Factors Affecting on Employer Brand Attractiveness among Young IT-Specialists in Russia

It is important to have a competitive advantage in the market for modern companies. To create the best products and services it is needed to have the best employees. Such employees and their knowledge are the basis of intangible assets and intellectual capital of the company. They should be considered as sources of strategic advantage. Therefore, recently more and more companies pay attention to the development of the employer brand. The aim of this study is to develop marketing initiatives to increase the attractiveness of the employer brand among young IT specialists. Chapter 1 covered the basic concepts related to internal marketing, the employer brand, its value proposition, the relationship between the corporate brand and the employer brand, approaches to the creation and promotion of the employer brand. In the second chapter a description of the target audience of young IT specialists according to the theory of generations was presented; their main personal characteristics and career expectations were identified. The attractiveness of the IT sphere for young professionals was analyzed, a desk research of the factors of employer choice was conducted, best practices of the employer brand development were studied. The third chapter is devoted to conducting an empirical study of young IT-specialists. An in-depth interview was conducted with the target audience in order to identify the factors of employer choice, and then a quantitative survey was conducted. According to the results of a quantitative study, factors of attractiveness of the employer's brand were identified, and based on these factors, using cluster analysis, groups of respondents differing in behavioral characteristics were identified. For each group, a set of marketing initiatives was developed to increase the attractiveness of the employer's brand, and general recommendations were given for the target audience.