Josh TolanGone are the days of creating an employer brand to appeal to the masses. The once-popular trend of showcasing company cultures, employee experiences, and all-around incredible benefits and perks is losing its luster as companies focus on a more targeted approach with brand resonance.
Brand resonance is the act of taking what you learn from job seekers and creating a brand that attracts the kind of candidates you want to hire. As a result, employers and human resource professionals deploy strategic branding efforts, rather than casting a broad net.
To effectively use brand resonance, you must first learn how to improve it through understanding candidates’ opinions, job search journeys, and values. Video interviews are one of the top tools to gain this critical insight.
Here’s how you can use video interviews to improve your brand resonance:
Take a hint from candidates’ questions
Candidates’ responses and questions during interviews offer unique insight into their qualifications and personality. However, there’s also important information you need to gather post-interview to help improve your company’s brand resonance.
Use video interview recording capabilities to understand what’s most important to potential candidates and where your current branding strategy may be missing the mark. Review questions candidates frequently ask interviewers during live video interviews. Then, determine what these questions reveal about critical details you’re not offering before the interview stage.
For example, if candidates frequently ask about career development opportunities during interviews, use their queries to improve your brand resonance. Share your company’s beliefs about growth opportunities on social media, in job descriptions, and on your career site. Give them specific contact details to speak with someone directly if they have any questions regarding their potential future at the company.
Assess responses for brand interpretation
How candidates interpret your brand determines the success of your entire hiring process. Quality candidates who misunderstand your brand may be assessed as ill-fitting. On the flip side, candidates who aren’t the best for your team could pass through with no red flags.
During one-way video interviews, ask candidates to describe why or how they fit in with the company. Use their responses to determine if your company branding is relaying the right message to potential hires.
You may find candidates who say they connect to your culture, mission, and values in an inaccurate way. This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the wrong fit, but instead, your branding is sending the wrong message.
A/B test ways to better portray your company culture, mission, and values through branding efforts. Use varying messages, tones, images, and employee testimonials to discover which branding efforts best resonate with your target talent.
Apply feedback from post-interview surveys
If you’re not already using post-interview surveys to improve your brand resonance, now is the perfect time to start. Information regarding where they researched your company and if your process, culture, and other candidate experiences met their expectations should be gathered during surveys to provide you the most valuable brand resonance data.
Invite candidates to complete a two or three question survey following video interviews. Send invites via email with a branded video message to personalize survey outreach. Thank candidates for applying and ask them to answer a few quick questions.
Ask candidates questions to determine:
- Where they researched your company
- Their initial interpretation of your brand
- If the company’s culture, mission, and vision were what they expected once they reached the interview stage
Use the results to determine how your brand is received from the initial connection through the interview process.
Build branding questions into video interviews
Video interviews allow you to ask structured questions that enable you to collect fair and consistent responses across all candidates. Take advantage of the unique benefits of this tool by adding specific branding questions into your video interviews to gain insight on how your brand resonates with top candidates.
Include questions regarding:
- How they believe your company will help them reach their goals
- Why they want this particular role
- What stood out to them about your company
Responses to questions focused on these details offer direct insight into what your target job seekers seek out in employers and why your job listing caught their eye. Frequently review and compare responses to gather more accurate data on what needs to be improved to create the most effective branding strategy.
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