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20 Ways To Destroy Your Employer Brand

By Paul Slezak - Dec. 15, 2022
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A business can’t just rely on its product brand to succeed. Your role as an employer (of choice) is to ensure that the experience and feedback of employees past and present is just as powerful as the message you promote through your product or service.

Your employees (and potential employees) can be your best sales and marketing channel. But they can also kill your brand quite literally at the push of a button. It can take years to build brand credibility and just seconds to destroy it.

Here are 20 ways that can destroy your employer brand.

Key Takeaways:

  • Writing a sloppy job ad with spelling mistakes or vague descriptions can turn away candidates before they even consider your company.

  • Creating a chaotic or bad first impression by seeming disinterested or having a messy office will turn away candidates.

  • It’s important to remember that having a negative impression with one candidate can affect the rest of your employer brand.

20 Ways to Destroy Your Employer Brand

20 Ways to Destroy Your Employer Brand

Here are 20 simple ways to completely destroy your employer brand:

  1. Write sloppy job ads. When you’re advertising a new role, write the job ad really quickly just before you leave the office. Don’t bother proof reading it, or running a spell check. For bonus points, be completely vague about the role, or how you’ll make the selection. Ignore all the advice in this guide on how to write better job ads.

    Lazy job ads
  2. Use language that discriminates carelessly. There’s no better way to turn large numbers of applicants away at the gate, than carelessly discriminating against gender, age or race. If you’re lucky, you might even end up breaking the law! If you can only do one thing to destroy your employer brand, make it this one.

  3. Build a 12-step application process. Every step you add in an application process is another opportunity to lose candidates. Clunky, outdated recruitment systems (not naming names) can also help. Alternatively, a one-click apply process (eg via LinkedIn) probably has the opposite effect. Your call.

  4. Be deliberately vague about how to apply. Ask candidates to ‘call for a confidential discussion or to learn more about this exciting opportunity’. They’ll probably think you’re a recruiter just fishing for names to add to a database. But if they do call to speak to you, make sure the gatekeeper tells them to apply online. You’ll take another good hit on your employer brand.

    Employer branding
  5. Ignore responses from some candidates. All candidates expect a response. Needy huh!? And it’s not only GenYs. It turns out anyone who applies has an interest in where they’re up to in the process. So, ignoring applicants and leaving them in limbo is a great way to get them offside.

  6. Engage a recruiter who doesn’t understand your business. Traditional recruiters generally work across dozens of employers. They also have strict KPIs and big targets. Many are spread too thin, and will do anything to meet their numbers to make commission. Whether it’s deliberate or just an oversight, they can destroy your employer brand on your behalf! Now that’s efficient outsourcing.

  7. Keep candidates waiting at least 10 minutes for their interview. Nothing screams ‘I’m in control’ like keeping people waiting for meetings. It’s the perfect way to stamp your authority, while avoiding any direct conflict. Strangely, this also applies for candidates, who’ve taken time out to come to your office. Keep them waiting long enough, and they might just walk straight out the door to a different job offer – perhaps even with a competitor. Nice work!

  8. Create a chaotic first impression. This one’s actually surprisingly easy. Candidates come in to meet you, and your receptionist looks totally disinterested, or is on a personal call. The front desk is a mess, and your office isn’t much better. It’s amazing how much a fresh set of eyes from the outside will read into all this. Besides, who wants to appear professional to potential future employees anyway?

  9. Run unstructured, inconsistent interviews. Adopt a casual, chatty style to show them what a laid back, fun boss you are. Avoid any structure or process altogether, and make sure you completely confuse your candidate while you’re at it. Ignore this framework and template, if you want to hurt your employer brand with unstructured interviews.

  10. Exploit candidates for free strategic advice. This one’s a tradeoff. You can hurt your employer brand, but get free strategic advice at the same time.  The trick is to ask candidates to solve real business problems, masked as ‘case study questions’. It’s like a free consulting session! Then implement their answers, without offering them a job. A perfect way to destroy your employer brand. What are you waiting for?

  11. Provide a vague job description. Or better yet, nothing at all. Our favorite approach here is to avoid a giving candidates a specific job description, and tell them that you’ll ‘tailor the role around the best candidate’. While this seems smart and flexible (qualities that might help your employer brand), the lack of clarity actually has the opposite effect.

  12. Tell white lies to candidates to get them over the line. Coffee is for closers, so do anything to get candidates over the line. If this includes telling little white lies, then go for it! You could fib about the salary, culture, management style or working hours. After all, it’s only your employer brand on the line.

  13. Conduct every interview outside the office. Never invite candidates into the office. Instead, only conduct interviews in cafés, hotel lobbies or even bars. It’s a great chance to show off your great taste in venues (coffee or wine!), and that you’ve probably got something to hide back in the office.

  14. Create a sweatshop culture, promoted as ‘work hard and play hard’. Asking your team to do a bit of overtime every now and then is one thing. But to really harm your employer brand, keep them back every night or on weekends. Provide pizzas and cabs, and promote it as a ‘work hard and play hard’ culture.

    Work hard play hard

  15. Build a public profile of your company that’s totally different to the real story. Forget about the reality of daily life in your company. Build a public profile that matches what you want, rather than what actually happens. This is a surefire way to destroy your employer brand, both with current and prospective employees.

  16. Become a remote manager and hide behind email.Keep the door to your office closed, or work from home. Don’t walk the floor with your team, and rely on email for all communication. Be as invisible as possible, and you’ll harm not only your employer brand, but your personal one.

  17. Pay your staff late. Cash flow is king. If that means you need to pay bonuses, commissions or even salaries late, then so be it! And while you’re at it, don’t bother paying any statutory entitlements either! After all, surely you’d rather keep some cash in the bank to survive than keep your employer brand intact.

  18. Talk trash about past employees They don’t work for you any more, so just say whatever you think about them (focusing on the negative!). For real impact on the employer brand, bag them out in team meetings, public forums or even to clients who may have dealt with them previously.

  19. Avoid giving any feedback, or conducting any performance reviews. Employees crave feedback. But delivering it properly is painful and time consuming. Why not just save all the hassle by avoiding the topic altogether? At the end of year, ignore this advice to conduct regular performance reviews. If anything, just give them a few bits of feedback in the back of a cab after a meeting or down at the pub.

  20. Make public commitments you never plan to follow through. The final step is a bit like lying to candidates to get them over the line. Make loud, public statements about actions or initiatives you plan to take based on staff feedback. Then do nothing about them. Most people forget quickly anyway, right?

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Employer Brand FAQ

  1. What factors affect employer branding?

    Factors that affect employer branding are the salary and benefits offered to employees, and the work environment. Employees want to be paid a fair salary with good benefits. If they don’t think they are being paid a fair wage, they will start to look for a job that will offer them a fair wage with good benefits.

    Employees also want to have a work environment that will help them be productive. If they are not able to fit in with the company culture, they will look to find a job that will fit what they want.

  2. What are reasons that a business fails?

    A business can fail if it has improper planning and lack of leadership. When a company does not have a proper leader who inspired their employees, it will cause those employees to find another job that will. Also, without proper planning and structure, a company will fail. Employees as well as customers want structure to know how to do business.

  3. How can I change my employer brand?

    To change your employer brand, you must first analyze your company culture and how your candidate perceive your company. Employees want to work somewhere that is positive and inviting. If your employer brand doesn’t offer that, you will lose candidates.

    To understand where the strength of your company culture is, speak directly to your employees and see what they feel about it. You can also ask for their feedback on what they would want changed.

  4. What is negative employer branding?

    Negative employer branding is when there is a negative impression of the company from past and present employees. Having negative employer branding can affect you getting new potential candidates.

Final Thoughts

In isolation, use any of these steps to destroy your employer brand. But for a wholesale, ‘smash and burn’ program, follow them one-by-one. Your employer brand will never recover!

PS, take all of these steps with a grain of salt.

After all, what idiot would really want to destroy their employer brand!?

Author

Paul Slezak

With over two decades of experience in the recruitment and human capital industry, Paul Slezak has established himself as a transformative force in the realm of leadership and career coaching, group facilitation, and talent acquisition. His unique perspective, drawn from his early career as a leader in global recruitment firms and his entrepreneurial success with his own start-up, has enabled him to make a significant impact on leaders, teams, and organizations across the world. Paul's passion for helping others achieve success and high performance is evident in his commitment to transforming leaders and their teams at local, national, and international levels. He specializes in promoting the importance of human-centered intelligence, focusing on soft skills such as authenticity, transparency, and trust to complement business-centered acumen and drive better workplace outcomes. As an impartial facilitator, Paul brings his expertise to team offsites and strategy days, ensuring alignment on goals, values, and culture while keeping participants on task. His engaging and energetic presence, coupled with his unique "entertraining" and "edutaining" delivery style, enables him to connect with audiences both large and intimate, sharing personal and professional anecdotes that inspire and energize.

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