7 Employer Branding Metrics You Should Be Tracking
When you track employer branding metrics effectively, you can use the data to form a concrete picture of how well your company is working to attract and retain top talent. These data can show how candidates respond to your organization’s recruiting efforts and allow you to:
- adjust your strategy to connect with better-fit candidates
- make smarter hiring decisions
In this article, we share which metrics you can track to help you not only assess your overall brand health when it comes to recruiting but also gauge the awareness, perception, and loyalty of your brand among your target hiring audience. This way, you can eliminate the guesswork about which aspects of your brand identity will better resonate with potential candidates.
Here’s what to know.
What Are Employer Branding Metrics?
Employer branding metrics are data you can collect that provide insight into your ideal candidate’ preferences, behaviors, and attitudes toward your brand. This information can be used to tailor your branding efforts and better resonate with current and potential employees by addressing what it’s like to work for you.
In other words, you are gathering valuable data that can help guide your recruitment marketing strategies, whether you use the data to hire new employees or promote existing ones. This information helps you identify which channels, messages, and campaigns enhance your brand’s reputation so you can continue to finetune future recruitment marketing efforts.
Which Metrics Should You Track and How?
When tracking how effective your employer branding is, keep your goals for the data in mind. Most companies use employer branding to:
- Show how great it is to work for your company over your competitors.
- Grow a broader candidate pool with the right skills and experience.
- Keep your company’s brand identity consistent across all recruiting platforms.
Here’s what metrics to track, along with which insights you will gain from each and how to measure the data.
1. Candidate Satisfaction Score
A candidate satisfaction score helps your human resource team evaluate how happy candidates are with the overall recruitment process experience. This quantitative measurement can guide you in meeting the needs and expectations of candidates applying for positions within your company. Better candidate satisfaction scores mean candidates view your employer brand positively.
You can obtain candidate satisfaction scores through surveys, interviews, and other feedback. Ask candidates to rate their experience on a scale of one to ten for common aspects of the recruitment process, such as:
- communication
- transparency
- professionalism
- application process
- interviews
This will help you continue to address recurring pain points and improve the recruiting process over time.
2. Employee Referral Rate
These employer branding metrics show you which percentage of new hires were referred to your company by other employees or candidates. A high employee referral rate indicates a healthy and enjoyable work environment. When employees and candidates are satisfied with your company and recruiting process, they recommend you more to other job seekers. Not only does this improve your employer brand, but it also helps you grow a diverse and talented candidate pool.
To measure your employee referral rate, record how each candidate heard about your job opening. You can add this field to your application forms, ask in an interview, or find out through onboarding surveys. You can calculate the rate by dividing the number of referred hires by the total number of hires within a given time period and multiplying it by 100.
3. Offer Acceptance Rate
Another useful rate to calculate is the offer acceptance rate, or how many candidates accept the job offer compared to how many apply. Low acceptance rates might indicate a mismatch between the candidate’s job offer expectations and the actual work environment or package. On the other hand, a high acceptance rate indicates your company is successfully securing top talent with attractive job offers, competitive compensation and benefits, and the overall effectiveness of your recruitment process.
To calculate your company’s offer acceptance rate, divide the number of offers accepted during a specific period of time by the number of offers extended and multiply by 100. For example, if 80 applicants accept your job offer in a year and you’ve offered 100 people a job, your acceptance rate would be 80%.
4. Cost per Hire
The cost per hire is how much your organization spends per new employee. Keep track of this metric to evaluate the strength of your employer brand since it indicates the efficiency and effectiveness of your recruitment process. For example, when your employer branding is strong, you won’t have to spend as much on expenses, such as:
- advertising costs
- recruiting agency fees
- employee referral incentives
- salary and benefits
- turnover costs
A study by Harvard Business Review shows that companies with a poor brand reputation need to increase their salary offers by at least 10%. To calculate these employer branding metrics, add up all your expenditures and divide them by the number of employees hired during a specific amount of time. Track these numbers regularly to discover whether your adjustments to your branding efforts are working.
5. Job Board Reputation
Employers can use popular job boards to evaluate the effectiveness of their branding by managing and monitoring employee and candidate feedback. Since many employers use these websites to promote open positions, they can often gain insight into how well their brand is coming across with their:
- company profile
- job posting quality
- targeted job ads
There are several ways to track this metric, such as:
- tracking application response rates
- reviewing job-post performance
- evaluating candidate quality
- assessing diversity and inclusion
6. Social Media Engagement
Scanning social media for mentions of your company’s hiring process is a great way to keep a finger on the pulse of your brand health. These real-time data provide insights into how your employer brand is being discussed and perceived online by potential applicants.
This is also an important metric to track since many job seekers look to social media to gather feedback about whether your company is a good workplace. A strong employer brand has a wide reach and lots of positive engagement across all social media platforms. Not only should you track the number of post engagements (such as followers, likes, and shares) on your company’s social media accounts, but your social media marketing strategy should also evaluate what people post about your company on other accounts.
7. Employee Turnover
Another one of the employer branding metrics you should track is employee turnover, which is the percentage of employees leaving your organization. Tracking this metric gives you a strong insight into the overall health of your workforce, which can also impact the health of your employer branding.
Higher turnover rates can potentially mean there are issues with employee satisfaction and how well you hire for culture fit. To keep track of this data, log how many employees leave on their own accord and how many are terminated within a given timeframe. Then, divide the number of departed employees by the total number of employees for that timeframe and multiply your answer by 100. You can further analyze this data by segmenting the numbers into departments, teams, job levels, and geographical locations to look for employee turnover trends. This way, you can better pinpoint which part of the recruiting process needs improvement and how.
Continue Improving Your Hiring Process
Now that you know which employer branding metrics to track and how, it’s time to put your recruiting efforts to the test. Start using Monster today and gain access to millions of skilled professionals who are ready to join your team.