Event Recap: Employer Branding, What it is and How to Develop Your Employer Value Proposition

Stephanie Pure, Maria Stein, Kortney Kutsop, and David Lee

On Tuesday, September 10 Northeastern welcomed employers to campus for a presentation and discussion on Employer Branding. Representatives from a variety of organizations attended the event such as CH2M Hill, Seattle City Light, and Fluke. Employer branding is the process of establishing an organization as a great place to work. The goal of employer branding is to attract, engage and retain talented candidates and employees. Employee turnover is becoming increasingly expensive and retention can reduce costs. The importance of Employer Branding started in the 90’s, but had become more relevant about 15 years ago, and now it is a key component of any organizations Human Resources and employee communications functions.

There were two presentations, one given by Kortney Kutsop, the Senior Account Director of Universum. Kortney gave some compelling statistics about what current students and what potential employees are looking for in an employer from the 2013 America’s Ideal Employers Survey. Employees are looking for stability within their position. This data marked a large change from previous years where characteristics such as challenging, unique and enjoyable ranked higher. 

David Lee, Global Employer Brand Leader at Amazon and former consultant talked about the use of games to recruit employees; games get people excited and encourages involvement. Lee used games as part of the Go Army campaign by the U.S. Army. The campaign heavily utilized social media and advertising to encourage people to join the Army. Lee even played a few games with the audience and it was clear that is was effective at engaging participants. Lee also spoke about the benefits of differentiation between employer branding and consumer branding. 

One participant J. Paul Blake, Senior Management Consultant at CH2M Hill, found the presentation very informative and interesting, he “enjoyed the various ways that employees and potential employees learn about companies via their website, social media, and through the rest of their online presence” 

Want to learn more about Employer Branding? Click here