by Josh Fox

co-authored with Michael Pelts, RightJoin

What do folks think about your company? Every organization has a public image as an employer (and if you don't, all the worse), and the image determines whether in-demand professionals will agree to be in touch.

The hands-down champion in employer marketing to software engineers is Google, which regularly gets photo-shoots of its toy-filled offices in top media like the New York Times. These campaigns are planned to draw in the best candidates in the industry and also to increase retention among current employees. In the final calculation, they more than pay for themselves with a significant reduction in recruiting costs.

In many small and medium sized companies, the priorities cannot justify the budget for long-term branding campaigns to boost the corporate image. But employers have started to realize that strong employer branding can make the difference between excellent hires and unfilled reqs; or, even worse, filling the position with unqualified candidates. Luckily, employer branding can be done on the cheap by combining it with recruiting: They both have the same target audience, and they boost each other when done together.

In this article, we'll explain how to do this efficiently, focusing on the area we know most about: software engineering. By taking advantage the professional respect that existing employees have earned, organizations can cost-effectively improve recruiting success and at the same time carry out employer branding on the cheap. When you strengthen your employer branding with peer-to-peer recruiting, you can improve your conversion rate of contacts to successful hires, and also to ramp up to a better class of employees -- the most essential element in the success of any organization.

Ads: Attractive or Repulsive?

What is the goal of a recruiting campaign? To repel unsuitable candidates or to attract the desired ones? Unqualified applicants are going to show up, regardless. Don't create a repulsive ad! A recruiting campaign is marketing exactly like any other marketing campaign. When you expend time and money to draw in suitable candidates, while at the same time pushing away the ones you don't want, you accomplish neither