Employer Branding Tips to Improve Your Candidate Quality in 2025

Subscribe for updates

Get talent acquisition best practices, trends, and news delivered directly to your inbox.

By entering your email, you agree to receive marketing emails from JobScore

Your company’s reputation as an employer plays a crucial role in attracting the best talent. In fact, 75% of candidates consider an employer’s brand before even applying for a job.

Employer branding isn’t just about attracting more candidates — it’s about attracting the right candidates who will thrive in your unique environment. When done effectively, employer branding can streamline your hiring process, save valuable time, reduce recruitment costs, and help you identify truly qualified candidates.

But you don’t need a massive budget or a dedicated team to build a compelling employer brand. This article provides practical, actionable employer branding tips to enhance your reputation as an employer of choice.

Define your employer value proposition

Your employer value proposition (EVP) is the foundation of your employer brand. It articulates what makes your company a great place to work and why talented professionals should choose you over other opportunities.

Start by identifying what truly sets your company apart. Conduct internal surveys or informal conversations to discover what your current team members value most about working at your organization. Ask questions like: “What do you enjoy most about working here?” “What would you tell a friend if they asked why they should work here?” and “What opportunities have you had here that you might not have had elsewhere?”

Use this feedback to craft a concise EVP statement that captures the essence of what makes your company special. Keep it authentic, specific, and differentiating.

Revisit your EVP periodically to ensure it still accurately reflects what your company offers as you grow and evolve.

Craft effective job descriptions

Your job descriptions are often a candidate’s first interaction with your employer brand. They should accurately represent the role while also conveying your company culture and values.

Here’s how to craft effective job descriptions:

Use inclusive language. Review descriptions for words that might unintentionally discourage a diverse group of candidates. Tools like Gender Decoder or Textio can identify potentially biased language to help you broaden your candidate pool.
Highlight internal growth opportunities. Explain how the role contributes to organizational goals and how team members can learn new skills and progress in their careers.
A/B test job descriptions. Consider A/B testing different versions of job descriptions to see which generates better applications. Test different titles, requirement phrasings, or benefit highlights to find what resonates best.
Visuals. Video content can dramatically increase engagement, but it doesn’t need to be professionally produced. Simple smartphone recordings of team members sharing what they enjoy about working at your company can be very effective. Keep videos short (1-2 minutes) and focus on authenticity rather than production quality.

Optimize your careers site

Your careers site is the hub of your employer brand online. A thoughtfully designed careers section on your website can significantly impact candidate interest and application quality.

Essential elements for your careers page include:

Your employer value proposition
Information about your company culture and values
Current job openings with clear descriptions
Details about your hiring process
Team member testimonials or stories
Benefits and growth opportunities

Make sure your careers site is mobile-friendly, as many candidates browse job opportunities on their phones. Include a clear call-to-action for interested candidates, whether that’s applying directly or joining your talent community for future opportunities.

Enable employee advocacy

Your current team members can be your most convincing employer brand ambassadors. Their authentic voices carry more weight with potential candidates than any official company messaging.

Here’s how to enable effective employee advocacy:

Start with a positive workplace. Remember that employee advocacy only works if your company truly is a great place to work. Focus first on creating a positive work environment, and advocacy will follow naturally.
Set up a simple testimonial collection system. This could be as straightforward as a quarterly email asking for feedback on what your team members enjoy about your company, or brief interviews during regular one-on-one meetings.
Foster authentic social media sharing. Create a positive, supportive environment where team members naturally want to talk about their workplace. Never pressure anybody to post about the company, as forced advocacy feels inauthentic.
Provide shareable templates. Make it easy for your team members to post by creating company images, suggested hashtags, or sample posts they can customize. Tools like Canva offer free templates that can be branded with your company colors and logo.
Measure and recognize advocacy efforts. Track which content generates the most engagement and which team members are most active in sharing. Consider offering small incentives for participation, such as company swag or gift cards.
Create “Day in the Life” showcases. Feature different roles at your company through authentic glimpses into daily work. These can be as simple as photos with captions showing a typical workday or short videos of team members explaining their projects.

Build a social media presence

Social media can help you amplify your employer brand to reach a wider audience and increase your chances of finding your next hire.

Here’s how to build an effective social media presence:

Focus on one or two platforms. Choose the platforms that best align with where your ideal candidates spend their time. LinkedIn is typically essential for professional recruiting, while Instagram is better for creative roles and GitHub is appropriate for tech positions.
Create a manageable content calendar. Quality and consistency matter more than quantity. A realistic schedule might include posting 2-3 times per week on LinkedIn and once weekly on your secondary platform.
Repurpose content efficiently. A team member spotlight can become a LinkedIn post, a website testimonial, and content for your careers page. Always adapt the format and tone slightly for each platform rather than posting identical content.
Track meaningful metrics. Focus on engagement rates (likes, comments, shares) rather than just follower count. Pay special attention to which posts generate direct messages or applications from interested candidates.
Share authentic content. Post about company culture, team achievements, professional development activities, and behind-the-scenes moments. Avoid overly polished content that feels corporate and impersonal.
Respond promptly to engagement. How you interact online reflects your company’s communication style and values. Quick, thoughtful responses to comments and messages demonstrate your company’s responsiveness.

Streamline your hiring process for candidate experience

The candidate experience throughout your hiring process directly impacts your employer brand. A streamlined, respectful process creates positive impressions — even among candidates who aren’t ultimately hired — feeding back into a positive employer brand.

Here are some worthwhile ways to improve your candidate experience:

Create a standardized interview workflow. Map out each step from application review to final decision, establishing clear objectives for each stage. Keep the structure consistent but allow for personalization based on the role and candidate.
Implement brief pre-screening methods. Respect candidates’ time by using a short questionnaire or 15-minute phone conversation to assess basic qualifications before scheduling longer interviews.
Provide timeline transparency. Let candidates know how many interviews to expect, who they’ll meet with, and when they can anticipate a decision. This reduces anxiety and demonstrates respect for their time.
Always follow up with all candidates. A brief, kind rejection email maintains goodwill and leaves the door open for future opportunities. When appropriate, offer constructive feedback that helps candidates understand the decision.
Gather and use candidate feedback. Send a brief survey to all interviewed candidates asking about their experience. Review this feedback regularly and make adjustments based on common themes.
Treat every interaction as brand-building. Each candidate interaction is an opportunity to strengthen or weaken your employer brand. Treat every candidate with respect, regardless of their qualifications for the role.

Monitor and respond to your reputation

Building a strong employer brand requires ongoing improvement based on feedback. Creating channels for both team members and candidates to provide honest input demonstrates your commitment to growth.

Here are some tips for effectively managing your reputation:

Gather multi-channel feedback. Use anonymous surveys, exit interviews, candidate questionnaires, and informal conversations. Ask specific questions about your recruitment process, onboarding experience, and company culture.
Set up tracking alerts. Use Google Alerts (free) or paid tools for more comprehensive monitoring. Include variations of your company name and common misspellings.
Create a review response protocol. Respond promptly, professionally, and authentically to all reviews on platforms like Glassdoor and Indeed. For positive reviews, express gratitude and reinforce the positive aspects. For negative reviews, acknowledge the feedback without defensiveness, express appreciation, and briefly explain any improvements made.
Turn criticism into improvements. Look for patterns in critical reviews rather than dismissing them as one-off complaints. Use this feedback to identify areas where your company can genuinely improve.
Encourage honest reviews. Never incentivize positive reviews or pressure team members to leave them. Instead, simply make them aware of the option during appropriate moments, such as after completing successful projects.
Embrace balanced feedback. A few negative reviews mixed with positive ones actually lend credibility to your online presence. Candidates may be suspicious of companies with only perfect reviews.
Communicate changes transparently. When implementing improvements based on feedback, acknowledge the source of the ideas. This creates a positive feedback loop and demonstrates that you value input.

Track your efforts

Measuring the impact of your employer branding initiatives helps you allocate resources effectively and demonstrate ROI to company leadership.

Start with baseline metrics before implementing new strategies.

Track data points such as:

Application conversion rate (views to applications)
Quality of applicants (% meeting key qualifications)
Time to hire
Cost per hire
Offer acceptance rate
First-year retention rate
Source of hire

Establish simple tracking systems using spreadsheets or your applicant tracking system. Complex analytics tools are rarely necessary — consistent tracking of a few key metrics is more valuable than sporadically collecting extensive data.

Review your metrics quarterly to identify trends and adjust your approach accordingly. Which channels are producing your best candidates? Which aspects of your employer brand are resonating most strongly in interviews?

Don’t just focus on quantitative metrics. Qualitative feedback from new hires about what attracted them to your company provides valuable insights for refining your employer brand messaging.

Set realistic goals for improvement based on your baseline metrics. For example, aim to increase your application-to-interview ratio by 10% or reduce time-to-hire by three days over the next six months.

Remember that employer branding is a long-term investment. Some metrics, particularly those related to retention and team member satisfaction, may take time to show significant improvement.

Put it all together with the right tools

Managing your employer brand becomes significantly easier with the right tools to support your efforts. An applicant tracking system (ATS) like JobScore can serve as the hub for many of your employer branding initiatives.

An effective ATS helps maintain a consistent candidate experience by standardizing communications and process steps. It allows you to create branded career pages that reflect your unique company culture and automatically posts your opportunities to multiple job boards, extending your reach.

The right system enables you to collect and analyze candidate feedback, track the sources of your best hires, and measure improvements in key metrics over time. This data helps you refine your employer branding strategy based on actual results rather than guesswork.

Remember that technology should support your employer branding efforts, not replace the human elements that make your company unique. The most sophisticated tools cannot compensate for an inauthentic or poorly defined employer value proposition.

Final thoughts on these employer branding tips

Building a strong employer brand is an ongoing journey rather than a one-time project. Start by implementing just one or two strategies from this article, focusing on those that address your most pressing recruitment challenges.

Measure results consistently and be willing to adjust your approach based on what the data tells you. What works for one company may not work for another, so finding your unique employer branding voice may require experimentation.

Remember that your current team members are both your best source of insight into what makes your company special and your most powerful employer brand ambassadors. Involve them in the process through feedback sessions, content creation, and authentic advocacy.

A strong employer brand can be a significant competitive advantage in attracting and retaining talent. By thoughtfully implementing these strategies, you can build a reputation that draws qualified candidates to your company and keeps valued team members engaged for the long term.