Why Your Employer Brand Is Losing You Good Candidates (And How to Fix It)

What to Review

A thorough employer brand review covers every touchpoint a potential candidate encounters. Here’s where to start.

Your website

Does it have a careers page? Does it explain what it’s like to work there, not just what roles are available? Does it include your values, the benefits you offer, and real stories from your team? If someone visited your website today and tried to decide whether they’d like to work for you, what would they find?

Your job adverts

Are they clear about pay, location, hours and benefits? Do they reflect your culture and values, or just list responsibilities and requirements? A job advert is often the first impression a candidate gets. It should earn their interest, not just list what you need.

Your social media

Does your LinkedIn show what life at your company is actually like? Team photos, behind-the-scenes content, and posts that reflect your personality help candidates get a feel for who you are before they even apply.

Your employment offer

When you make a job offer, what does it include? Pay is obvious. But benefits, flexibility, development opportunities, and a clear picture of what the role involves all affect whether the right person accepts. If your offer letter is a single paragraph with a salary figure, it’s doing less work than it could.

Your recruitment process itself

How quickly do you respond to applications? Is the process clear? Do candidates know what to expect? The experience of applying for a job with you is part of your employer brand too.

How We Worked with BuzzGen

BuzzGen is a content marketing agency that approached us through the Worcestershire County Council workforce planning tool. The review identified a need to look at their employer brand with fresh eyes and make recommendations to support their future growth.

We worked with them across four areas:

1. Review of the current employer brand

We assessed their website, social media presence, job adverts and employment offer in detail, identifying the gaps between what they had and what candidates would want to see.

2. A tailored recommendations report

We produced a practical, specific report covering website improvements (a dedicated careers page, employee stories, values content), recruitment advertising strategy, and how to make their employment offer more compelling.

3. Recruitment policy and templates

We drafted a recruitment policy aligned to their updated employer brand, along with templates for job descriptions, person specifications, advertising, interview scoring and making a job offer.

4. A culture book

We created a culture book to capture and showcase BuzzGen’s employer brand both externally to potential candidates and internally for their existing team. It included their updated policies, company values, a welcome from the CEO, and team profiles.

“Working with Limelite HR to review and develop our Culture Book and internal documents has been a genuinely valuable experience. The process helped us clarify our values, align our team more closely with our mission, and ensure consistency across all communications. Their ability to translate abstract ideas into clear, actionable language was particularly helpful.”

BuzzGen

The result wasn’t just an improved external perception of BuzzGen as a place to work. Their team now has a shared understanding of the culture and values, and employees are better equipped to talk confidently about who the organisation is.

Where to Start With Your Own Employer Brand

You don’t need to do everything at once. The most useful first step is an honest audit. Look at your website, your most recent job advert, and your LinkedIn profile as if you were a candidate seeing them for the first time.

Would you feel compelled to apply?

Is it clear what makes working here different from anywhere else?

Does the content reflect what your current employees would say about you?

If the honest answer is no, that’s a good place to start.

How Limelite Can Help

We offer employer brand reviews for organisations of all sizes, from a light-touch audit with recommendations to a full project including culture books, recruitment templates and policy updates. We also work with Worcestershire County Council-funded businesses to access this kind of support through the WCC workforce planning programme.

If you want to attract better candidates and make the most of every hire, we’d love to talk. Book a free discovery call now.

30 minute discovery call