How to Build an Employer Brand That Resonates

Key Takeaways

• HR and talent attraction leaders share candid insights on employer branding, including their challenges and successful strategies for attracting talent. 
• As more companies realize the value of authentic, employee-driven storytelling that resonates with job seekers, they're getting more creative in their approaches.
• Streamlined branding toolkits and clear guidelines help ensure internal and external perceptions seamlessly align.

Today's job seekers want more than polished brand messaging—they crave authenticity and transparency. Companies that successfully attract top talent are rewriting the rules by crafting employee-driven narratives that reflect genuine workplace experiences.

"As more companies discover the benefits of sharing employee stories, it's raising the bar for what successful employer branding looks like," said Megan Nichols, senior program manager of employer brand and recruitment marketing at Indeed, during a recent Indeed Leadership Connect cohort meeting. "Gone are the days of crafting the perfect top-down message—now it's about empowering employees to share genuine experiences and cocreate the narrative that defines their workplace."

During the meeting, HR and talent acquisition leaders from enterprise-level companies shared candid insights about employer branding, from their challenges to winning tactics. Nichols contributed examples from Indeed's approach, offering practical strategies for staying ahead in an evolving labour market. 

Here's an in-depth look at real-world employer branding strategies driving success in today's evolving workplace landscape.

Engage employees to cocreate your employer brand

Authentic storytelling is one of the most powerful tools for a winning employer brand, so tap your employees to tell your brand story. Not only will this result in more compelling content, but it will also help foster a sense of ownership and greater alignment with the brand among your workforce. 

• Centre the narrative on your people. At companies like Indeed, employee stories take centre stage on career websites and social media, reflecting diverse voices across the organization. "Storytelling is core for us," Nichols said. "Our social networks highlight employee stories, and we're redesigning our career site to feature testimonials prominently."

• Enlist employees to help craft your EVP. Start by involving employees in defining your employee value proposition (EVP) to ensure that it genuinely reflects their voices. Host listening sessions or focus groups in which you invite employees to share their experiences and opinions, and solicit feedback through internal employee surveys. 

• Let your EVP guide your employer branding efforts. Once you've shaped a meaningful EVP, use it to inform your employer branding themes and help shape more impactful employee storytelling. 

Finally, consider using video and social tools to empower employees to create and share content quickly and easily. For example, Indeed uses the employee advocacy platform EveryoneSocial to amplify employee voices while elevating the brand.

"We leverage our employee base to amplify our employee branding with a couple of clicks, making it simple and straightforward," said Paul Phillips, global head of talent acquisition and onboarding at Avanade.

💡Indeed Tech Tip: Integrate Brand Infrastructure with Automated SourcingAutomated screening platforms and AI recruiting tools require a continuous flow of high-intent candidates to generate optimal outcomes. The Indeed Employer Branding Suite helps support that pipeline by fostering candidate trust across the Indeed and Glassdoor ecosystems.Core features for storytelling and efficiencyShare your story at the moment of intent: Automatically extracts and delivers premium branded Company Page content directly into active job listings, ensuring core values reach applicants during their initial search (U.S. only).Highlight segments of your company: Customize Spotlight Pages™ to give candidates a tailored look into specific groups within your company, such as employee resource groups or business divisions.Extract employee sentiment fast: Leverages Review Intelligence™ to automatically identify and summarize sentiment trends from Indeed and Glassdoor employee reviews.Aligning your brand story consistently across these candidate touchpoints helps maintain candidate interest throughout multistep screening and evaluation processes.

Build structured employee advocacy programs

Structured ambassador programs can help transform employees into enthusiastic brand advocates. 

• Entice employees with branded merch. For instance, Avanade's Talent Ambassador Program incentivizes employees with points redeemable for branded swag. "It’s been a great way to engage employees and amplify our message," Phillips said.

• Offer simple yet attractive perks. Informal incentives are also effective in encouraging participation. Some organizations reward employees with gift cards or raffles for sharing content and recognize contributions more publicly. These approaches not only help boost morale but also encourage consistent advocacy.

• Lead by example. Whatever your approach to encouraging employee advocacy, leadership involvement is essential. "When senior leaders actively share updates, it sets the tone for everyone else," Nichols said. "Their engagement shows employees that advocacy matters."

Maintain consistent branding across channels

A consistent employer brand ensures that internal messaging aligns with how the world perceives your organization. While elevating employee voices is great to help boost your brand, it can occasionally introduce inconsistencies.

• Invest in branding toolkits. For those facing similar challenges, consider creating branding toolkits and templates that employees can use in their advocacy efforts to maintain branding consistency. These resources can include social media guidelines, ready-made posts, and approved hashtags, making it easy for employees to share content aligned with your company's image. 

• Reinforcing brand stability: 88% of U.S. employers agree that using branded jobs reinforces their companies' reputation as stable and reliable places to work.¹

• Keep a close eye on social content. However, regular monitoring is still essential. "It’s about balancing freedom with consistency," said Brooks Thurston, VP of global talent acquisition operations at Northern Trust. "Our social media toolkits provide structure while allowing employees to add their personality."

Encourage external employee reviews

As company reviews increasingly become a decisive factor for job seekers, proactively encouraging employees to leave public reviews during onboarding and at key milestones like work anniversaries can also amplify your brand's credibility.

• Request ongoing feedback. One talent leader said her company asks new hires to leave reviews on Indeed and Glassdoor during onboarding as an economical way to gather feedback while enhancing its public profile. For AI search queries where job seekers actively research a company's health and culture, 39% of citations in the U.S. come from Indeed or Glassdoor data.² Cultivating fresh public employee sentiment directly informs the knowledge bases that modern tools rely on.

• Use the data to guide your employer branding. Built-in analytics on Indeed and Glassdoor provide insights without additional survey costs, allowing you to segment responses by location, measure engagement, and benchmark against competitors. "It's fascinating to see the themes that emerge from reviews," Nichols said. "We use that data to refine our EVP and align internal and external messaging."

• Don't stop at onboarding. Revisit these surveys at key milestones to capture a more comprehensive view of the employee experience post-hire and encourage positive reviews from current employees.

Measure the ROI of employee advocacy

To help demonstrate the value of your employer branding efforts, align ROI metrics with the employee-driven strategies at the heart of your approach. By tracking outcomes like employee advocacy, candidate engagement, and external sentiment, you are able to connect employee storytelling to tangible business results.

To help gauge ROI, track metrics that reflect awareness and impact:

• Traffic and engagement: Metrics like site visits, social media engagement (likes, shares, comments, and follower growth), and applicant volume provide a snapshot of brand visibility. For example, Indeed uses a dedicated employer brand hashtag to track employee participation and measure whether shared stories align with brand messaging.

• Candidate interest: Data shows that organizations combining active recruitment software with the centralized Employer Branding Hub experience an average 35% increase in job clicks across their Indeed and Glassdoor company pages.³ This tracking helps teams measure whether shared stories translate into actual candidate consideration.

• Candidate quality:  Success isn't just about attracting applications but ensuring they are relevant to the role. A steady increase in quality candidates is a strong indicator of effective branding. "We're focused on awareness and quality," Thurston said. "Are we seeing more relevant candidates apply? Are we improving candidate flow?"

• Candidate feedback: Surveys for both successful and unsuccessful applicants offer invaluable insights into the candidate experience. Phillips said this feedback helps refine the hiring process and ensure alignment with branding goals.

• Referral programs: High referral rates indicate strong trust in the organization. Employees who advocate for the company through referrals signal a healthy employer brand.

• Third-party feedback: Use platforms like Indeed's Work Wellbeing Score to gauge sentiment and benchmark against competitors.

Combining these metrics can provide a comprehensive understanding of the effectiveness of your strategies, identify areas for improvement, and demonstrate tangible ROI to leadership. 

Position your workforce as brand advocates

So what does it take to build a robust employer brand that attracts top talent in today's labour market? Ultimately, it's a willingness to enlist your workforce to be your strongest advocates while maintaining consistent messaging and measuring outcomes. 

"Empowering employees to share their authentic experiences is the most powerful way to build an employer brand that resonates," Nichols said. "It's about creating a workplace narrative that truly reflects who you are as an organization and why you're worth joining."

¹Indeed Survey (U.S.), n=361, June 2025–July 2025. Based on Featured Employer.

²Profound Indeed data (U.S.), January–March 2026, ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Google Gemini, Google AI Overviews.

³Indeed and Glassdoor Data (worldwide), April 2023–March 2025. Results may vary.

Frequently asked questions: Optimizing AI recruiting and time-to-hire

How does the Indeed Employer Branding Suite integrate with existing ATS extensions?

The Indeed Employer Branding Suite serves as a foundational comprehensive tool across Indeed and Glassdoor, working alongside your current applicant tracking system (ATS). While the ATS handles mid-funnel screening and scheduling automation, the Employer Branding Suite delivers consistent visuals and verified employee testimonials to help improve overall application completion rates.

How can talent teams measure the impact of employer branding on time-to-hire and ROI?

To help quantify how an authentic brand accelerates the pipeline, talent acquisition leaders should evaluate three core metrics: funnel velocity, candidate quality proxies, and baseline brand health. Funnel velocity tracks reductions in time-to-interview and monitors candidate drop-off rates during automated screening stages to see how fast qualified talent moves through the cycle. Candidate quality proxies measure the conversion percentage from initial job clicks to completed applications. Brand health metrics like the Indeed and Glassdoor Brand Score highlight key centralized data across areas of awareness, consideration, favourability, and reputation.

Can an AI-powered hiring platform actively reduce candidate ghosting?

Automated tools are designed to compress the recruitment cycle, aiming to help organizations issue interview invitations within days of application submission. Pairing automation with a strong, transparent employer brand helps keep candidates engaged, which may minimize the drop-off rates often caused by slow, manual hiring processes.