Link: http://www.ere.net/2008/07/21/assess-your-employment-brand-using-an-audit-checklist/#more-3342

...by Dr John Sullivan for ERE.net

One of the hottest topics in talent management today is employment branding, in part because applicants rank brand as the second most influential factor when deciding whether to accept an offer.

Just five years ago, less than 1 in 10 Fortune 200 companies had a dedicated role to manage the employment brand, yet today more than 1 in 4 Fortune 200 companies have dedicated headcount and budget to the practice.

Employment branding is the practice of managing your firms image or reputation as an excellent place to work. Because so many factors influence how an organization is perceived, employment branding is loosely defined.

Most of the individuals involved in employment branding use a learn as you go approach, actively trying a market basket of brand manipulation activities to see what works and what does not. Quite often, initial employment branding efforts are weak and full of elements that need serious improvement.

To have an effective employment branding function, periodically conduct an assessment or audit of the three critical branding areas...
Your branding programs design elements
The information that you provide
The approaches used to establish each of your sub-employment brands

Whether you want to audit your existing effort or get a new effort off on the right foot, here is a quick audit checklist you can use to judge where you are now and where you need to be.

Incidentally, if your goal is to build a powerhouse employment brand like Google, recognize upfront that each individual audit item is important, so do not skip a single one... read on...

so... where are you up to?