Why an employer branding strategy can make or break talent acquisition success

What an employer branding strategy actually is, and why talent acquisition depends on it 

Employer branding is the strategy that shapes how a company wants people to see it as a workplace. Talent acquisition is the end-to-end process that candidates actually deal with when they apply and interview, covering everything from attracting those candidates to assessing, selecting, and hiring them. 

Employer branding sets the tone and expectations: what the company values, how people are treated, what growth looks like, and why the work matters. You see it on the “About Us” webpage, the job ad, the stories employees share, and the general “feel” of the organization from the outside. It’s essentially a promise.

Talent acquisition is where candidates find out whether the company’s promise holds up. In theory, the branding strategy should tell recruiters what kind of experience they’re supposed to deliver to candidates. 

For example, if your brand promises clear communication, your talent acquisition team needs to know what that looks like. Maybe it’s adhering to a 48-hour response window or sharing the interview format with candidates upfront.

When your employer branding strategy and talent acquisition strategy don’t line up, candidates notice. Let’s say your job ad promises “growth opportunities,” but your interviewer can’t offer any examples during the interview when candidates ask. Candidates who experience this walk away with a different impression of your branding, thinking that your company is inconsistent, careless, misaligned, or even deceptive. 

This ultimately diminishes trust in your brand and, worse, your company – and can damage your reputation, especially if candidates share their experiences with others. 

It also hurts your talent acquisition efforts. Candidates might ultimately decide not to work with you. Some might not even bother applying.  

HR expert Charly Huang agrees, saying, “When an organization declares, ‘We are creative and very agile,’ yet the recruitment process is slow or unclear… [that] drives people away.”

→ Discover the top talent acquisition strategies for 2025.

Why there’s sometimes a disconnect between employer branding strategy and talent acquisition 

There are a few common reasons why the promise and the hiring experience fall out of sync. 

Reason 1: Some employers lie, and candidates notice

Sometimes, an employer’s brand messaging just isn’t true. And candidates discover this, up close, during the hiring process.

One survey by ResumeBuilder.com found that 4 in 10 hiring managers admit to lying to candidates, often about role responsibilities, growth opportunities, compensation, or work-life balance. 

More than a third say they lie to make a job sound more attractive. That kind of misrepresentation might get more applicants in the door, but it guarantees disappointment later. And it destroys trust long before onboarding begins.

If the branding promises a supportive culture, but candidates experience slow communication or must communicate with staff who seem indifferent or unhelpful, they can sense the inconsistency and might even assume the company is dishonest. 

Once candidates make that conclusion, no amount of polished messaging can undo the damage.

Reason 2: Different teams (with different priorities) often pull in different directions – even at small companies

In many organizations (especially medium-sized or large ones), employer branding and talent acquisition processes don’t always work hand in hand. 

• Branding usually lives with marketing or communications: the teams focused on shaping the story the company tells the outside world. 

• Talent acquisition sits with HR, focused on filling roles under actual deadlines and day-to-day practical constraints.

Because they answer to different leaders and chase different goals, the work naturally drifts apart. 

Marketing is focused on reach and perception. Talent acquisition is focused on speed, clarity, and hiring the right person. 

Neither group is wrong. They’re just solving different problems. And when the two don’t stay in sync, the candidate feels the tension immediately.

This isn’t only a “big company problem.” 

Even at smaller companies, where branding and talent acquisition often fall on the same team, or even the same person, a disconnect can still happen, just for a different reason: The person handling both responsibilities rarely has the time, structure, or support to make the message match the process.

Either way, the outcome is similar: the hiring experience drifts away from the story the brand is trying to tell.

Reason 3: Some employers don’t actually know how to deliver the candidate experience their brand promises

Not every disconnect comes from bad intentions or a lack of communication between departments. 

Sometimes teams simply don’t know how to deliver the experience they’re advertising. They want to hire fairly and move quickly – and they even tell candidates “we hire fairly and move quickly” – but the process they’re running can’t support those goals (yet).

Our State of Skills-Based Hiring 2025 report shows some potential reasons why. For example, more than half of employers say the hardest part of hiring is knowing whether candidates have the right soft and technical skills, and 86–89% say resumes don’t give them the clarity they need. 

When employers are worried about making the wrong call, they tend to default to what they’ve always done, including following slow timelines and making decisions over-cautiously, or even using what they believe are “safe” ways to hire (like: selecting the person who’s well-connected or went to a good school). 

This isn’t because they don’t care about fairness or consistency but rather because they don’t have a clear, reliable way to deliver on their values. 

How to bridge the disconnect between employer branding and talent acquisition 

Fixing the gap between what companies say and what candidates experience doesn’t require a full rebuild. 

Here’s how to start.

Don’t lie about your brand

This one’s simple: don’t advertise a workplace you can’t back up.

A clear, modest truth that shows what you can deliver earns more trust than a glossy promise you can’t. 

For example, if growth opportunities are limited, say, “We’re small, so promotions happen slowly, but you’ll get real ownership from day one.” If the hiring timeline is unpredictable, you can be honest: “We aim for a two-week process, and we’ll keep you updated any time that shifts.”

These grounded statements set realistic expectations and candidates appreciate the transparency. They’d rather hear a humble truth they can rely on than a polished claim that falls apart the moment the process begins.

If separate teams handle employer branding and talent acquisition, make sure they share language and goals

When asked what he’d do if he were to help a branding and talent acquisition team work together. Chief Marketing Officer Yaniv Masjedi says:

“I’d bring both sides under one narrative. The talent acquisition team can use the same language and proof points the marketing team uses externally – company mission, culture, growth opportunities – and back it with real examples.”

Shared narrative has to translate into shared execution. That’s why the best-aligned teams give both functions:

• A single brief for the role

• The same language about values and expectations (the actual phrasing, not interpretations)

• Agreed standards for communication and timelines

When this alignment is there, the hiring experience feels like an extension of the brand instead of a contradiction. 

HR expert Charly Huang says that it “makes all the difference…when these two functions come together as a cohesive unit.” She says that, at her company, “We communicate exactly the same thing on both sides… people can expect exactly the same experience that we have marketed as our brand.”

PR consultant Anastasiia Karsakova agrees. “The best results happen when both teams work from the same brief, share insights, and align on goals.”

Small companies often achieve this naturally because the loops are shorter. Larger companies need to build these loops deliberately. Either way, alignment is what keeps the promise, the process, and the candidate experience aligned.

Deliver on your promises

If your company wants its hiring experience to match its employer brand, you must deliver on your promises. 

For instance, if you promise a fair hiring process, use skills-based hiring. 

Instead of evaluating candidates based on resumes, connections, degrees, improvisational interviews, or gut feeling, skills-based processes measure people on the skills the job actually requires.

In practice, using skills-based hiring can mean: 

• Using job-relevant assessments to measure applicants on various factors, like technical skills, problem-solving, communication, and work style 

• Sourcing talent from a skills-tested pool of candidates

Talent acquisition experts can also use AI tools (good AI tools, we mean) for help with finding skilled talent. These tools can help guide skills-led decisions and even reduce bias (good tools don’t rely on subjective feelings about “good” schools).  

For example, TestGorilla offers assessments, a sourcing feature, and several AI tools, enabling teams to assess candidates on the skills the job requires. 

This is great for companies that say they value fairness and transparency, as candidates will see those values reflected in the hiring steps, and the message will feel real. Candidates might share their impressions and help strengthen your reputation as a fair employer. This could mean more candidates will choose to apply for your roles and say “yes” to your offers. 

→ Pro tip: Since strong brands tend to get more “yes” responses, your offer acceptance rate is a good talent acquisition metric to track to learn how well your talent acquisition and employer branding strategies are working together.

When talent acquisition reinforces brand values, the brand gets stronger

When the hiring experience matches the employer brand, trust builds quickly. 

Candidates don’t just hear or read your values – they feel them. As Charly Huang puts it: “People don’t recall what you say, they recall how you made them feel.”

A fair, structured talent acquisition process leaves a strong impression, even on candidates who don’t get the job. When candidates can see the reasoning behind a hiring decision, they trust it. And that clarity makes decisions to accept or decline a job a lot easier.

This is where skills-based hiring makes a big difference. By using TestGorilla’s job-relevant assessments and consistent structure, talent acquisition becomes the proof behind the employer branding strategy – not a contradiction of it. 

Want to see how TestGorilla works in practice? Book a free demo or create your TestGorilla account today.

Contributors

• Yaniv Masjedi, Nextiva, Chief Marketing Officer

• Charly Huang, AceBallMarkers.com, HR Expert & Senior Business Advisor

• Anastasiia Karsakova, PR Karsak, Founder & PR Consultant