5 Ways to Sell Your Company Culture and Employer Brand

A large majority of companies already focus on their brand—the customer-facing name that truly tells your customers who or what they are buying.

When a customer thinks about Apple, Nike, or Ford, they are buying because of the brand. Yet, for most companies, the employer brand or company culture isn’t prioritized as heavily since it’s internal.

But shouldn’t your employer brand hold as much weight as your customer-facing brand?

Some of the major players who may have a great brand strategy are leaving the employer brand to chance. The employer brand, or what it is like to work in your company, should be just as important to sell to everyone as your product is.

Companies hire Brand Ambassadors, those employees who are client facing, or public facing, who talk about how great the brand is and shine a positive light on the company to help increase awareness or sales.

While this is valuable, who is telling the behind-the-scenes story about your culture and your employer brand? It can’t just be the CEO, VP, or HR department—it needs to be that all team members are aware.

Here are five great ways to sell your company culture and employer brand to clients and future employees:

1. Storytelling

The best and most popular way to sell your culture is to tell an engaging story about the culture. In a day and age where social media can reach anyone at any time, some companies prefer the team not talk about their jobs on these platforms.

However, this may be the best platform to tell your story and attract top-level talent. Team members are the best brand ambassadors there are, period. If they like working for your company, let them use that voice to tell as many people as they can.

2. Set Up a Current Team Member Interview

Every company has core values that employees should be embodying. So who is more fit to talk about them than the people who live them every day? At Snelling Hospitality, we started a process in our interview and screening where two or three of our team members are interviewed by a potential future employee.

The future employee can ask any question they like about the company, including the culture and experience. After that, the team leaders speak with the candidate and finish up the interview, and let them deliberate for a day. If they are still interested, we move them on to the next step.

3. Hire or Promote a Cultural Ambassador

This person could be a part of the HR team, but they should be the spokesperson for the company culture and attitude. Think of them as the PR firm explaining why people should work for you.

Companies send the HR team to job fairs or colleges, but if your HR team has a hard time articulating the true day-to-day culture of the team, they should not be the ones interfacing with potential new hires.

Ideally, this person would be the most energetic employee—they don’t necessarily need to be the most educated or experienced one at the company. They want to sell why they love working at your company and share how wonderful the people are. They can then assist others in doing the same.

4. Create an Employee Referral Program

To the tune of what we have been talking about, current team members are your best asset. If they love their job and the team, they’re likely to tell their friends and family. A referral does not always have to be a financial reward, but it could be a great way to grow your team, and keep the culture strong.

5. Create Job Descriptions That Sell

As another recruiter mentioned to me a few months back, job descriptions should be more than a list of qualifications or functions. They should sell the role and be truly appealing to the candidate. Sell the perks of working at your company and do it early on.

Candidates want instant gratification, and if it takes too long to get to the good stuff they may not bother reading the entire description. Sell the job early and write the description with the candidate in mind, not the company.

As we head into the future of employment and a lot of great candidates are gainfully employed, it is harder to reach them and tell your story. Hopefully these five tips will help you and your staff gain the traction you need to better sell your culture and employer brand.

Beekeeper helps many hotels like InterContinental, Marriott, and Hilton improve their corporate culture, unified communications, and brand identity. To read InterContinental Miami’s story, download the case study.