Most organisations invest considerable time and budget crafting their employer value proposition. They build career pages, define culture statements and promote their workplace on social media. And yet, candidate trust in those messages is declining.
That was the central theme of a recent webinar hosted by our CEO Gavin Speirs, joined by Enrique Rubio, founder of Hacking HR. Together they explored the growing disconnect between what organisations say about themselves and what candidates actually experience during the hiring process and why that gap is now a commercial problem, not just a talent one.
The Illusion of Control
For years, organisations have believed they control their employer brand. They own the messaging, the narrative, the EVP. But that control is largely an illusion.
Candidates today research companies long before they apply. They read Glassdoor reviews, study leadership commentary on LinkedIn and speak to former employees. Research cited during the webinar found that 83% of candidates check reviews before applying and 80% do so before accepting an offer. By the time a candidate enters your hiring process, they have already formed a view.
As Enrique Rubio put it:
“If you do something wrong in a company, seconds later the world finds out. Anything you do as a company has consequences whether positive or negative. Now we know.”
The implication for HR and talent leaders is significant. You cannot rely solely on marketing to manage reputation. Your hiring process itself is now one of the most powerful expressions of your employer brand.
When the System Is Under Strain, Discipline Breaks Down
The webinar also examined the structural pressures inside hiring systems. Application volumes are rising sharply research from Greenhouse suggests the average role now receives around 220 applications, a 45% year-on-year increase. More applications should mean more choice. In practice, it often means more delay, less communication and a weaker candidate experience.
The data on process breakdown is stark. Around 42% of candidates in the UK and 52% in the US report being ghosted after an interview. Talent Board research suggests that in some sectors, candidate resentment rates reach 25% meaning one in four candidates leaves a hiring process feeling frustrated or treated unfairly.
Gavin drew a sharp comparison:
“Would ghosting ever be acceptable in sales? If a salesperson simply stopped responding to a customer, that would be a serious issue. In hiring, it has become normalised.”
These are not just candidate experience issues. Research cited at the start of the session found that 51% of candidates say they are less likely to become customers after a negative hiring experience. A poor hiring process is a commercial risk.
A Framework for Honest Assessment: REAL™
Solutions Driven uses a diagnostic framework called REAL to help organisations assess whether their employer brand reflects what candidates actually experience. It covers four areas:
- Reality – Does leadership behaviour consistently reflect the values the organisation promotes?
- Experience – Does the hiring process itself deliver the kind of experience the EVP promises?
- Alignment – Are HR, hiring managers and leadership all operating with a consistent approach?
- Leakage – How is your reputation spreading beyond your organisation, and are you treating that signal as intelligence rather than noise?
Organisations scoring strongly across all four areas tend to have genuine alignment between what they say and what candidates experience. Those scoring poorly often have a significant gap and in many cases, leadership is not aware of it.
Hiring Managers Are Brand Amplifiers or Risk Multipliers
One of the most important points raised during the session was the role of the hiring manager. Employer branding is rarely a failure of HR alone. It is a collective responsibility and hiring managers sit at its centre.
In many organisations, the hiring manager conducts interviews without HR present, provides feedback that shapes the final decision and communicates (or fails to communicate) with candidates at critical moments in the process. Their behaviour directly shapes how candidates perceive the organisation.
Gavin framed it directly during the webinar: hiring managers are either brand amplifiers or risk multipliers. The question for talent leaders is which category the majority of your hiring managers currently fall into.
What This Means for Talent Leaders
The webinar closed with three questions worth sitting with:
- What is the biggest employer brand risk in your organisation today?
- Which behaviours inside the organisation have the greatest impact on candidate experience?
- If candidates described your hiring culture in one sentence, what would they say?
The organisations that build strong, durable employer brands are rarely those with the most polished messaging. They are the ones where behaviour consistently matches the values they promote, where the candidate experience genuinely reflects the culture employees describe, and where hiring processes demonstrate clarity, alignment and respect for people’s time.
In a transparent world, reputation is not manufactured. It is earned, one hiring interaction at a time.
You can download the full webinar recording and REAL™ Self-Assessment Framework here:
https://solutionsdriven.com/the-dark-side-of-employer-branding-real-self-assessment/
