Employer brand manager role is becoming increasingly popular, but do you know what this role entails?
And, does your role include the responsibilities that are central to managing your organisation’s employer brand perceptions?
Last week, we explored the career pathways in HR marketing versus traditional marketing.
This week, I want to introduce you to the two sides of the same gorgeous coin: the roles of Internal and External Employer Brand Manager.
Both carry the torch for a company’s reputation as an employer, but from different angles.
For HR professionals, talent acquisition specialists, and marketing gurus, understanding these roles is not just crucial—it’s career-defining.
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The future of employer branding: Developing employer branding careers
The employer branding landscape has become massively popular over recent years.
More and more organisations and growth businesses have grasped the importance of becoming much better known and more competitive as employers due to their crippling talent attraction and retention challenges.
You only need to type ‘employer brand manager’ on LinkedIn’s search bar, and you’ll get an ever-ending list of people working in employer branding.
As someone who has dedicated her entire +20 year career to modernising HR, recruiting and employer branding, it’s time to help you see, once again, what the future of employer branding presents for you as we approach 2024.
I introduced the idea of a modern talent marketing team for the first time a few years ago.
Heck, I even wrote an eBook on the six pivotal roles in the modern talent marketing team!
One role that is more important than anything [in this team] is the role of the employer brand manager.
This person owns the employer brand perceptions of their organisation and manages the employer branding strategy, activities and budget.
Susanna Rantanen
This person owns the employer brand perceptions of their organisation and manages the employer branding strategy, activities and budget.
The role of the employer brand manager
This role of the employer brand manager is super pivotal if you intend to drive results from employer branding.
I’m talking about employer branding results that make you proud and make your business management look again and say: “Wow, this person is really up to something with employer branding, and we should definitely give them a proper budget and let them deliver us more results like that!“
The roles of internal and external employer brand managers will be pivotal for wise and business-savvy employers.
Both are essential in championing a company’s reputation as a desirable employer, though they approach it from unique vantage points.
For those immersed in HR, talent acquisition, marketing, and employer branding, digging deeper into these roles will be a great career progression step, paving the way for professional evolution.
Who owns the employer branding budget?
Why HR owns employer branding and why it actually makes sense?
Why your business marketing is not the employer branding expert?
Internal Employer Brand Manager: The gatekeeper of the company’s reputation and custodian of the corporate soul
Let’s dig deeper into the role of an internal employer brand manager.
This role will be an excellent career development step for HR people who are not into marketing that much. Instead, they are deeply passionate about working with employee experiences, internal communication, company culture and developing the employer brand competitiveness from the inside out.
I think, I’m going to refer to this role as the employer brand product manager responsible for the attractiveness and competitiveness of the product called employee experiences and the company culture.
Imagine a storyteller who weaves narratives not just with words but with lived experiences within a company.
That’s your internal employer brand manager.
They are the voice and the ears of your company’s culture. The ones who know your organisation’s heartbeat and understand and nurture positive employee experiences.
These professionals don’t just communicate a brand—they live it, breathe it, and nurture it from the inside out.
They are the strategic thinkers who align the company’s values with the employee experience, ensuring that the internal reality matches the external promise.
Their role is to inspire loyalty and transform employees into brand ambassadors who genuinely love where they work.
This authenticity is a magnet for top talent—an aspiration for anyone in HR or talent acquisition.
To sum it up, in this role, you are the gatekeepers of the company’s reputation and the custodians of the corporate soul.
External Employer Brand Manager: The visionary for the ‘Outside’
On the flip side, an external employer brand manager brings a fresh perspective and offers an objective lens.
They are the managers who own, implement and execute the employer brand strategy externally using communications and marketing as their tools.
External employer brand managers are the architects of powerful narratives that strike a chord with your prospective candidates and future employees.
In this role, you are the dedicated individual who charts the course of your employer’s brand narrative from the inside out – for the external audience.
In this role, you are the dedicated individual who charts the course of your employer’s brand narrative from the inside out – for the external audience.
Susanna Rantanen
You ensure that every thread of your company’s employer branding story aligns with the organisation’s vision, mission, values and culture.
I want you to see yourselves as the curators of your employer’s image, coordinating and managing all facets of employer brand content creation.
Day to day, you focus on building employer brand awareness, growing employer brand affinity and returning the business-worthy value from all the employer branding investments to the company.
External employer brand managers manage and coordinate content ideation, creation, and marketing.
They act as employer brands’ content marketing managers to ensure all content created and posted delivers their key messages and strengthens their desired employer brand perceptions.
You may also create compelling content and innovative campaigns that resonate deeply with potential recruits, casting the company as a leading place to work and helping your recruiters do their jobs.
This way, you know it is not just the employer brand content that is in line with the employer brand strategy. The recruitment marketing content also speaks the same employer brand story through your company’s recruitment campaigns and processes.
If you would work with any of our employer branding clients, you’d bring your Magnetic Employer Brand strategy into play. Enjoying this systematic and data-driven approach with the Magnetic Employer Branding master plan and blueprint, that keeps your employer branding on the course and helps you to stay on top of the game while delivering noticeable value for the business.
Employer branding careers – A Career path in modern employer branding paved with aspirations
For those working in marketing and communications, the role of an employer brand manager is not just a job—it’s a calling.
It’s for the innovators, the creators, and those passionate about shaping company cultures and perceptions.
Whether internal or external, these professionals are the architects of the workplace of tomorrow, making both roles super aspirational employer branding career opportunities.
Stepping into the shoes of an employer brand manager means taking command of the narrative, strategising and implementing plans that draw in and keep the best talent.
Stepping into the shoes of an employer brand manager means taking command of the narrative, strategising and implementing plans that draw in and keep the best talent.
Susanna Rantanen
Let these roles elevate you—both professionally and personally—as you become the ghost writer or the architect for your employer.
Help the organisation position itself as the guide and the mentor for your employees now and in the future, as we do in modern employer branding.
Embrace your career journey to master modern employer branding
Embrace your career journey to master modern employer branding, whether your direction will be as the external strategist executing plans that attract and magnetise externally. Or as the internal architect who works to retain the crème de la crème of talent!
Grow with your current role. Let it take you to places in the modern world of employer branding —literally and figuratively.
Whether you are a seasoned professional or an aspiring newcomer in HR, talent acquisition, marketing, or employer branding. The role of internal and external employer brand manager offers you a unique chance to make a significant impact with employer branding.
These aren’t just positions; they’re gateways to becoming key contributors in your company’s journey and in sculpting the fabric of the workforce.
As you explore the depths of these roles, promise me, you’re not merely managing a brand; you’re crafting legacies.
Step into the limelight by aiming for an employer branding career as an employer brand manager. It’s inspiring, it’s empowering, and I promise, it beckons to you!
The Certified Magnetic Employer Brand Manager™️ program
If this episode inspired you, can you contribute your wishes, ideas and preferences for the Certified Magnetic Employer Brand Manager™️ program we plan to introduce in 2024 at Emine’s Talent Marketing School?
We are revamping the entire Talent Marketing School because what we tried the first time around did not work.
Contributing your ideas, feeback and wishes will take only a couple minutes of your time, I promise.
But it will mean the world to us and help us continue to guide you in your career and work in employer branding and other HR marketing.
Remember, it’s about finding where your passion meets purpose, isn’t it?
That’s how it has been for me with employer branding and recruitment marketing.
Hey, this is it for this week!
Thank you for tuning in to ‘Building a Modern Employer Brand podcast.’
Join us next time as we continue to explore the fascinating world of employer branding.
Until then, keep building your brand. Happy Holidays!
Moi moi!