Opinion pieces and thought leadership from across the employer branding community. External voices, bold takes, and new ideas worth debating.
Many employer branding briefs often aren’t really briefs at all. They’re shopping lists of activities without a clearly defined problem to solve. The result? Wasted time, diluted budgets and projects that struggle to deliver meaningful outcomes.
AI was meant to cut the drudge work, free up time and make leaner teams look clever. Instead, the evidence so far points to patchy gains, longer hours, shakier quality and a great deal of managerial confidence unsupported by anything so vulgar as proof.
For a decade, corporate life was a very expensive pantomime of meetings, steering groups and “strategic” projects that achieved very little. The bloat is finally being cut out, and employer brand and talent teams now have to prove their worth in a leaner, colder reality.
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.
If layoffs are now a feature of modern work, not a bug, then employer branding has to stop acting surprised and start telling the truth. What you say, and do not say, when people leave matters more than any “top workplace” badge.
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.
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.