HCL has been on a growth spree in their Lucknow centre and Anand shared with me before the discussion that they are looking to scale up the centre to 5000 people in next three- four years, by primarily hiring local talent. The government was represented by Rajesh Kumar, Mission Director, UP Skill Development Mission. It was an interesting discussion that focused on how employment is different from qualifications, and comprises of ecosystem factors as well as intristic factors like skills of the individual as well as soft skills. Anand was of the opinion that industry is consulted by the government when a policy is made but where the policy often falls short is at the "last mile" where if idustry is involved it can have a better chance of success.

The second panel was on "Small Towns- The next Destination for Mining Talent". It was moderated by K Lalit ,GM - HR, IR & Admin of Tata Motors - which has a manufacting factory for their commercial vehicles division. Others in the panel were Prof. SP Singh, VC of Lucknow University who bemoaned the lack of communication skills in students and wondered about where they could be employable. Alok Sinha, Principal Secretary, Industries, Sanjay Jha, VP-HR and Business Excellence, Mahindra First Choice Wheels and Dharam Rakshit Sr. GM (HR) Hero MotoCorp were the other panelists, The panel was divided over the issue if there was any difference in talent between small town and the metros. One panelist actually shared how on his flight to Lucknow how many people in the flight were Lucknow people who were working in the US and Europe. A point was made that since costs of corporate rentals and land is much lower in small towns what is stopping corporates from opening centres there. Which brought us back to the point of communication skills and how small town talent that does not move out to the metros, often is found lacking in English which is the language of business

As Bala and I were speaking later, the benefit and challenges of being located in a smaller city is something we know very well in VBeyond. We pay a fraction of real estate rentals compared to Mumbai and Gurugram (where we originally started) and since most of our talent is from Lucknow and nearby areas - the cost of living and therefore the compensation is also much lower than what we would pay for the same skills in a metro city.

All in all it was an educational experience for me to attend the Summit - my first such event in a non-metro and I look forward to connecting with the larger HR community to make Lucknow a magnet for talent :)

Coverage of the Summit in the media in News18

Employee Advocacy for #socbiz at @DachisGroup's #SBS2013

Yesterday at the Social Business Summit hosted by Dachis Group and Oracle in Mumbai, I presented (in a room full of Social Media Marketers!) the HR viewpoint of how employees are the key to success in social media and how organizations can leverage them. Also shared some things on what we are doing at Philips in India and our plan for the future.

You can view (and download) the presentation here:
Would also love your thoughts and comments

Employee Advocacy for Social Business Success - Presentation at Dachis Group's Social Business Summit from Gautam Ghosh

Interestingly Dachis Group's Michael Jones presented a very interesting employee portal that leverages gamification to get employees to spread the word on social networks about the organization.

Here are some of the conversations that I had during the course of the day :)

Employer Branding, Recruiting in India and Social Media

A couple of days ago it was my pleasure to moderate a roundtable organized by LinkedIn India and People Matters on "Employer Branding" and how social media is impacting it.

There were about 20 HR and Recruiting leaders from Mumbai at the event, and my co-moderator was Irfan Abdulla, LinkedIn India's Director of Talent Solutions.

Irfan started off the event by showcasing the first India Recruiting Trends survey they had done, along with their annual global survey. Some interesting facts that emerged were:

• 53% of respondents said they would hire more
• 50% of respondents said they would have a budgetary growth in recruiting.
• The biggest obstacles to attracting top talent is (a) Competition (b) Compensation (c) Location (d) Lack of awareness/interest in employment brand
• Recruiting leaders are concerned that their competitors will (a) Invest in employer branding (b) Improve their referral program (c) Invest in new recruiting tools
• Top last landing trends were (a) Utilising social and professional networks (b) Boosting referral programs (c) Upgrading employer branding
• 81% agreed that employer brand has significant impact on ability to hire great talent and 90% companies are increasing or maintaining investment in their employer brand.
• India is ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to regularly measuring employer brand.

So there was a healthy discussion on how the HR professionals present see these trends and what they are doing on the employer branding front. My insights were:

1. Most organizations have defined an Employee Value Proposition, however very few measure their external brand.
2. Most companies seem to be focusing on branding when it comes to B-School and Tech-Schools but very few seem to focus (or know) on employer branding for middle and senior levels
3. Understanding of how sites like Glassdoor and discussions on Twitter are shaping employer brand was very low.
4. About a quarter of the organizations in the room had some kind of social media policy.

Need help to leverage social media to understand what the perception of an organization's employer brand is? Contact me :)

If you want to go through the LinkedIn report here it is

India Corporate Recruiting Trends from LinkedIn Talent Solutions

Related articles

• LinkedIn attempts to quantify the Employment Brand