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Two primary approaches have been used to study employment brands and branding. First, there is a long history of the study of organizational attraction. Second, in the past 10–15 years, there has been growth in a hybrid stream of research combining branding concepts from the consumer psychology literature with I/O psychology frameworks of organizational attraction and applicant job search behavior. In this chapter, we take an entirely different approach and suggest that the theoretical models built around product/service brand knowledge can readily accommodate employment brands and branding without hybridizing the framework with I/O psychology. This merging of employment brand with product and service brands is accomplished simply by recognizing employment as an economic exchange between workers and employers and recognizing workers as cognitive and emotional beings that vary in their talents and have their own vectors of preferences for the employment offering. After developing a testable model of the components, antecedents, and consequences of employment brand knowledge, we review the existing employment brand and organizational attraction literature and identify multiple opportunities for additional research.

Massive shifts in the recruitment landscape, the continually changing nature of work and workers, and extraordinary technological progress have combined to enable unparalleled advances in how current and prospective employees receive and process information about organizations. Once the domain of internal organizational public relations and human resources (HR) teams, most employment branding has moved beyond organizations’ control. This chapter provides a conceptual framework pertaining to third party employment branding, defined as communications, claims, or status-based classifications generated by parties outside of direct company control that shape, enhance, and differentiate organizations’ images as favorable or unfavorable employers. Specifically, the authors first theorize about the underlying mechanisms by which third party employment branding might signal prospective and current employees. Second, the authors develop a framework whereby we comprehensively review third party employment branding sources, thus identifying the different ways that third party employment branding might manifest. Third, using prototypical examples, the authors link the various signaling mechanisms to the various third party employment branding sources identified. Finally, the authors propose an ambitious future research agenda that considers not only the positive aspects of third party employment branding but also potential “dark sides.” Thus, the authors view this chapter as contributing to the broader employment branding literature, which should enhance scholarly endeavors to study it and practitioner efforts to leverage it.

Purpose: The purpose of this chapter is to explore the use of employer branding as a key strategy in talent management, in an effort to retain employees in the context of the Irish hotel industry.

Methodology/Approach: This chapter was part of a wider body of research, and combines this discussion with a sequential mixed-method approach. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 hotel general managers in Cork City/County, and these were combined with 417 employee questionnaires conducted in the same hotels.

Findings: This chapter finds that hoteliers in Ireland are aware of the necessity to tackle the area of employee retention, are conscious of the importance of positive employer branding to aid in decreasing employee turnover, but that many are just at the genesis of their journey in the area of talent management. Indeed, many hotels have not yet implemented a talent management plan into their organisation and need to be more innovative in their approach to talent management through positive employer branding.

Practical implications: Employees strongly believe that those hotels which possess a positive employer brand have more committed employees, while those with negative reputations in terms of their employment affect an employee’s intentions to leave the business. Therefore, employers must put strategies in place to enhance their employer brand if they are to attract and retain employees.

Social implications: The chapter makes recommendations to hotel managers as to how employer branding can be utilised as part of their overall talent management strategy to increase employee retention in a challenging employment market, improving overall performance, and leading to sustained competitiveness. The areas of talent management, employer branding, and employee retention are interlinked, and it is imperative that hotels implement strategic initiatives in these key areas.

Originality/value of paper: This chapter contributes to the overall talent management area, offering further guidance to operators who are embarking on this strategic direction. It supports the link between talent management and employer branding.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an essential part of business, and companies should genuinely incorporate social responsibilities toward internal and external stakeholders in their operations. The most important stakeholder group is the personnel, which is why employers should pay attention to strengthening the employer–employee relationship. The purpose of this text is to demonstrate the connections between employer branding and CSR.

Theory on employer branding and CSR indicates that there are both strategic and operational connections. Strategically, employer branding can be considered the outcome of the co-operation among branding, CSR, and human resource management (HRM). At an operational level, there are several CSR activities that can be of use when developing and implementing economic, functional, and psychological employer-branding elements.

In order to establish how CSR is used in employer branding in practice, a qualitative content analysis of the website communication of three multinational IT companies was made. All of the companies have been acknowledged for their strong internal employer brands, and the analysis focused on what types of CSR activities they communicate externally as part of their employer branding efforts.

The study concludes that CSR can be relevant to employer branding and presents a categorization model for facilitating a concrete integration of CSR and employer-branding elements.

The following is an introductory profile of the fastest growing firms over the three-year period of the study listed by corporate reputation ranking order. The business activities in which the firms are engaged are outlined to provide background information for the reader.

The pace of transformation in the business landscape has made it mandatory for the human resource function within the organisation to evolve, adapt and adjust to the demands of the marketplace. This chapter focuses on HRM 4.0 and the change in employer branding strategies due to rapid increase in digitalisation, for example, through analytics and big data. A conceptual framework is provided that links HRM 4.0 with employer branding strategies.