Skills based hiring was meant to replace pedigree. In many organisations it has simply learned to live alongside it. Degrees vanish from job ads, but preferred schools and brands still dominate shortlists, while “skills evidence” shows up as one more hurdle at the end of the process.
In 2025 employer branding grew up. AI rewrote jobs, RTO became a reputational event, CEOs turned into brand signals, and radical honesty replaced generic “great place to work” claims. This Almanack distils 28 stories into practical rules.
As organisations look to 2026, EVP must shift from broad promises to clear, tangible impact. The focus is on evidence, storytelling and demonstrating how empowerment and people experience directly influence outcomes and business performance.
After a year of wall-to-wall AI, we wanted to know whether 2023’s confident forecasts were substance or spin. Here is what held up, what did not, and how to use the evidence to shape employer branding, talent attraction, culture, and organisational transformation in 2026.
No one knows exactly what 2026 will bring, but the forward-thinking companies are already experimenting, learning and adjusting, not because they’ve mastered AI or automation, but because they can see how quickly work, expectations and confidence levels are shifting.
AI bosses insist agents will not replace people, yet headlines still read layoffs, freezes, and low trust. Hybrid work is a lifeline for some and a pressure cooker for others. This week: automation hype, labour market whiplash, culture shocks, and the trust test for employer brands.
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Employer branding is shifting from comms to operating discipline. This week: marketing’s growing role in talent, what HR does when leaders cross lines, why hiring processes create shortages, and how AI is reshaping career choices and workforce rules.
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Employer branding exploded during the hiring boom, then was abruptly cut. Now there are far more EB professionals than meaningful roles, and most employers still don’t fully understand what EB is for... or how to hire for it. It feels like a mess.
Layoffs are back, pay is getting flatter, and AI still struggles to prove ROI. This week’s brief looks at what employers do when confidence drops: cutting roles, standardising raises, and watching candidates “de-age” their CVs to stay in the game.
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LVMH unveiled its employer brand campaign on 25 July 2025 and rebuilt its careers experience around “Where Dreams Become Careers”. Here’s the EVP, the proof, the trade-offs, and how it compares to luxury rivals.
Amazon’s layoff leak was a brutal reminder: trust is fragile, and AI hype does not run the business. This edition looks at the AI reality gap, why job anxiety is rising, and what “proof” looks like in rollouts, skills and comms.
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