Impact of Employer Branding and Applicants’ Intentions to Apply

Abstract

Employer branding is defined as “a targeted, long-term strategy to manage the awareness and perceptions of employees, potential employees and related stakeholders with regards to particular firm” (Sullivan, 2004). Often, we can observe that the applicants have got some image or perception in their mind regarding their prospective employer. Hence it is very essential to match between these two. The present research attempts to explore various dimensions of recruitment marketing offers that may result in the applicants’ intentions to apply. The target audience for the study was graduate business school students who are about to enter the labour market. Research was carried out in two phases to analyze qualitative and quantitative dimensions of the target audience. In the first phase, three Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were carried out with an average duration of 70 minutes each. This qualitative data helped understanding various dimensions of the target audience and in designing the questionnaire. In the second stage, a survey was conducted where total number of 250 students was approached from which 220 responses were collected. The data analysis was done using SPSS for multidimensional scaling. Employer brand value proposition, company reputation and perceived job characteristics were observed to impact the applicant’s intentions to apply.