By Michelle Boyde

Do you offer your employees a bonus for referring a friend or acquaintance for an open position? You probably do. Many companies offer these incentives to find people that match their culture. Human beings like and trust what they know.

This is also true of young graduate talent: 29 per cent of UK students use friends and family for information about employers. This trend is prevalent throughout the world: 25 per in Germany, 28 per cent in the US and 27 per cent in Brazil. They may not know you – the employer – but they are ready to believe the experiences of the people they do know. But, for a generation of Facebook users, who “you know” has shifted; they certainly use the word ‘friend’ more loosely than their parents did.

Furthermore, 78% of internet users trust peer recommendations.

If you are not yet listening to the chatter in social networks, then you really should be. It’s an ideal way of seeing yourself through the eyes of talent.

Your employer brand is global and just like the game Chinese Whispers, everyone who comes into contact with it tells it in their own way – do you know what they are saying?

By Michelle Boyde

The FT reports today that the gender pay gap has fallen to a record low, from 12.2 per cent to 10.2 per cent, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.

In the 2010 UK Student Survey, Universum asked respondents what criteria they classed as diversity in relation to the work place. Ethnicity was the number one dimension of diversity (59 per cent), followed by gender (41 per cent). On closer inspection, 46 per cent of female students believe it’s a factor of diversity, but only 36 per cent of men.

But this rather begs the question: do the other 54 per cent of women and 64 per cent of men not see gender as a matter of diversity in the work place?

Companies need diversity of all types to be innovative and leaders in their field. And, creating an EVP which is true and transparent which appeals to both genders is a challenge for many employers. But finding the skills you need in a diverse group of people is critical and only a strategically planned employer brand can deliver this in the long term.

We know there should be more women in senior positions and they certainly should be earning equal to their male peers. The 41 per cent of students who don’t count gender as a matter of diversity, is this because they simply assume gender should no longer be an issue, or may Gen Y continue to proliferate the gender imbalance in the work place?