by Mark Loughnane, Chief Operations Officer, Rent a Recruiter
Everyone loves the idea of employer branding, until it’s time to put real effort behind it.
In a market where skilled talent is scarce and job seekers act more like consumers, your employer brand can either be your greatest asset or the reason top candidates scroll past your roles without a second thought.
We surveyed over 460 HR and talent professionals across LinkedIn and our Rent a Recruiter April 2025 webinar series. The results show that employer branding is widely recognised, but rarely done well.
Why Great Ideas Fail: No One Owns Employer Branding
When asked what’s getting in the way of strong employer branding, here’s what HR and talent leaders told us:
- 56% cited limited internal resources
- 21% pointed to a lack of leadership buy-in
- 12% struggled with defining their message
- Only 9.7% said standing out in the market was their top concern
This tells us that creativity isn’t the issue, ownership is. Too often, employer branding gets passed between HR and marketing with no clear strategy, no cross-functional backing, and no accountability. The result is branding efforts that are sporadic, underfunded, or irrelevant to candidates.
If your EVP is buried in a slide deck and no one can articulate it, it’s not a brand it’s just unused content.
What a Broken Employer Brand Is Really Costing You
Candidates don’t just click “apply” anymore; they investigate. They scan your LinkedIn, read employee reviews, and mentally match your messaging to their values. If what they see doesn’t align with what they want, or if they see nothing at all, they move on.
If EB isn’t on the board agenda, it’s a missed commercial opportunity. Talent attraction today is brand-led, not just process-led, and HR needs to lead that conversation at the top table.
HR, Take Back the Brand Before Someone Else Does
HR teams aren’t underperforming. They’re under-resourced and often left out of the employer branding conversation until it’s too late. But here’s the truth: no function is better placed to lead on this than HR.
You understand the culture from the inside. You know what motivates your people. You’re closest to the candidate experience, the onboarding process, and the exit interviews. You see the full lifecycle. That makes you the most credible voice when it comes to defining and delivering an authentic employer brand.
What’s needed now isn’t a complete overhaul its strategic advocacy and smart, scalable moves that HR can lead, even with limited resources.
No Time, No Budget? 4 Employer Branding Moves You Can Start Today
You don’t need a massive campaign to strengthen your employer brand. With a few strategic actions, HR can drive real progress using the tools and insights already available.
- Start with a leadership conversation
Begin by sharing current recruitment challenges with your leadership team—time-to-hire, turnover, candidate drop-off. Then outline how employer branding, when done well, can directly impact these pain points: improving candidate quality, boosting retention, and reducing cost per hire. A short, data-led conversation can unlock support and alignment without spending a cent. - Clarify your EVP with what you already know
Use your exit interviews, engagement surveys, and manager feedback to shape a working version of your EVP. You don’t need external consultants to start defining what sets your organisation apart. - Turn employees into co-creators
Encourage teams to share personal stories, from “why I joined” to “what I’ve learned.” Employee-generated content (EGC) builds trust, boosts engagement, and gives you a stream of real-life proof points that no polished campaign can match. - Use reviews to your advantage
Your company’s Glassdoor or Indeed profile is part of your brand whether you like it or not. Timely, thoughtful responses to reviews especially the tough ones show you care, listen, and act. And don’t just play defence: prompt happy employees to leave reviews at key moments, like after probation or positive feedback sessions. It’s not manipulation it’s smart brand building, and it costs nothing.
Who We Asked and Why It Matters
This data is based on responses from 460+ HR, talent acquisition, and employer branding professionals across LinkedIn groups and our webinar audience in April 2025. Participants represented a cross-section of industries and geographical locations.
Why It Matters: These are real struggles from the very people responsible for attracting and retaining talent. By tapping into a broad, cross-sector sample, the findings offer a grounded, market-wide view of the barriers HR teams face daily. That makes the insights not just relevant, but essential for HR leaders trying to benchmark their employer branding efforts and influence change at the top table.
About the author
Mark Loughnane is the Chief Operating Officer at Rent a Recruiter, where he helps organisations dramatically reduce their cost per hire and time to hire through a cutting-edge Recruitment-as-a-Service (RaaS) model. By blending the strategic insight of an internal talent team with the agility of an external agency, Rent a Recruiter delivers scalable hiring solutions at a fixed monthly cost.
Mark leads a high-performing team of talent acquisition experts. Together, they partner with clients to streamline hiring processes, improve candidate quality, and deliver measurable recruitment ROI.
