Authentic employer branding in the era of AI

You don’t have to look far for evidence of AI’s increasing infiltration into almost every market. Whether it’s a dozen LinkedIn posts with the same slightly clawing tone and odd cadence, the ‘slop’ images being churned out across all social media channels, or the Random Capitalisation Of Words On Employer Websites And Blogs. It’s safe to say, AI is everywhere.

However, while ChatGPT might be useful for creating a shopping list – if you don’t have a functioning brain – there are some areas where human input is still, and will long be, required.

The importance of human involvement

This includes elements of medical care, for example, or anything requiring an understanding of human emotional connection, such as the recruitment process. Securing a new job is one of the most significant decisions any professional undertakes, and is therefore something that cannot be offloaded entirely to artificial intelligence. We could write reams on why having humans involved in hiring is key for any organisation, but specifically within the realm of employer branding, it is notably pivotal.

In the broader process, the likes of automated screening, candidate outreach sequences, generative content and chat interfaces promise efficiency and scale and are being widely adopted by organisations across a range of markets. This is hardly surprising, they can reduce time spent on manual and time-consuming tasks, freeing up time for other, more strategic activities. We have all heard the sales pitches.

But simultaneously, candidates are becoming more cynical, discerning and aware. There is also a major pushback against artificial intelligence, not just at an individual level, but also corporately, with Meta notably divesting many of its recent investments. Everyone is becoming more finely attuned to the aforementioned warning signs of AI-produced content, and the widespread love-in that we saw earlier this year has tailed off somewhat.

However, AI still certainly has its uses, but the challenge has become how to leverage it and automation effectively, without hollowing out the character, personality and differentiation of your employer brand, which has likely taken years to develop.

Authentic employer branding

At a simplistic level, most professionals won’t want to join an organisation where it’s clear they’ve not put the effort into developing an authentic employer brand. After all, it doesn’t exactly suggest the company will be a caring, empathetic firm with its staff’s best interests at heart. Equally, if a business does manage to recruit talent using an AI-developed employer brand, it’s likely the individual will quickly realise the reality doesn’t match the overtly shiny sales pitch, and will quickly look elsewhere.

This is one reason why authenticity in employer branding has never been a marketing tactic, and if the public narrative about flexible working, psychological safety or inclusion, or whatever it is that is under focus, is not matched by the lived experience inside the organisation, the mismatch will be found and it will be costly.

So, with this complex balance in mind, how should in-house teams approach AI in the employer branding process? As outlined, and despite the earlier negativity, AI has its uses, and not leveraging its capabilities to manage more simplistic tasks is equally as foolish as outsourcing everything to it.

The key is in striking a careful balance. Tools like CoPilot and ChatGPT should be treated as assistants, not spokespeople. And certainly don’t follow the lead of one individual who relied on the latter for important things like legal advice, which was – unsurprisingly – found to be largely fictional, and then for some reason took the story to the BBC to highlight his glaring naivety in more detail, to an international audience.

The role of AI

Automation and AI can be used to handle tasks that add no value to the candidate experience, such as scheduling interviews or parsing CV formats, or in the ideation stages of campaign development. These are legitimate places where it can be leveraged, but those that require nuance, empathy and credibility should remain entirely human activities, for example, candidate-facing language about culture, leadership and lived experience.

Employers should also install a transparency rule, and if they are using automated outreach, touchpoints, assessments or feedback at scale, then say so. This isn’t just the right thing to do from a compliance perspective, but also because trust is easier to build than to repair. Employers can face major reputational damage if candidates discover that conversations were scripted or a decision was made by an algorithm with no human oversight, and in the modern, social media-led era, this negativity travels fast.

Ultimately, AI should be used to surface truth, not manufacture it, and data should assist storytelling, rather than guide it. Automated tools that analyse attrition drivers, applicant flow, pay equity or engagement survey responses can reveal the areas in the employee experience that deserve attention, and can be converted into honest narratives, with the emphasis on evidence-led storytelling and on amplifying employee voices rather than scripting them.

Finally, keep putting employee advocates as the centrepieces of employer brands. The easiest and most resilient route to authenticity is to let real people tell the story, and earned profiles, trade press features and speaking slots give employer cultures third-party corroboration that a careers page cannot.

Employers should also keep in mind that authenticity is not perfection, and no organisation is flawless. Sometimes, the ‘warts and all’ approach to employer branding can be beneficial, and help to spotlight the human elements of the business that people are naturally drawn to, perhaps increasingly so in this increasingly tech-focused era.

It is far better to be a company that is improving and honest about it than a company that paints a picture of complete success and then faces the inevitable exposure of the gap between word and deed. Make AI work for you by using it to scale evidence, not to invent it, and use automation to do the heavy lifting, while your people tell the story that technology cannot.

If your business is seeking support in developing authentic employer brand content, get in touch today

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Author: Bruce Callander

With over a decade’s experience in PR, marketing and communications, Bruce develops and executes media relations, content and social media strategies for firms in the recruitment and hiring industries, as well as suppliers to those sectors and other organisations both in the UK and internationally.