For professional services firms—where expertise and talent are core assets—employer branding plays a vital role in attracting top talent, improving retention, and driving success. Business owners, Human Resources leaders, and marketing professionals should view employer branding as a strategic tool for shaping the perceptions and experiences of both current and prospective employees.
Often, though, employer brand or recruitment marketing take a backseat to project work or marketing and business development. Some of the most common messages seen are “We’re Hiring!” or “Join our growing team!” If there’s a job posting, it’s clear that you are hiring. And often the “growing team” has not really grown at all, yet is experiencing perpetual employee turnover, unable to retain talent they attract. Employers should develop their employer brand with intention, seeing it as an integral contributor to the success of their business and people. Employers can support their talent strategies by moving beyond generic messaging and bringing the stories and benefits of their workplace to life – and to prospective candidates.
Many recruitment resources are spent on specific job opportunities. Employer brand and recruitment marketing focus on genuinely attracting the right candidates for an organization, including those candidates who may not be actively seeking new employment opportunities.
This article is adapted from Russell Pollard‘s presentation Beyond “We’re Hiring!” A Presentation on Employer Brand. Learn more about booking this or other presentations here.
What is Employer Brand?
An employer brand is the public image or reputation a company has as an employer, distinct from its consumer or corporate brand. It’s how an organization is perceived as a workplace by current, past, and prospective employees. A strong employer brand attracts high-quality candidates, retains employees, and promotes engagement and loyalty by aligning company values, culture, and practices with employees’ needs and expectations.
When discussing employer brand, it’s essential to distinguish between employer brand statements and employer brand sentiments.
Employer Brand Statements:
These are the messages that companies directly communicate about themselves as employers. These statements, such as “We are inclusive, innovative, and collaborative,” are controlled by the employer. While they may reflect the company’s intentions, they often risk sounding generic or disconnected from reality. Prospective employees do not take these messages at face value and – especially given the importance of career decisions – will likely look for more precise information.
Employer Brand Sentiments:
Unlike statements, sentiments are based on the actual experiences, feelings, and perceptions of employees, industry peers, and even job candidates. These sentiments are formed organically and can either enhance or damage an employer’s reputation. They are harder to control but can be influenced through authentic leadership and workplace practices. Dominant employer brand sentiments – those experienced or shared by a majority of current or potential employees – become employer brand or reputation.
Why Employer Brands Matter
A well-managed employer brand offers several tangible benefits to professional services firms.
Attracting Top Talent:
Along with remuneration and benefits, today’s workforce places a high value on a company’s culture and reputation. A compelling employer brand helps differentiate your firm from competitors and attracts professionals who are not just looking for a job, but a fulfilling career experience. Recruitment marketing helps ensure an employer’s opportunities are seen, relevant and attractive to people who not only have the knowledge and skills for respective roles, but also those who are aligned with the organization’s mission and values. An intentional approach to establishing employer brand reduces a firm’s dependency on peer networks and expands the employer’s reach to qualified candidates that they otherwise may not be aware of or connected to.
Improving Employee Engagement:
Employees who align with a company’s values and culture are more likely to remain loyal. When the employer brand reflects a supportive, growth-oriented environment, retention rates rise, reducing the costs associated with turnover. While marketing is an important aspect of establishing employer brand, the most important work is internal in shaping employees’ experience and remuneration to be desirable. Managed well, the work done to build an employer brand will benefit organizations not only in recruitment efforts, but also engagement, productivity, and retention of their current staff complements.
Enhancing Market Perception:
Employer brand sentiments, when positive, contribute to the overall business reputation. This can affect not just recruitment efforts, but client relationships and partnerships as well. Trust, built through consistency between employer brand statements and actual workplace experiences, fosters confidence both in the market and among employees. Increasingly, clients and prospective staff care that businesses treat people well and have socially-minded values embedded in their people-related systems.
Key Elements of a Strong Employer Brand
To build a strong employer brand, firms must address several key elements:
Employer Value Proposition (EVP):
Your EVP is the promise you make to employees in return for their skills, experience, and commitment. It should be more than just a set of generic phrases. Instead, it needs to resonate with what professionals value most— remuneration, career development opportunities, workplace culture, and interesting project opportunities. For professional services firms, this can also include unique factors like offering meaningful project experience or sharing expertise from diverse global perspectives.
Trust and Authenticity:
Authenticity is critical to building trust. Employer brand statements that aren’t backed by real action can lead to disillusionment among employees, which quickly spreads through peer networks and industry channels. For example, if a firm promotes itself as a technology leader but fails to provide up-to-date tools and training, employees may feel they are falling behind, eroding trust in the employer brand. Or if it espouses values of diversity and inclusion, yet does not promote women or hire internationally-trained talent, those values are not demonstrated.
Ongoing Communication:
One of the pitfalls many organizations fall into is only communicating their employer brand when they are hiring. Recruitment marketing should be a continuous process that extends beyond open job postings. Firms should actively share stories of their workplace culture, leadership, and employee accomplishments throughout the year, demonstrating that their values are more than just recruitment tools or marketing jargon. Especially for intermediate, senior or sought-after, specialty talent, building awareness of your organization as an employer can help attract them and have trust already established by the time recruitment discussions commence.
Building an Employer Brand: A Framework for Success
Establishing a successful employer brand requires a thoughtful approach. Below are some steps that HR and marketing professionals in professional services firms can follow:
Internal Research:
Start by assessing your current workplace culture, employment processes, and leadership practices. Conduct employee surveys to understand how well your EVP aligns with the actual experiences of staff. Are there gaps between what’s promised and what’s delivered? This step helps identify areas for improvement and ensures authenticity in your messaging. Are their policies or processes that can be introduced to improve the employee experience and employment relationship? The internal research is important not only for shaping employer brand, but also supporting employee engagement, productivity and retention.
External Research:
Analyze your firm’s presence in the market—what are people saying about you? Review online platforms, industry forums, and peer networks to understand your reputation. This information will help you align your employer brand with external perceptions and adjust your EVP accordingly. While platforms like Glassdoor are perhaps weighted with negative experiences that business leaders dismiss, employers need to take them to heart and understand that they are out there and do contribute to employer brand. The prevalence of these reviews reinforces the need for organizations to manage their employer brand.
Craft Relevant, Evidence-Based Messages:
It’s crucial to build brand messages that are not only relevant but backed by evidence. Professionals want to see evidence that what is promised is real and that people – especially people who they relate to either by personal or professional characteristics – can be successful in the organization. It’s not enough to say “We value diversity” or “We are highly engaged”; firms need to offer evidence that these employer brand statements are true.
Establish Recruitment Marketing:
Employer branding is a long-term effort, not a one-time campaign. Recruitment marketing is more than job postings – it’s the application of marketing knowledge and approaches, expect the target audience is not of clients, but of prospective talent. Plan ongoing communication strategies across multiple channels, including social media, industry events, and employee stories. Consider the lifecycle of your business and how your brand may evolve over time. Without an intentional employer brand, an employer’s reputation may be shaped by employees who worked at the business twenty years ago. With recruitment marketing, organizations are giving prospective talent current and accurate information to make career decisions.
Evaluate and Adapt:
Finally, employer branding is not static. Regularly evaluate the effectiveness of your strategies by gathering feedback from both employees and candidates. Adjust as needed to keep your employer brand relevant and aligned with your business goals. Just as internal research is important to shaping employer brand, monitoring employee experience is integral to managing employer brand over time. Peer networks and word-of-mouth are prevalent in professional services communities.
Concluding Thoughts
For business owners, HR leaders, and marketing professionals in professional services firms, building a strong employer brand is an essential strategic initiative. By focusing on authenticity, trust, and continuous communication, firms can attract and retain top talent while improving their overall market reputation. In the end, a well-defined employer brand is not only about hiring—it’s about creating a workplace where people want to belong and can thrive, and communicating this with pride.