One has probably heard of personal branding or company branding. But employer branding and individual job branding? Probably just a few must be familiar with them. But the fact is that both have been around for some years. It’s only that in the last few years that they have risen from their dormant slumber and are today popular terms that are used very often by people from the world of HR.

A 2015 survey revealed that around 75% of job seekers consider a prospective employer’s brand as well as individual job branding when deciding to apply for a job in the employer’s firm while only 57% of employers had worked on their branding and still worse, a lesser percentage of individual jobs were branded. Taking notice of job seeker’s aspirations and thinking, employers today are focusing more on creating an effective employer branding as well as individual job branding, using new strategies to stay competitive in the battle for new talent that enter the job market every year.

While there are a host of traditional and modern recruitment methods, employer branding and individual job branding today carries a lot of weight and is valued deeply by job seekers. Employer branding should focus on presenting a public image that communicates the business profile, working culture and environment. Likewise, individual job branding should focus on presenting an impressive profile of the nature of the job, what it entails and how the job seeker would benefit and thrive in such a job in the company as well as in the marketplace.
 
Here we are talking more of individual job branding and so the question is how to develop a strong individual job brand?

How to Brand Individual Job?
Today's talent acquisition poses plenty of challenges for employers. Every individual job needs to be branded well in a way that instantly appeals to job seekers. By individual job branding it does not mean mere uploading of Logos or Job Listing on Job-boards, but a combination of vocal advocacy along with job-listing in the right way that will certainly help employers in attracting the right talent to jobs in their organization.

• Highlight Nature Of The Job: The nature of the job like what it entails, involves and such likes should be highlighted in an effective way so as to generate a positive perception in job-seekers mind. The job can be presented as distinctive, trusted, exciting, reliable and above all, beneficial to one’s career.

• Highlight Employee’s Testimonials: Promoting the experience and stories of top employees helps to effectively construct not just the individual job brand but also the employer’s brand as well. They instinctively appeal to the aspirations of job-seekers who could see themselves creating similar stories as employees. 

• Highlight Pay Package & Prospects: Offer something unique to the job-seekers like say a better pay package with handsome perks or prospects of greater challenges and opportunities that comes with the job. This will appeal instantly to job-seekers who look for something special apart from a strong employer brand so as to enhance their career and financial profile.

• Use Social Media: Encourage usage of Social Platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc, by employees to detail their experience in the workplace. They not only help project and elevate the nature of the job but also effectively presents the employer in a positive light. It’s a form of positive advertising the other way around without extra costs being incurred and more importantly, they reach out to broad audiences. Also allowing employees to use the social networks and online forums to establish their own brands can work well to create an effective corporate image as well.

• Proper Communication: Employers should maintain an effective open communication with their employees so that the nature of the job gets highlighted effectively and acquires prominence. By engaging and maintaining proper communication channels with employees, a positive brand image gets promoted to job-seekers.

When an individual job is presented as a strong and strategic employment brand, the following benefits can be extracted:

•    Captures the mind and heart of job-seekers.
•    Helps build up a sense of excitement and an urge for working for the company.
•    Instills a compelling reason to work at the organization.

Building up an individual job brand is no easy task for it requires the right combination of research, review of competitor’s jobs brand, and proper execution and positioning of the job brand. Projecting a positive image and integrating them with social media channels and technology can work to build up an individual job brand that resonates with the aspirations and goals of the job-seekers.