4 ways to recruit by using your company culture

1 – Use feedback from your current team about what makes you great
2 – Communicate your company culture through images and videos so they’re eye-catching
3 – Soak that culture in your onboarding process
4 – Promote your best bits through social media

What is meant by company culture?

Company culture is who your people are and how they do what they do. If you have created an environment where employees feel safe and supported, that’s part of your culture. If you’re a business that has implemented the four-day-work-week, then that’s part of your culture! If you offer free fruit and snacks during lunchtime, that’s part of your culture!

But that culture might not always be a positive one, and it’s where you’ve got to be careful. If you’re losing a lot of great employees in a short span of time, that might indicate burnout culture. If your management team are privy to sniping or their teams speaking ill of people when they’re not there, that could quickly become ingrained – and you don’t want that – because the climb out of that pit can be incredibly difficult!

According to TeamStage, “86% of prospective workers wouldn't seek employment in a company with a bad public image. To make matters worse, 65% would probably leave their company if it received negative publicity in the news or social media because of negative company culture.”

So how can you use your business culture to attract more candidates? Let’s take a look.

Use feedback on your culture by your team

When you’re presenting your company to candidates, it needs to be representative of what that candidate can expect on their first day! Take some time to brainstorm what makes your business great with people from all parts of the company.

One meeting should be enough for you to put together all of the best bits – and it will actually create a positive culture at the same time because your staff will feel like they have ownership of the company image! If a public forum isn’t suitable, you can always whip up a quick questionnaire and send it around.

Once you’ve gathered your feedback, make sure to put it in your job descriptions! Tell candidates what their future colleagues think about the workplace!

However make sure you don’t use up too much job advert real estate on it. Candidates want you to communicate the key points quickly and effectively. Download our free guide for more details on effective job descriptions.

Encourage your colleagues to leave reviews on Glassdoor. It has 67 million monthly visitors, so there’s a good chance your candidates will be researching you while they consider their application!

Use images and video to engage talent

Reach out to ambassadors in your company and conduct a short interview. A minute or two will do, with a couple of simple questions:

“What makes our business different?”

“Why should someone join our team?”

Don’t stress about production value. All the candidate needs is to be able to see and hear the answers! Once it’s complete, integrate that video into your job advertisement. Any good applicant tracking system should have a candidate portal that will let you host these videos in an eye-catching way! According to Firefish, candidate engagement can increase up to 800% when videos are used.

Take pictures of your team at work. Even in the age of Zoom, a quick screencap of a company meeting can go a long way so your candidates can see the smiling faces of the people they’ll soon be working with! Of course, if you can achieve pictures of your team for company profiles, that can be even better.

Prioritise culture in the onboarding stage 

When your candidate reaches the onboarding stage, consider using a portal to make them feel safe, secure, and excited about their first day! Jobtrain has designed a state-of-the-art Welcome Hub for users of our applicant tracking system. It provides the best onboarding experience available with videos showing off your company philosophy and individual content to get the candidate ready for their induction!

Your culture should be priority 1 during the onboarding stage, so make sure to include those videos and images that you’ve been creating! Write about what makes you so different. Our talent intelligence team noted that 8% (1 in 12) of candidates withdraw after accepting an offer prior to start. The best way to make sure you don’t lose the best talent to competitors is by making them feel valued and excited about their first week. Your culture is the avenue into that engagement!

Promote your culture through social media

Consider the demographic of the people you’re trying to reach and ask what messages speak to them. It’s a candidate-driven market now, so your culture needs to meet those candidates where they are. For Generation Z, your company culture is what’s most important. 2 in 3 are looking for a safe, secure workplace that nurtures growth above anything else.

LinkedIn and Instagram are still the leading ways to reach a young, professional workforce, despite the majority frequenting the likes of TikTok. Take that feedback you gathered earlier in the process and turn it into infographics by sprucing up their quote about your business! Share those infographics via LinkedIn or Instagram. If a member of your team is raising money for charity, share that as well and wish them luck on the challenge they set themselves! Celebrate the achievements of your colleagues!

But remember social media is basically fish and chip paper. As soon as it’s posted, it’s likely to vanish in the wind. Don’t just post a couple of pictures of your culture and move on. You need to regularly post them – even if they’re the same picture or video – to make sure they don’t get missed during recruitment drives.

In summary

• Company culture is who your people are and how they do what they do.
• 86% of candidates wouldn't work for you if your company culture looked poor.
• Gather feedback on your culture to get a bank of quotes and ideas.
• Don't write about your culture in a waffley way. Communicate what makes you great quickly and effectively.
• Using images and video to show off your culture and colleagues increases engagement by up to 800%.
• Your culture should be the priority during the onboarding stage. See if your recruitment software has a portal to help with this.
• Promote your culture through LinkedIn and Instagram - but keep it regular and consistent!