Employer Branding and Talent-Relationship-Management : Improving the Organizational Recruitment Approach

Abstract: In todays business environment there is an increasing recognition that human resources are a valuable asset to distinguish a company from its competitors. This tendency, in combination with increasing job mobility among employees and an ongoing demographic change, has turned the labour market into a competitive arena. Employer Branding and Talent-Relationship-Management are two fairly new concepts in the area of Human Resource Management, which have the aim to differentiate companies on the labour market and to support them effectively in their endeavour to approach, acquire and retain the most talented employees. In this study, the internal and external determinants, which form an appealing employer brand are investigated. A conceptual framework is first constructed and later modified in the lights of the empirical findings gained through four conducted interviews with four large organizations. In contrast, a deeper insight in the prioritisation of different TRM elements is gained by means of a quantitative study among university graduates and international scholarship holders. The major findings outline that there is a continuous challenge in creating a level of consistency in favour of a credible employer brand message. Furthermore, it becomes apparent that a change or adoption of the employer brand in the short-term is difficult due to the culture and values of the respective organization. In addition, the employer brand plays an important role in preventing unplanned impulses, which result out of negative impacts from the business environment. The comparison of the major findings among the different groups within the quantitative study shows that the instruments ‘Information about vacancies’, ‘Scholarship’, ‘Company Workshops’ as well as ‘Exclusive Information’ are among the most valued ones in comparison with ‘Periodical Services’, ‘Personalized Websites’ or ‘Giveaways’, which most respondents do not perceive as interesting.