Emine

Employer branding and recruitment marketing are two industry buzzwords that HR professionals often use interchangeably. However, they are distinctly different. While recruitment-related marketing refers to the tactics an organisation would use to find, attract, engage and nurture talent, employer branding strategies go way deeper. They are meant to put forth a powerful message that best describes a company as opposed to just creating an impact for a recruitment drive. “And, most HR managers are unable to decode the true meaning of such strategies,” says Susanna Rantanen, who set out to resolve this challenge for companies, and established Emine. The Finnish company works as a guiding partner for growth companies to educate them about the emerging nuances of employer branding and help them build a unique brand image. By utilising a combination of powerful communication, storytelling, and persuasion marketing techniques, Emine helps its clients build a magnetic employer brand in the market.

However, in the pursuit to guiding a company to scale such growth, Susanna believes that demystifying the present HR and business landscape is crucial. Today, talent acquisition and retention approaches are going through a paradigm shift as companies become increasingly millennial-driven.

By utilising a combination of powerful communication, storytelling, and persuasion marketing techniques, Emine help its clients establish a magnetic employer brand in the market

Even before applying to a company, a modern-day candidate assesses its employer’s uniqueness, work culture, and the value it has to offer to them in the long run. “They are always speculating if they can emotionally connect to the brand they are working for?” explains Susanna. While catering to such candidates, companies are expected to find the core values and beliefs they abide by and build a compelling employer message around it. “We help brands tell this story of their growth, company culture, and employee experiences to the market,” she continues.

To accomplish this feat, Susanna has developed an employer brand building concept—Eminent Employer Brand Method. By leveraging this concept, Emine formulates the best-suited employer branding strategy for the client. Then, the company goes on to creating a content marketing strategy for its clients, which covers the entire marketing funnel from strategically-optimized career site to media and channels relevant for the selected target audiences.

During this, Emine categorises the target audience and decides upon the medium to be utilised for content marketing. Based on this, Emine creates content that comprises a unique brand message. “Our primary aim is to present our client’s brand in a way that draws the ideal talents emotionally and makes them identify themselves with the purpose of the brand,” explains Susanna.

Another most important part of this brand building concept is the use of social media for content dissemination. In Susanna’s 20 years of experience in the field of HR, she has truly understood the potential of social media for building a strong employer brand. “Hence, I personally invest a lot of my time creating online content like podcasts and blogs to help companies out there have a clearer peek into the minds of their target audience and build a powerful expression for their brands and ideas,” she says.

Displaying such competencies, the company has already established a solid reputation for building strong and influential branding messages in the Finland marketplace. Emine’s moonshot goal is to expand its business outside Finland and educate global companies about the trends shaping the employer branding and recruitment domain. Driven by this fervour, “I have started making podcasts in English to be able to engage with the international audience,” states Susanna. In its journey ahead, Emine wants to find more ways to combine recruitment and employer branding strategies and continue improving the corporate brand image for their clients.