How to Market Your Startup to Job Seekers: A Guide to Employer Branding in 2022

The Challenge: Attracting and Converting Talent

When it comes to job interviews, the image that typically comes to mind is one of a candidate selling themselves to an employer. In 2022, though, the roles are reversed — now it’s startups that need to sell a great employee experience to potential team members.

With a third of employed people planning to look for a new job this year, high-growth startups have unique challenges (and, as we’ll discuss, opportunities) in the realms of recruitment and hiring. For startups, it’s not enough to rely solely on name recognition and the volume of passive applications that larger corporate companies have. And sure, you can direct prospective employees to an “About Us” page, but that doesn’t usually give them a realistic view of what it would actually be like to work for a company. Because of this, potential candidates find it hard to imagine exactly how they’d fit into an organization — and if that organization would be a good fit to begin with.

This is where employer branding comes into play.

It would be an understatement to say that the worldwide events of recent years have forever changed the way both employers and employees view the workforce. As a result of both the physical and behavioral changes that companies had to make, startups are waking up to the fact that employees, both existing and prospective, expect different things from their employers now. In fact, LinkedIn recently published a guide on effective employer branding and coined the term “Covid Clarity” to represent how many employees are re-evaluating “what they want from their working lives.”

And just how much of an impact is employer branding having on recruitment and retention?

The Solution: Employer Branding

In today’s candidate-driven job market, job seekers expect more from their potential employers right off the bat.

Companies, startups especially, can no longer rely on stock recruitment tactics of the past, and instead, need to incorporate and invest in strong employer branding efforts. This means establishing and upholding a company’s reputation, mission, values, personality, and of course, culture. So now that we know what employer branding entails, why should companies invest in it?

Download our ebook to learn more about the key benefits of employer branding.