Suitable offer: The 7 Rules of Employer Value Proposition

An employer needs a brand if they want to reach a candidate’s field of vision. And it is essential to match the external picture and the real experience of the employees. Otherwise, all the efforts are in vain. The core of the Employer Brand is the Employer Value Proposition (EVP). It includes the advantages of the company as an employer. It should also explain your differences from competitors. IT recruiting agency Indigo knows almost everything about the IT professionals selection process. However how to prepare a value proposition that will attract talents’ attention?

Whom do you need?

To understand what should be included in your EVP, you need to define your receiver. What kind of people do you need and what will make them interested? Try to segment your target audience. If we are talking about IT recruiting, it is not necessary to divide it into a few groups according to some narrow criteria. For example, it makes no sense to develop an offer separately for a front-end developer, full stack developer, and similar positions. Perks and the chance to learn something from the “elders” will attract Junior specialists. The same time, experienced employees wouldn’t be surprised by perks. Projects content and long-term prospects are the most significant factors for them. Employees at the non-IT field, even who work in IT companies, could be attracted, for example, by an innovative culture. The newest technologies are essential for technical specialists. If the company has subsidiaries in different countries, it is necessary to take into account the specifics of each market segment and understand local candidates expectations.

If target audiences interests differ, you can think over several variants of the value proposition. But they indeed should not vary drastically. We are not at the eastern market, where you can find the specific additive for every taste.

By their names

Your value proposition should be more in-depth and precise than the slogan “We are the best!”. It might include many attributes from different categories. For example the industry, the market position, the product, the social responsibility of business, the quality of management, the opportunities for development and career, the atmosphere, the balance of work and personal life, the level of compensation, culture, office, etc. Those could be both “rational” elements that are easy to measure (working conditions, salary), and some of “emotional” elements, which will be visible only over time (team relations, leadership, the right to make mistakes, etc. )

Key differences

It is vital that the value proposition include your specific features. These might be something that makes your company stand out from the crowd of other rivals and competitors. Especially if we are talking about IT recruiting, where competition for getting one specific candidate can be quite high, it is difficult to distinguish features and advantages from the total mass of companies. To make it easier to understand, try to analyze your staff feedback. Ask your employees what motivates them to stay on your team and reject other offers?

Right Emphasis

It is impossible to emphasize everything at once. Do not split candidates’ attention by describing several dozens of benefits. An employer spends a few seconds to look through a CV. A candidate spends the same time looking at vacancy. It will be necessary to determine which 5-7 attributes are the key ones. These are your company’s most robust features. They create full company vision and reputation that you want to be associated with, wherever the name of your company was mentioned.

Exchange Expectations

It is very important to show the benefits received by your employees. It will help candidates form their expectations. But the work that company is going to get in return should also be explained.

Nothing but truth

Adults rarely believe in utopia, so there is no point in convincing people that the company is paradise on Earth. Every business has its peculiarities, and only the context has its value. For someone, an office in the center of the city is a huge plus, and for someone that would be useless information. Someone is looking for a high guaranteed compensation, and someone will be ok if their total income depends on the results of work. If the value proposition includes elements that may not suit everyone, this is normal. Non-ideality sounds more sincere and is easier to believe in. For example, if the work involves a non-standard schedule or other features, it’s better to discuss it in advance. People will know the truth after having spent a night on a sofa at the office.

Nothing lasts forever

The value proposition is not created forever. It stays the same only as long as the organization does. The EVP sometimes needs to be reviewed, especially if the changes are significant. The startup, where decisions were taken by the three founders during the lunch break, and structured company with well-established processes, and three hundred employees at the office are two different worlds with their distinct advantages. It is important to ask yourself regularly, is our value proposition is still relevant, both for employees and for those who can become a part of your team?

And again, there is no sense to color the facade, if the devastation stays in the house itself. People who are already working in your team are the best ambassadors or inexorable executioners of your brand.

Ask people what makes them leave the company, and what, on the contrary, keeps them? If you do not punish for the truth, feedback can become the best foundation for the value proposition and the employer’s brand.

• Ongoing training. Web development is a sphere that develops leaps and bounds. Conservative web developer is not your candidate.
• The ability to understand security issues. A good programmer cares not only about how to implement the task but also about how to protect the project from unfortunate incidents. Talk to the candidate about the secure sessions, CSRF, SQL-injections, XSS-attacks, and everything will become clear.
• Using of ready-made solutions (code reuse). There’s nothing wrong with this, but on the contrary, the ability to quickly find a ready solution and adapt it to yourself is considered a sign of a high-level professional.

It is clear that finding the right specialist in web development is not so difficult. Go through this process with in your head, and you will be pleased with the results