Category: Talent Advisory

What is Programmatic Recruitment Advertising?

Posted on by akessler

As the demand for candidate quality intensifies, talent acquisition leaders are constantly seeking new ways to reach qualified candidates more efficiently. Enter programmatic recruitment advertising—a technology-driven approach that’s revolutionizing how companies connect with potential employees.

What is Programmatic Advertising?

Programmatic advertising is the automated buying and selling of digital advertising space using artificial intelligence and real-time bidding. Instead of manually negotiating ad placements with individual websites or platforms, programmatic technology uses algorithms to purchase the most relevant placements in milliseconds, targeting specific audiences based on detailed data profiles.

These programs simultaneously monitor thousands of websites, analyze user behavior, and place job advertisements in front of the right candidates at the optimal moment.

How Programmatic Advertising for Recruitment Works

The process begins when a candidate visits a website or uses an app. In that instant, information about the user (their location, browsing history, professional interests and demographic data) is sent to an advertising exchange. Your recruitment campaign, which you’ve created with specific targeting parameters, competes in an automated auction against other advertisers. If your bid wins, your job advertisement appears to that candidate—all within the time it takes for the webpage to load.

This real-time decision-making process ensures your recruitment ads reach candidates who match your ideal profile. For instance, when recruiting software engineers, programmatic recruitment advertising can target individuals who visit coding forums, read technology blogs, or engage with programming content, even if they’re not actively job searching.

The Components of Effective Recruitment Advertising

Optimizing your recruitment advertising program involves using technology, strategy, AI and data to ensure you get qualified candidates for all your open jobs. Here are the key components of effective programmatic job advertising:

Programmatic Software: You need software that automates job ad buying tasks, which cannot be done manually due to the speed required in real-time bidding marketplaces. This technology manages thousands of bidding decisions per second across multiple job boards and websites, ensuring your advertisements reach the right candidates at the optimal price point.

Rules and Strategy: You create rules for the programmatic advertising software to instruct it on how you want your budget spent and the recruitment outcomes you desire. These might include audience targeting parameters, budget guidelines and performance thresholds that trigger automatic adjustments to your campaigns.

Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI optimizes job ad bids based on the volume and conversion rates that machine learning models predict. These algorithms continuously learn from campaign performance, automatically adjusting strategies to improve both cost efficiency and candidate quality.

Performance Tracking: Performance tracking keeps count of what is happening with your open jobs in terms of clicks, candidate applications, and ultimately, hires. This comprehensive monitoring extends beyond basic metrics to include candidate quality indicators and progression through your hiring funnel. This end-to-end visibility ensures the system continues optimizing your advertising plan with actual hires delivered as the ultimate goal.

Key Benefits of Programmatic Advertising for Recruitment

  • Enhanced Targeting Precision: Programmatic job advertising allows you to target candidates based on their job titles, skills, education level, geographic location, salary expectations, and even their likelihood to change jobs. This proves particularly valuable for filling specialized roles where traditional job boards may not reach the right talent pools. Your recruitment budget is spent reaching genuinely qualified prospects rather than casting a wide, unfocused net.
  • Improved Cost Efficiency: By automating the ad buying process and optimizing bids in real-time, programmatic job advertising often delivers better results at lower costs than traditional advertising methods. You only pay for impressions that reach your target audience, eliminating waste on irrelevant views.
  • Efficient Cross-Platform Reach: Programmatic recruitment advertising can place your job postings across thousands of job boards and channels simultaneously—from professional networking sites and industry publications to mobile apps and social media platforms. This ensures you get comprehensive market coverage, but you only have to manage a relationship with one supplier, freeing you up to focus on building candidate relationships.
  • Real-Time Optimization: Unlike traditional advertising campaigns that require manual adjustments, programmatic systems continuously analyze performance data and automatically optimize your campaigns. If certain demographics or websites are producing better candidates, the system allocates more budget toward those high-performing segments.
  • Data-Driven Insights: These platforms provide detailed analytics about candidate behavior, showing which messages resonate, which channels produce the highest-quality applicants, and even what times of day generate the most engagement. This intelligence can inform strategies beyond just recruitment marketing.

Programmatic Advertising and Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO)

The combination of programmatic recruitment advertising with RPO services creates a powerful combination that can dramatically enhance your talent acquisition results. You can leverage the expertise and scale advantages of your RPO provider while harnessing the precision and efficiency of programmatic technology.

Why Add Programmatic Advertising to Your RPO Engagement

RPO providers bring deep recruitment expertise, established processes, and dedicated resources to your talent acquisition efforts. Adding programmatic advertising to this foundation amplifies these benefits by providing data-driven candidate sourcing at scale. Your RPO partner can execute sophisticated recruitment advertising strategies that would be challenging to manage internally, particularly for organizations without dedicated recruitment marketing specialists.

Your programmatic job ad campaigns feed qualified candidates directly into your RPO provider’s established candidate engagement processes. This creates a more efficient candidate pipeline with consistent quality control and faster time-to-hire outcomes.

How an RPO Partner Can Maximize Your Recruitment Advertising ROI

Experienced RPO providers bring several advantages to programmatic advertising management that can significantly improve your return on investment:

Specialized Expertise: RPO partners typically have dedicated recruitment marketing teams with deep knowledge of programmatic platforms, targeting strategies and optimization techniques. This specialization means your campaigns benefit from proven best practices and advanced strategies that internal teams might take years to develop.

Scale and Negotiating Power: Established RPO providers often manage advertising spend across multiple clients, giving them greater negotiating leverage with programmatic platforms and access to premium inventory at better rates. This collective buying power can reduce your cost-per-hire while improving ad placement quality.

Advanced Analytics and Reporting: RPO partners usually invest in sophisticated analytics tools and reporting capabilities that provide deeper insights into campaign performance. They can track candidates through the entire hiring funnel, from initial ad impression to final offer acceptance, enabling more precise ROI calculations and optimization decisions.

Cross-Client Learning: Your RPO partner can apply learnings from successful campaigns across their client base, adapting proven strategies to your specific industry and role requirements. This cross-pollination of insights accelerates campaign optimization and reduces the trial-and-error period typically associated with new advertising initiatives.

Integrated Technology Stack: Many RPO providers have integrated programmatic advertising platforms with their applicant tracking systems and candidate relationship management tools. This integration creates smoother data flow, better candidate experience, and more comprehensive performance tracking than standalone solutions.

Continuous Optimization: RPO partners can dedicate full-time resources to monitoring and optimizing your programmatic job ad campaigns, making real-time adjustments based on performance data. This level of attention is often difficult to maintain with internal teams juggling multiple responsibilities.

The strategic partnership between RPO services and programmatic recruitment advertising creates a competitive advantage that extends beyond simple cost savings. It enables more sophisticated talent market analysis, better candidate experience management, and ultimately, stronger hiring outcomes that support your organization’s growth objectives.

Programmatic Recruitment Advertising: A Winning Tactic

Programmatic advertising represents a fundamental shift toward data-driven, automated recruitment marketing. As AI becomes more sophisticated and candidate data becomes richer, these systems will become even more precise at identifying and engaging potential employees.

For talent acquisition leaders, embracing programmatic advertising isn’t just about keeping up with technology trends—it’s about gaining a competitive advantage in attracting top talent. Organizations that master these tools can reach qualified candidates more efficiently, reduce time-to-hire and ultimately build stronger teams.

How to Incorporate Employee Advocacy into Your Recruitment Marketing Strategy

Posted on by akessler

In the competition for talent, traditional recruitment marketing tactics are losing their edge. Job seekers have become increasingly skeptical of polished corporate messaging, with 92% of candidates trusting employee recommendations over traditional advertising, according to Nielson. The solution? Implementing employee advocacy in recruitment marketing creates compelling, trust-building campaigns that resonate with top talent.

Why Employee Advocacy Should Be Central to Your Recruitment Marketing

Employee advocacy transforms your recruitment marketing from corporate speak into authentic storytelling. A strong employee advocacy program doesn’t just amplify your employer brand—it lends it credibility. When your employees become brand ambassadors, they extend your recruitment marketing reach exponentially, tapping into their personal networks and professional communities with messages that carry genuine credibility.

When a software engineer shares their firsthand experience working on innovative projects, it carries far more weight than a corporate blog post touting “cutting-edge technology.” And in the competition for top talent, authenticity can be one of your biggest advantages.

Building Your Employee Advocacy Marketing Foundation

Audit Your Current Culture and Messaging

Before launching employee advocacy in recruitment, assess whether your workplace culture can authentically support the marketing messages you want to promote. Your advocacy marketing will only be as strong as the employee experience behind it.

Key culture elements that support effective advocacy marketing:

  • Clear mission and values that employees genuinely connect with
  • Recognition programs that create positive employee experiences worth sharing
  • Transparent leadership communication that builds trust
  • Inclusive practices that ensure diverse voices in your marketing
  • Work-life balance support that employees want to recommend to others

When employees believe in your mission and feel valued for their contributions, they’re more likely to become powerful advocates.

Identify Your Marketing Champions

Not everyone will raise their hand to be an advocate—and that’s okay. Focus instead on finding your “natural evangelists”—those already speaking positively about your organization in person and online.

High-impact advocate profiles:

  • Social Media Influencers: Employees with strong LinkedIn presence or industry following
  • Content Creators: Natural storytellers who can produce blog posts, videos or social content
  • Event Ambassadors: Charismatic representatives for career fairs, industry conferences and networking events
  • Referral Marketers: Well-connected employees who can tap personal networks
  • Thought Leaders: Subject matter experts who can build brand authority through industry insights

Develop Authentic Storytelling Campaigns

The best recruitment content doesn’t feel like recruitment at all—it simply tells the human stories behind the brand, offering candidates an authentic glimpse into life at your organization. Instead of vague claims about a “great culture,” show what your culture actually looks like. Share a day-in-the-life perspective of employees across different roles, illustrating how they spend their time, the challenges they tackle and the people they collaborate with. Dive into career journey narratives that highlight real growth—how someone started in an entry-level role and advanced to a leadership position, and what opportunities, mentorship or stretch projects helped them get there.

You can also give candidates a peek behind the curtain with casual glimpses of team celebrations, brainstorming sessions or community involvement. These moments help humanize your brand and build a sense of connection. And don’t overlook stories of perseverance—featuring how employees overcame obstacles, contributed to meaningful projects, or reached major milestones can showcase your organization’s commitment to employee success.

Choose Marketing Channels That Maximize Reach

Bringing these stories to life requires a format mix that feels natural to your employees and engaging to your audience. Short, candid video testimonials are especially powerful on social media, allowing employees to speak directly to camera in their own words. Social media takeovers—where an employee shares their experiences throughout the day on Instagram or LinkedIn—can offer unfiltered insights while boosting visibility and reach.

Project-based content, such as showcasing a cross-functional team tackling a real business challenge, puts your values of collaboration and innovation on full display. And don’t forget professional development moments—whether attending a conference, completing a certification or leading a lunch-and-learn, these snapshots reinforce your investment in growth and learning.

4-Step Implementation Strategy for Employee Advocacy in Recruitment Marketing

1. Establish Your Advocacy Marketing Framework

Before launching your advocacy program, set a strong foundation with a structure that encourages participation while respecting employee comfort levels. Start by making participation voluntary—advocacy should be authentic, not obligatory. Provide employees with talking points, content ideas and technical support to help them share their experiences confidently, without scripting their voices. A streamlined approval process can ensure brand consistency while preserving the genuine perspectives that make advocacy so effective. Finally, consider offering optional training on social media best practices and personal branding to help employees feel prepared and empowered.

2. Incentivize and Recognize Recruitment Marketing Contributors

The most effective advocacy programs celebrate employee contributions in meaningful ways. Go beyond transactional rewards and focus on recognition that supports professional growth. Featuring advocates in company communications, leadership presentations or internal awards can reinforce how much you value their efforts. You may even consider advocacy contributions in performance reviews and career development discussions.

Provide flexible ways to participate—some employees may prefer creating social content, while others may shine as interview panelists, mentors or referral champions. The key is meeting advocates where they are and acknowledging their impact.

3. Amplify and Scale Your Marketing Reach

Once you’ve built your foundation, it’s time to expand your program’s visibility. Encourage employees to engage with and share company content on platforms like LinkedIn, where professional voices carry extra weight. Provide resources to help them optimize their profiles and position themselves as brand ambassadors.

Tie advocacy to your referral program for an added incentive, and consider organizing employee-led features to keep content fresh and engaging. The goal is to create a flywheel of content, visibility and engagement powered by real employee stories.

4. Measure Marketing ROI and Optimize

To ensure long-term success, regularly track how your advocacy efforts impact your recruitment marketing outcomes. Monitor social media metrics such as reach, engagement, hashtag usage and follower growth driven by employee content. On the recruitment side, assess application quality, referral success rates, time-to-hire improvements and cost savings.

Don’t stop at the numbers—gather employee feedback to understand what’s working, what could be improved and how they’d like to participate going forward. This feedback loop ensures your program stays authentic, relevant and aligned with both employee and business goals.

The Future of Employee Advocacy in Recruitment Marketing

With recruitment increasingly digital and candidates becoming more discerning, employee advocacy will become essential to recruitment marketing strategy differentiation. Organizations that successfully integrate authentic employee voices into their recruitment marketing don’t just fill positions—they build talent communities and bring your employer brand to life.

The most effective programs seamlessly blend employee authenticity with strategic marketing objectives, creating campaigns that feel genuine while driving measurable business results. When your employees become passionate brand ambassadors, they transform your recruitment marketing from promotion to inspiration, attracting candidates who don’t just want jobs—they want to join a mission.

In the age of AI and automation, human stories become your most powerful marketing differentiator. Employee advocacy in recruitment marketing ensures you remain both scalable and authentically human.

Talent Community Building: How to Create a Talent Pipeline Before You Need It

Posted on by akessler

Hiring success doesn’t start with a job posting—it starts with connection. While many organizations rely on reactive recruiting to fill open roles, leading employers are taking a longer view by cultivating talent communities: purpose-built networks of potential candidates who are already engaged, informed and aligned with your brand. Think of talent community building as relationship investing. Just as savvy investors build diversified portfolios long before they need returns, smart talent acquisition leaders cultivate relationships with potential candidates years before positions open. The result? Faster time-to-hire, higher-quality candidates, and significantly reduced recruiting costs.

What is a Talent Community?

Building a talent community is the strategic practice of creating and nurturing networks of potential candidates who have expressed interest in your organization, even when no specific roles are available. Unlike traditional recruiting, which often focuses on immediate hiring needs, talent communities are built for long-term workforce success and take time to cultivate by fostering authentic relationships that benefit candidates and employers.

When managed effectively, a talent community can serve as a powerful tool across several dimensions. It helps develop a ready talent pipeline of qualified candidates for future openings, amplifies your employer brand through ongoing engagement and provides valuable market intelligence by offering insight into talent expectations and shifting workforce trends. Perhaps most importantly, it can reduce overall hiring costs by decreasing reliance on external recruiting agencies and paid job advertising.

The Business Case for Proactive Talent Community Building

The advantage of creating talent pipelines isn’t just efficiency—it’s competitive positioning. When your dream candidate becomes available, you want to be the first call they make, not just another recruiter reaching out via LinkedIn.

Consider this scenario: A competitor announces layoffs in your industry. Organizations with established talent communities can immediately activate relationships with affected professionals, while reactive recruiters are still crafting generic outreach messages to strangers.

How to Build a Talent Community

Start with Strategic Talent Mapping

Before building your community, identify which roles and skill sets will be most critical to your future success. This isn’t about current openings—it’s about anticipating where your organization will need talent in the next few years. This future-focused approach helps employers stay ahead of emerging roles—especially those driven by digital transformation, evolving business models or shifting customer demands.

Key Questions for Talent Mapping:

  • Which roles are hardest to fill quickly?
  • What skills will become more valuable as your industry evolves?
  • Where do top performers in these roles typically work?
  • What career progression paths lead to your priority positions?

Define Your Community Value Proposition

Top candidates won’t join—and stay in—your talent community unless there’s a clear benefit or specific reason to engage. To build lasting engagement, you need to answer the candidate’s unspoken question: “What’s in it for me?” A compelling employer value proposition should offer tangible resources, exclusive perks and meaningful connections that make your community more than just a holding place for resumes. Consider offering:

Professional Development Resources

Provide value beyond job openings by supporting members’ career growth. Share timely industry insights and trend reports to help them stay ahead of the curve. Offer access to webinars and interactive workshops focused on upskilling and reskilling. Career coaching and mentorship programs add a personalized touch, while virtual or in-person networking events connect talent with peers and leaders in their field.

Exclusive Access

Make members feel like insiders. Give them early notification of new job opportunities before they go public. Share behind-the-scenes content that showcases your culture and work environment. Executive thought leadership pieces can offer inspiration and insight into your organization’s direction, while beta access to new products or services helps members feel like valued contributors to your brand.

Community Benefits

Create a sense of belonging and two-way engagement by offering opportunities for peer networking through dedicated groups or events, or by facilitating industry-specific forums where members can share ideas, ask questions and offer support. Job referral programs not only encourage participation but can help build advocacy among members. And for former employees, alumni networks provide a continued sense of connection and open the door for future re-engagement.

Drive Engagement with Relevant Content

The content you share plays a pivotal role in attracting and retaining engaged community members. This isn’t about job postings—it’s about becoming a trusted resource for industry insights and career development. Prioritize recruitment marketing content formats that offer real value and keep your audience coming back for more:

  • Industry Analysis: In-depth articles and reports that break down market trends, regulatory shifts, and innovations shaping the future of your industry.
  • Career Development Guides: Actionable resources such as resume tips, interview prep, and career pathing advice designed to help professionals grow and achieve their goals.
  • Employee Spotlights: Authentic, behind-the-scenes stories that showcase your people, culture, and day-to-day experiences—helping humanize your brand and build trust.
  • Skills Development Content: Curated tutorials, recommended certifications, and access to online courses or training modules that support upskilling and career advancement.
  • Thought Leadership: Executive insights that offer a forward-looking view on industry trends, innovation and business strategy—shared through articles, blog posts, videos, or podcast interviews to elevate your brand’s authority and inspire community members.

But even with compelling content, a community is only as strong as its reach. The next step is getting in front of the right audience.

Tap Into Existing Networks to Accelerate Growth

While building a thriving talent community may feel daunting, you don’t have to start from scratch. One of the most effective ways to scale quickly is by partnering with organizations that already have established relationships with your target talent. This is especially important when you consider that most job seekers are passive candidates. Professional associations, for example, offer ready-made audiences of engaged professionals—consider sponsoring their events or providing educational content tailored to their members. Forming relationships with universities and academic programs can also help build a future talent pipeline, while regular involvement in industry conferences—whether as a contributor or sponsor—positions your organization as an active and engaged thought leader. And don’t underestimate the power of online forums and professional communities. By participating authentically in those spaces, you can engage talent where they’re already spending time and build trust organically.

Your current employees can also play a pivotal role in community building. After all, they’re often the most credible ambassadors of your brand. Empower them with tools and systems that make it easy to extend invitations to qualified peers. Offer referral incentives that reward not only successful hires but also quality talent added to the community. Equip employees with ready-to-share content and social tools, and don’t forget the value of maintaining connections with alumni—who often remain advocates long after they’ve moved on. Alumni referrals typically have a 40% higher retention rate than other hires. Internal advocacy programs can help train and support employees to share your brand story in an authentic, consistent way—amplifying your reach and credibility at the same time.

Create Personalized Experiences at Scale

To keep members engaged over time, your talent community must feel personal—even when it’s built to scale. This requires sophisticated segmentation, tailored content delivery and cultural intelligence. By leveraging data and technology, organizations can meet members where they are.

Start by segmenting your community based on relevant criteria such as career level (from recent graduates to senior leaders), functional expertise, geographic location and engagement history. This allows you to tailor your recruitment marketing content and communication that speaks directly to each audience. For example, a mid-career software engineer in São Paulo should receive different resources than a marketing director in Toronto.

Delivering personalized communication is essential to building meaningful relationships at scale. This can include role-specific content recommendations, invitations to events based on location, and resources aligned with a candidate’s career stage. You can also connect members to interest-based discussion groups to spark peer-to-peer engagement around shared goals.

If your organization operates across borders, go a step further by considering cultural nuances. Adapt your messaging and content to align with local norms and languages. Share professional development resources that are regionally relevant, schedule events at times that work across time zones and ensure compliance with local regulations. Strategic partnerships with local organizations can further boost credibility and relevance, helping your global community feel both connected and localized.

Build Niche Communities Around In-Demand Skills

While broad-based communities help maintain a healthy talent pipeline, specialized sub-communities can be a powerful way to connect with hard-to-find talent. These focused groups foster deeper engagement by offering highly relevant content and peer interaction within a shared area of expertise.

For example, create technical skill groups for software developers, data scientists or cybersecurity professionals, where members can access tailored learning resources and discuss emerging tools and techniques. Similarly, creative professionals—like designers, content creators and marketers—will value inspiration, trend reports and portfolio-sharing opportunities.

Leadership development communities can support high-potential talent with mentoring, executive insights, and career pathing tools. And for highly regulated or industry-specific fields like healthcare or financial services, dedicated sub-groups offer a safe space to explore sector trends and compliance updates with peers who face similar challenges.

By curating these niche communities within your broader talent ecosystem, you demonstrate a deeper understanding of your audience’s needs—and position your brand as a true partner in their professional journey.

Leverage Technology to Power Your Talent Community

A successful talent community strategy is only as strong as the technology supporting it. To personalize engagement at scale, track interactions, and deliver consistent value, organizations need a comprehensive tech stack purpose-built for relationship-building—not just requisition-filling.

Traditional Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are designed for transactions, not relationships. A robust candidate relationship management (CRM) system supports long-term relationship building with tools like:

  • Community Segmentation: Organize members by skills, interests, location, engagement level or career stage to deliver tailored experiences.
  • Automated Nurturing: Use behavioral data and preferences to trigger personalized email journeys, content delivery and event invites.
  • Engagement Tracking: Monitor candidate activity—such as content clicks, event attendance or survey responses—to identify top prospects and optimize outreach.
  • Integration Capabilities: Seamlessly connect with your ATS, recruitment marketing platforms and broader HR tech stack to ensure data continuity and efficiency.

Building a Smarter Talent Community Strategy for What’s Next

As AI and automation continue to reshape recruitment, the human element remains a critical differentiator. Talent communities offer a powerful combination of technology-enabled scale and meaningful, relationship-driven engagement—bridging the gap between digital efficiency and personal connection.

For many employers, bringing this vision to life requires the right partner—one with the expertise, strategy, and technology to scale personalized engagement effectively. Partnering with an RPO provider like PeopleScout brings both the expertise and infrastructure needed to build and manage high-performing talent communities. Our proprietary total talent technology suite, Affinix®, features AI-powered tools for segmentation, automation, content delivery and engagement tracking.

Organizations that invest in talent community strategies today are positioning themselves for long-term success. While others scramble to fill roles reactively, you’ll be building a pipeline of engaged, qualified talent—ready to step in at the right moment. The question isn’t whether to build a talent community, but whether you can afford not to.

Debunking Myths About Gen AI in Recruitment [Infographic]

Posted on by akessler

With all the buzz around ChatGPT, Gemini, and other generative AI tools, you might think every job seeker is leveraging these technologies to gain an edge. Headlines suggest AI has completely transformed the job application landscape, with candidates using it for everything from CV creation to interview preparation.

But how widespread is it? PeopleScout’s recent research reveals a more nuanced picture of how job seekers are actually incorporating AI into their search process. Our comprehensive study, The AI-Enabled Applicant: How Candidates Are Really Using Gen AI in Recruitment, offers surprising insights that challenge common assumptions about AI’s prevalence amongst UK job hunters.

The infographic below highlights key findings that talent acquisition professionals and hiring managers should consider when evaluating their recruitment strategies in today’s AI-influenced landscape.

These findings present a more balanced view of AI’s role in recruitment than many headlines suggest. While generative AI tools are certainly making an impact, they haven’t revolutionized job seeking to the extent many predicted. Less than 20% of recent job changers in the UK used AI at all, with adoption varying significantly by age and education level.

For talent acquisition leaders, this data suggests an opportunity to develop thoughtful policies around AI use. The lack of communication about AI expectations (with only 5% of job changers reporting employers mentioning AI) points to a need for greater transparency. Organizations might consider clarifying their stance on AI usage while recognizing that many candidates find these tools genuinely helpful in navigating the application process.

As AI technology continues to evolve, staying informed about actual usage patterns—rather than assuming widespread adoption—will help recruiters make more effective decisions about how to design fair, efficient hiring processes that account for the reality of candidates’ Gen AI use.

Want to learn more? Download PeopleScout’s full research report, The AI-Enabled Applicant: How Candidates Are Really Using Gen AI in Recruitment, for comprehensive insights and strategic recommendations.

Protecting Recruitment Integrity in the AI Era 

Posted on by akessler

Generative AI (Gen AI) is disrupting the job-seeking landscape, offering powerful tools that transform CVs, résumés, cover letters and interview preparation. Despite this technological shift, our research, The AI-Enabled Applicant: How Candidates Are Really Using Gen AI in Recruitment, indicates a surprising adoption gap—only one in five UK job seekers currently leverage these AI capabilities. Nevertheless, employers remain concerned about candidates potentially using AI to embellish or misrepresent their qualifications and experience. 

This article marks the third installment in our series examining the implications of our research findings on Gen AI’s role in recruitment. As these technologies continue to reshape hiring practices, organisations must evolve their approaches to preserve assessment integrity while efficiently identifying exceptional talent. Drawing from our research, we’ve developed several actionable strategies for navigating this new reality: 

Set Clear Expectations on AI Usage 

Be transparent about your stance on Gen AI usage throughout the application process. Rather than implementing blanket bans that may be impossible to enforce, consider: 

  • Providing specific guidelines on acceptable AI use (e.g., “Gen AI may be used to help with formatting and improving your CV but not in a way that falsely represents your skills or experience”) 
  • Explaining the rationale behind restrictions to encourage candidate adherence 
  • Including explicit statements in job descriptions and application platforms about AI usage policies and potential consequences for use of Gen AI to create inauthentic applications or assessments 

Clear communication and transparency about how you expect candidates to use (or not use) Gen AI not only helps encourage appropriate candidate application approaches but also demonstrates organisational integrity in an increasingly AI-influenced world. 

Resist Abandoning Proven Methods 

Despite vendors claiming to offer “ChatGPT-proof” and “bias free” online assessments, our assessment psychology experts say caution is warranted: 

  • There is currently limited evidence supporting the effectiveness of many new “AI-proof” assessment methods.
  • Hastily implemented solutions may introduce new biases or inefficiencies—doing more harm than good. 
  • Completely abandoning traditional methods could disrupt established recruitment pipelines. 

Instead, maintain a balanced approach. Focus on strengthening existing processes with strategic modifications that address specific vulnerabilities to Gen AI manipulation. Regularly evaluate and update your processes to respond to emerging AI capabilities. 

Make Application Questions Personal 

Generic questions are particularly vulnerable to AI-generated answers. Design questions that elicit unique, authentic responses, like:  

  • Asking candidates to draw from own unique experience 
  • Requesting concrete examples of how they’ve demonstrated particular skills or values 
  • Incorporating questions about personal motivation and alignment with organisational culture that require genuine self-reflection 

Questions that require candidates to draw from their unique backgrounds and perspectives are inherently more difficult for Gen AI to generate strong and credible answers. 

Develop Unique Questions 

Create bespoke evaluation components. Standard questions are easily accessible online and therefore vulnerable to Gen AI assistance. Instead: 

  • Develop application questions specific to your organisation’s values, challenges and opportunities 
  • Design scenario-based questions that relate directly to the unique aspects of the role 
  • Request detailed responses that demonstrate depth of understanding rather than surface-level knowledge 

Questions that are specific to your organisation and the role push candidates to think beyond any scripted answers. Not only does this reduce the effectiveness of Gen AI, but it’s also better at uncovering candidates’ genuine interest and cultural fit.  

Implement Verification Strategies 

Consider validating CV and application content by: 

  • Referencing and discussing application content during face-to-face interviews
  • Asking candidates to elaborate on or defend specific points from their CV or written applications 
  • Implementing a verification process for all candidates or for a sample 

Informing candidates in advance that verification will occur can itself serve as a deterrent to Gen AI misuse. 

Prioritise In-Person Interviews and Assessments 

Maximise the value of human interaction. While resource-intensive, in-person interviews and assessments remain among the most reliable methods for evaluating candidates in the Gen AI era: 

  • Design high-quality, job-related interview questions with clear evaluation criteria. 
  • Train interviewers to probe for authenticity and consistent understanding of claimed experiences. 
  • Incorporate practical demonstrations or simulations that require candidates to apply skills in real-time. 

The combination of well-designed questions and simulations, and skilled interviewers and assessors, creates an environment where assistance from Gen AI provides minimal advantage. 

Apply Caution with Detection Technologies 

Evaluate AI detection tools critically. While numerous AI detection solutions have emerged, their effectiveness remains questionable. Our assessment psychology experts warn: 

  • We see little to no evidence that they work effectively. 
  • Implementation can be costly and complex. 
  • There are potential fairness concerns, particularly for candidates from diverse backgrounds. 

If considering detection tools, thoroughly evaluate their accuracy and review potential biases. Ensure there is a robust defence case in place to protect against any legal claim made by someone rejected due to assumed detection of Gen AI use.  If the decision is made to use them, consider them as just one element of a comprehensive strategy, in line with new restrictions emerging from the new EU laws around Gen AI use, rather than a standalone solution. 

Conclusion 

By implementing these practical strategies, organisations can navigate the evolving landscape of AI in recruitment while maintaining the integrity of their selection processes. The goal is not to eliminate Gen AI usage from the recruitment process entirely, but rather to ensure that human capabilities and potential remain at the centre of hiring decisions. 

To help organisations make more informed decisions, PeopleScout’s Assessment Design & Delivery team offers a Gen AI Opportunity & Risk Assessment Audit. This comprehensive review of the recruitment process identifies both vulnerabilities and opportunities related to generative AI throughout the candidate journey. Our assessment psychologists give you evidence-based recommendations to help you focus resources on critical vulnerability points, protecting your selection accuracy and diversity outcomes. 

For more Gen AI insights, download the full The AI-Enabled Applicant: How Candidates Are Really Using Gen AI in Recruitment report. 

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What is Employer Branding? And Why It’s Talent Acquisition’s Secret Weapon

Posted on by akessler

Attracting and retaining top talent goes beyond offering a good salary. Candidates are looking for more than just a job; they’re seeking a purpose, a positive culture, and a company that aligns with their values. This is where employer branding comes in. But what is employer branding, exactly? 

Simply put, the employer branding definition is your company’s reputation as an employer—the unique identity you present to both your current employees and prospective hires. It’s an individual’s perceptions and lived experiences of what it’s like to work for your organization. Think of it as your company’s promise to its employees—what it’s like to work for you, the values you uphold and the employee experience you provide. 

👉 Get Your Essential Guide to Employer Branding. 

What are the Benefits of Employer Branding? 

Understanding what employer branding is is just the first step. The real question is, why should you invest in it? The benefits of a strong employer branding strategy are multifaceted and directly impact your organization’s bottom line: 

  • Attract Top Talent: A strong employer brand makes your company more appealing to highly skilled individuals. When candidates perceive your organization as a desirable place to work, you naturally attract a larger and more qualified talent pool. This significantly reduces time-to-hire and the cost of recruitment. 
  • Reduce Recruitment Costs: With a positive reputation, you’ll spend less on advertising and external recruitment agencies. Candidates will be actively seeking you out, rather than the other way around. This improved candidate experience leads to more efficient hiring. 
  • Boost Employee Engagement and Productivity: A strong employer brand fosters a sense of belonging and pride among your existing workforce. Engaged employees are more productive, innovative, and committed to the company’s goals. This contributes to a healthier and more dynamic workplace culture. 
  • Improve Employee Retention: Employer branding isn’t just about attracting new hires; it’s also about keeping your current ones happy. A positive employer brand reinforces employee loyalty and satisfaction, reducing turnover rates. When employees feel valued and proud of where they work, they’re less likely to look elsewhere. 
  • Enhance Business Reputation: Your reputation as an employer directly impacts your overall business reputation. Companies known for their excellent employer brand are often perceived as more trustworthy and successful in the market, attracting not only talent but also customers and investors. 
what is employer branding

What is an Employer Value Proposition (EVP)? 

Integral to understanding what an employer brand is is grasping the concept of an Employer Value Proposition (EVP). Your EVP is the heart of your employer brand. 

The employee value proposition (EVP) is a clear articulation of why your target talent should work for your company over competitors. It captures the essence of your uniqueness as an employer, the “give and get” between you and your employees. 

Once defined, this proposition is a powerful tool and the foundation of any employer brand management strategy. We think of the EVP as a guiding “north star” for all employer brand activities. 

A well-defined EVP and employer brand encompasses: 

  • Compensation & Benefits: Base salary, bonuses, health insurance coverage, retirement plans and paid time off. 
  • Career Pathways & Development: Opportunities for learning, growth, promotions and skill development. 
  • Work Environment: Company culture, team dynamics, work-life balance, flexibility and physical workspace. 
  • Company Culture: Values, mission, leadership style, recognition programs and a sense of community. 
  • Impact & Purpose: The meaningfulness of the work, the company’s societal contributions and how individual roles contribute to the bigger picture. 

Your EVP defines what makes your company a unique and desirable place to work. It’s what you promise to your employees, and effectively communicating this promise is the cornerstone of a strong employer branding strategy. 

how to improve employer branding

Key Components of a Winning Employer Brand Strategy 

In addition to defining your EVP, developing a robust employer branding strategy involves several crucial elements. The Outthink Index by PeopleScout evaluates employer brand across nine segments:  

Employee Experience 

Modern employees seek comprehensive support beyond salary, including professional growth, well-being, and alignment with personal values. Your employer brand should showcase flexible work policies, benefits, diversity initiatives, career development opportunities and work-life balance on their career pages and candidate touchpoints. 

Content Strategy 

Content serves as the primary vehicle for telling your employer brand story through various formats like social media, videos, testimonials and digital experiences. Effective content should provide authentic insights, demonstrate company values in action, create emotional connections with candidates and establish credibility while differentiating from competitors. 

Social Media Presence 

With the majority of job seekers using social media in their search, these platforms are critical for a strong employer brand. The Outthink Index evaluates social media strategy through three dimensions: Reach (consistent posting and employee advocacy), Authority (thought leadership and industry expertise), and Impact (meaningful metrics like engagement rates and candidate conversion). 

Search Optimization 

SEO is crucial for employer branding since hundreds of millions of job searches occur monthly through search engines. Organizations must optimize job postings and career sites with strategic keywords, ensure mobile-friendliness, integrate with relevant job boards, and create easy-to-navigate career sites to appear in top search results. 

User Experience 

User experience (UX) encompasses every digital touchpoint in a candidate’s journey from discovery to application completion, serving as a virtual window into workplace environment. Critical UX elements include mobile-first design, intuitive navigation, fast loading times, accessible content, and seamless integration across platforms to prevent losing potential applicants. 

Candidate Experience 

The candidate experience serves as the most authentic advertisement for your employer brand, with every interaction showcasing organizational values and culture. Key elements include clear job descriptions, transparent processes, regular communication, constructive feedback, and streamlined interviews, especially since candidates could share negative experiences online. 

employer brand strategy

How to Improve Employer Branding 

So, you understand what employer branding is and why it’s importance. Now it’s time to ask how to improve employer brand? Here are actionable steps: 

  • Benchmark Your Employer Brand: Use the Outthink Index to see how your current employer brand stacks up against other organizations in your industry. The Outthink Index is an interactive tool that lets you compare your employer brand across critical touchpoints—from social presence to candidate experience and employee engagement. It’s the perfect starting point to identify opportunities to enhance your employer brand. Contact us to receive your custom Outthink Index report. 
  • Conduct an Audit: Start by gathering feedback from your current employees. Use surveys, focus groups, and exit interviews to understand their perceptions of working at your company. What are their pain points? What do they love? This internal perspective is invaluable for shaping your employer brand messaging. 
  • Craft Your Story: Authenticity is key. Share compelling stories about your company culture, employee successes, and the impact your organization makes. Utilize various channels like your career site, social media, employee testimonials and blog posts to showcase your employer brand messaging. 
  • Engage on Social Media: Use platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, and even TikTok to showcase your company culture. Share behind-the-scenes glimpses, employee spotlights and company events. Respond to comments and engage with your audience. 
  • Leverage Employee Advocacy: Your current employees are your best brand ambassadors. Encourage them to share their experiences and become advocates for your company. Employee generated content (EGC) is incredibly powerful and believable because genuine testimonials are far more impactful than corporate messaging. 
  • Optimize Your Online Presence: Your career website is often the first point of contact for potential hires. Ensure it’s informative, engaging and reflective of your employer brand. Maintain an active and positive presence on professional networking sites and social media platforms. 
  • Measure and Adapt: Employer branding is an ongoing process. Regularly assess the effectiveness of your strategy through surveys, feedback and key recruitment metrics. Be prepared to adapt and evolve your approach based on insights and changing market trends. 

Employer Brand & RPO: A Strategic Partnership 

When seeking to build or enhance your employer brand, considering a partnership with a Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) provider that specializes in employer branding can be a highly advantageous move. An RPO is more than just a staffing agency; it’s a strategic partnership where an external provider manages all or part of your recruitment functions. 

An RPO with extensive employer brand expertise integrates employer brand strategy directly into the hiring workflow, ensuring consistency and effectiveness from the very first candidate touchpoint. This holistic approach ensures that your employer brand isn’t just a marketing exercise but is woven into every aspect of your talent acquisition process. 

👉 Learn more about PeopleScout Talent Advisory solutions. 

RPO + Employer Brand Agency: PeopleScout Offers the Best of Both 

While an employer branding agency can offer valuable creative and strategic guidance, an RPO partner with inherent employer branding capabilities provides a deeper, more integrated solution. PeopleScout offers the best of both with one of the largest in-house talent advisory teams in the industry.  

  • Holistic Integration: As both employer brand agency and RPO, we deliver an employer brand strategy or campaign and then implement it throughout the recruitment process daily. This means your employer brand isn’t just designed; it’s actively lived and reinforced through every candidate interaction, from initial outreach to onboarding. Our recruitment delivery teams ensure your EVP is reflected in job descriptions, interview processes and candidate communications. 
  • Real-Time Data & Iteration: We are constantly engaged in the recruitment market, gaining real-time access to data on candidate perceptions, response rates and market trends. This allows us to gather immediate feedback and make iterative adjustments to your employer branding strategy, ensuring it remains effective and responsive to the talent market. Other agencies might provide periodic reports, but we offer continuous optimization. 
  • Efficiency & Cost-Effectiveness: By offering both RPO and talent advisory solutions, PeopleScout can offer significant cost savings compared to building an internal team or managing multiple external vendors (like an agency for branding and another for recruitment execution). The integration of employer branding within our core service streamlines the entire process. 
  • Scalability & Agility: Our RPO solutions offer flexibility to scale recruitment efforts up or down quickly, adapting to your changing hiring needs. This includes scaling employer branding activities in parallel. Leveraging a separate employer brand agency might require new contracts or project scopes for increased demand, whereas we can embed it in our operational flow. 
  • Accountability for Recruitment Outcomes: Ultimately, an RPO is accountable for filling your open roles. With our extensive expertise in employer branding, we directly link brand strength to recruitment success metrics (e.g., time-to-hire, quality of hire, cost-per-hire). An employer branding agency’s accountability typically ends with the delivery of brand assets or a campaign.

By choosing an RPO with robust employer branding capabilities, you gain a strategic partner that not only understands what employer branding is but actively embeds it into every step of your talent acquisition lifecycle, leading to superior hiring outcomes and a more compelling presence in the talent market. 

The Future of Work and Employer Branding 

As the world of work continues to evolve, so too does the importance of employer branding. Companies that invest in clearly defining and promoting their employer brand will be the ones that thrive. By answering the question “What is an employer brand?” and committing to a thoughtful, authentic strategy, your organization can build a magnetic reputation that attracts, engages, and retains the talent essential for future success. 

The Truth About Gen AI & Job Seekers: 3 Insights from Our Latest Research 

Posted on by akessler

The intersection of generative AI (Gen AI) and job seeking has garnered significant attention, with numerous tools available to help candidates with résumés, CVs, cover letters and interview preparation. Media coverage suggests widespread adoption, but actual prevalence isn’t that clear. 

To move beyond the hype and establish a clearer picture of the use of Gen AI across the broad population of job seekers, PeopleScout commissioned YouGov to conduct a comprehensive survey of 1,000 members of the UK public who had changed jobs within the previous 12 months. Our new research report, The AI-Enabled Applicant: How Candidates Are Really Using Gen AI in Recruitment, aims to provide clarity on real usage patterns and to better understand the potential implications for recruitment—especially amongst concerns that candidates might use these technologies to misrepresent their skills and experiences. 

This article is the first in a series exploring the data and grappling with the implications of Gen AI use amongst candidates. Read on for three key findings from our report. 

1. Gen AI Usage Amongst Candidates Isn’t as Prevalent as You Might Think 

While media narratives often portray Gen AI usage as nearly universal among job seekers, our research indicates a more measured reality. Our study reveals that fewer than one in five people (18%) who changed jobs in the UK in the last year used Gen AI at any point in their job search.   

This is considerably lower than media reports have suggested, and it’s lower than we were expecting given Gen AI tools have been freely available since November 2022. This calls for a reality check on the hype.  

It’s easy to see how employers could see media content—alongside indicators of Gen AI use in their own candidate pools—and overestimate the frequency of Gen AI-enhanced applications. However, at this point the evidence suggests that the vast majority of job seekers from the general population are not using Gen AI to assist their job search or applications.   

2. Interviews Seem Safe…For Now 

Just 9% of those using Gen AI at any point in the recruitment process used it to support their pre-recorded interviews. This was unexpectedly low, given the number using it to help with résumés, CVs and applications. It may be that its value in helping to prepare and practice for interviews is less well understood or harder to achieve. For example, Gen AI tools may need more sophisticated prompting to get high quality support for interview preparation.   

For candidates who used Gen AI at some point and who had a live virtual interview as part of their selection process, only 8% used Gen AI to help with this but, significantly, almost half of this group disclosed that they had used it for live support during the interview. Live interviews were previously a protected space from Gen AI use, and although this is reported by just handful of job seekers, it clearly suggests that real-time assistance during live virtual interviews is happening—and we would assume this is likely to increase.    

It isn’t evident from our survey exactly what type of live Gen AI assistance candidates were using, but newer Gen AI capabilities of ‘listening’ and responding in real time with a conversational style could allow candidates to deliver inauthentic answers without detection. This is something employers are likely to want to keep under observation and consider acting on, redesigning interview questions to make it harder to use Gen AI for deceptive purposes. Despite this, our survey indicates that this kind of potentially disruptive use is low amongst job changers and not a major cause for alarm at this point.   

3. No One’s Talking About It 

Perhaps most revealing for employers is that of those applicants who used Gen AI, only 38% would be willing to disclose their use to employers. The remaining 62% either wouldn’t disclose or are uncertain about whether they would—a concerning reality check for employers attempting to protect the integrity of their recruitment process.  

It begs the question—could this behaviour be driven by employers? According to our survey, employers rarely mention Gen AI usage in their communications with candidates. Only 5% of all job changers said their future employers spoke to them about Gen AI during the recruitment process. And for the few who did hear about it during recruitment,, 35% were told not to use it.   

The number of employers failing to communicate about AI in recruiting may contribute to candidates’ reluctance to discuss their Gen AI usage with employers due to an assumption that employers’ silence on the matter indicates that Gen AI use is inappropriate or unacceptable, and to reveal use of it would negatively impact their chances of getting an offer. 

Gen AI Opportunities & Risks 

Navigating this complex landscape effectively often requires specialized expertise and support. Working with a talent partner with deep assessment expertise can provide crucial advantages in maintaining recruitment integrity while achieving business objectives.  

As leading providers of talent assessment solutions, PeopleScout’s Assessment Design & Delivery team offers a Gen AI Opportunity & Risk Assessment Audit to provide organizations with a comprehensive review of their recruitment processes, identifying both vulnerabilities and opportunities related to generative AI throughout the candidate journey. This independent audit, grounded in psychological expertise, stress-tests each assessment element within your specific recruitment context to determine how Gen AI might impact selection accuracy and diversity outcomes. The resulting evidence-based recommendations allow employers to strategically focus resources on critical vulnerability points while potentially leveraging beneficial AI uses, enabling informed decisions about whether to accept, prevent or adapt to candidates’ use of Gen AI tools based on your organizational values and objectives. 

For more Gen AI insights, download the full The AI-Enabled Applicant: How Candidates Are Really Using Gen AI in Recruitment report. 

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The AI-Enabled Applicant: How Candidates Are Really Using Gen AI in Recruitment

Posted on by akessler

The AI-Enabled Applicant

How Candidates Are Really Using Gen AI in Recruitment

Is generative AI (Gen AI) disrupting your recruitment process? Our exclusive research with YouGov unveils what’s actually happening right now—and the results might surprise you.

While headlines scream about AI taking over job applications, our fresh data shows the nuanced reality of how candidates in the UK are really using these tools in 2025.

In this comprehensive report, you’ll discover:

  • The true adoption rate of Gen AI by job seekers (spoiler: it’s not what most experts predicted)
  • Which specific recruiting touchpoints are most vulnerable to Gen AI impact
  • Unexpected findings about candidate attitudes toward disclosing Gen AI usage
  • Actionable strategies to protect assessment integrity without fighting technology

Don’t Base Critical Hiring Decisions on Outdated Information

As some organizations implement extreme measures like blanket AI bans, others are finding smarter, more sustainable approaches that embrace innovation while maintaining recruitment quality. Download the report now to get ahead of this rapidly evolving challenge and transform potential threats into competitive advantages for your recruitment strategy.

The Essential Guide to Employer Branding From Concept to Competitive Advantage 

Posted on by akessler

The Essential Guide to Employer Branding 

From Concept to Competitive Advantage

In today’s competitive talent landscape, your employer brand isn’t just nice to have—it’s essential for survival. Our comprehensive ebook delivers actionable strategies to revolutionize how candidates perceive your organization.

 

Why This Guide Matters to Your Organization:

  • 82% of candidates research your reputation before applying
  • Companies with strong employer brands see a 43% decrease in cost-per-hire
  • Yet only 8% of HR leaders have dedicated employer branding budgets

 

What You’ll Discover:

  • Proven frameworks to align your employer brand with business objectives
  • Practical strategies to authentically showcase your culture across channels
  • Step-by-step approaches to measure and optimize your employer brand ROI
  • Real-world case studies from organizations that transformed their talent attraction

 

While your competition invests in employer branding, can you afford to fall behind? Download our guide today and build the magnetic employer brand your organization deserves.