The Best Employer Branding KPIs to Measure Your Progress

Employer branding campaigns produce plenty of benefits for recruiters and organizations alike, but still, convincing C-suite executives that employer branding is worth real investment can be an uphill battle. Employer branding leads need to provide executives with hard proof that their efforts can and will yield a real return on investment, or ROI. By tracking these employer branding KPIs (key performance indicators), you'll gain actionable insights into what's working and what you can do to improve your employer branding program.

Of course, because hiring objectives vary from company to company, some employer branding KPIs will be more relevant to your goals than others -- but with that said, let's dive in.

Cost-per-hire and time-to-hire

An effective employer branding strategy should significantly decrease your cost-per-hire, which is the total amount of money spent on bringing a new employee to your company. That sum can include administrative costs, recruiting software, referral incentives, and relocation, among other factors.

Powerful employer branding crystallizes your company's appeal to the candidates who'd be most drawn to joining your team and serves as a megaphone for your employee value proposition. So, once it's time to send out an offer, both your hiring team and the candidate will be exceedingly confident that they're a fit -- and you'll waste less time and resources courting applicants who don't belong at your company in the first place.

By comparing your cost-per-hire and time-to-hire before and after launching an employer branding campaign, you'll be armed with two employer branding KPIs that demonstrates just how effective your program has been.

Candidate relevance

Your employer brand will only stand out if it is so specific that the best-fitting candidates will see your company as the only option to find the work experience that they're looking for. An employer brand that is generic and loosely defined will be less likely to catch the eye of those ideal candidates, and your recruiting team will spend much more time sifting through applications that don't seem to be tailored to the role you're hiring for. One way to track candidate relevance is by keeping tabs on your applicant-to-interview ratio, and how it changes over time, particularly before and after increased employer branding efforts.

Candidate diversity

Diverse and inclusive companies thrive for a variety of reasons, and the process of building a diverse and inclusive team starts before a candidate even walks through your door for an interview. If your company genuinely values diversity and inclusion, you can communicate that fact through your employer branding content. And by broadening your reach towards historically marginalized talent communities, you'll be well-positioned for an uptick in candidate diversity -- which will put your team in the position to create a better product, market more effectively, and retain top talent.

Candidate flow

Though one of the chief benefits of employer branding is that it allows your hiring team to focus in on the best-fitting candidates, the fact remains that there's power in numbers. By tracking candidate flow -- which refers to the number of candidates that apply for jobs at your company within a given time period -- you can see how your employer branding campaign has increased the number of options your hiring team can consider for an open role.

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Glassdoor rating

Many people hesitate to visit a restaurant nowadays before reading some reviews, so how can you expect a candidate to commit to a new full-time job without reading up on other employees' experiences? Your company's Glassdoor rating will rank amongst your easiest employer branding KPIs to track, arguably the most difficult to shape, and undeniably the most public. But smart, authentic employer branding practices will put your company in a position to provide a positive work experience to all new hires, which in turn will breed stronger employee advocacy in the form of a higher Glassdoor rating.

More generally, you can track your online employer brand sentiment through social media conversation, press, and surveys.

When it comes to your employer brand, the adage that "all press is good press" most certainly does not apply.

But by actively seeking feedback from applicants, current employees, and former employees, you'll be empowered to highlight the best aspects of your reputation while addressing the worst -- and that can only mean good things for your employer brand.

Employee retention

It's one thing to land a talented new hire. It's another thing entirely to get that person to stick around for the long haul, while avoiding the cost and resource drain of finding a replacement. Authentic employer branding will attract applicants who are genuinely great fits for your team, whereas an unclear or undefined employer brand may lead to a rude awakening for both the new hire and the company once the day-to-day work begins. Comparing and contrasting how long employees stick around before and after you implement an employer branding campaign can showcase the longterm value of your EB efforts.

Content engagement

The more often that relevant candidates watch your employer branding videos, read your employer branding blog posts, engage with your employer branding social media content, and browse your careers page, the more likely it is that those candidates will apply for one of your open roles. Fortunately, these employer branding KPIs are easy to track through Google Analytics and other web and social media analytics tools, and can be a convenient tool to showcase the reach of your employer branding efforts.

Keep in mind, however, that the sheer number of page visits and video views may tell an incomplete story of the impact of your employer branding content. This content should be highly targeted, so be sure to track metrics like time spent per page visit or video view, as well as your career page click-through rate to get a better sense of the quality of engagement.

There may be no better source of concrete insights into the reach and impact of your employer brand than employer branding video -- so if you're keen to jumpstart your employer branding efforts in an easily measurable way, get in touch with the Uncubed Studios team.

Think we missed any additional KPIs in this writeup? Let us know!

ABOUT UNCUBED STUDIOS

Launched in 2016, Uncubed Studios is a full-service creative agency with a client list representing the most influential employers on earth along with the high growth tech companies.

The team that brings the work of Uncubed Studios to life is made up of award-winning experts in cinematography, journalism, production, recruitment, employee engagement, employer branding and more.

Interested in speaking with Uncubed Studios? Email us at studios@uncubed.com

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