When recruitment gets harder, employer brand matters more
The findings told a clear story. A quarter of respondents cited hard-to-fill roles as their biggest challenge. Quality of applicants came next at 17%, followed by skills shortages at 16%. Standing out from competitors was also a recurring concern. And all of this is happening against the same difficult backdrop: budget cuts, stretched teams and pressure to deliver more with less.
There is a contradiction here. For many employers, application volume is not the issue. Candidates can apply for roles on LinkedIn in seconds, while AI can tailor a CV or cover letter almost instantly. Recruiters are being flooded with applications but still struggling to find the people they need.
We even heard people asking whether it is time to put more friction back into the early stages of recruitment, to deter unsuitable or unserious applicants and make shortlisting manageable. But I think we need to look further upstream.
When budgets tighten, employer brand activity is often among the first things to be reduced. And perhaps that is understandable. Employer brand can be difficult to measure. Its influence stretches across awareness, attraction, application, hiring and retention, making its return harder to isolate than an immediate recruitment intervention. When the pressure is on, a short-term fix can feel easier to defend to your boss.
You could see this tension in our findings. Just 1% of respondents identified low employer awareness as their biggest challenge, while only 4% chose employer reputation. Yet both sit behind many of the problems that ranked far higher.
A distinctive employer brand helps the right people understand why they should choose you. A credible EVP gives candidates a realistic sense of what they are joining. Employees who speak honestly about culture, development and progression build trust long before someone clicks “apply”.
Without those foundations, employers risk spending more time and money processing applications from people who were never right for them.
This matters even more as candidate behaviour changes. Research shows that 53% of UK jobseekers now use AI as part of their job search. They are asking which employers offer progression, flexibility or a healthy culture, and how one organisation compares with another. Your employer brand is being summarised, compared and recommended in conversations you cannot see.
That is why employer brand cannot be something we switch on when budgets improve. It is part of recruitment infrastructure. The challenge is making its value more visible and accountable.
For us, that starts with data. Our discovery process includes an LLM and AI model audit to show how an employer is being perceived, where it ranks against competitors, which sources are influencing that reputation and how it appears to priority talent audiences. That insight allows us to identify precisely where an employer brand needs strengthening, target activity accordingly, and then measure whether it has genuinely moved the dial.
The answer is not to spend indiscriminately. It is to invest intelligently, with a clear evidence base and a way to demonstrate impact.
When everyone else is cutting back and fighting fires, valuing employer brand is not an indulgence. It is a competitive advantage.
Authored by Sarah Deeks-Osburn, Director for Employee Experience.