How to review employer branding options: a six-dimension scoring method for UK teams

Employer branding is how an organisation presents itself as a place to work: its employer value proposition (EVP), careers site, employer review site profiles and candidate experience. A review compares the options for improving it, such as a specialist agency, a careers-site platform or a review-profile service, against a defined hiring need. This method scores each option on six dimensions.

Start with the hiring question

Write down the hiring need and the options to assess before gathering any material. A realistic need is to raise offer-acceptance among graduate engineers, or to lift application completion on a careers site. Use the same brief for every option, and tie the criteria to that need rather than to a general market ranking.

Choose the outcome measures at this stage too. Typical ones are offer-acceptance rate, application completion rate, time to hire and cost per hire. The criteria comparison helps keep the options aligned to the brief.

Sort evidence into three tiers

Mark independent public material as tier one, supplier-submitted information as tier two and editorial judgement as tier three. Record the tier against each claim, and give tier one the greatest weight. For employer branding, tier one might be public filings or independent review sites such as Glassdoor or Indeed company pages. Tier two is a supplier's case study.

Note each source's age, geography and relevance to the brief. Source checks show what a source can and cannot establish.

Give the six dimensions fixed meanings

Apply the same score anchors to all six dimensions and add a written reason wherever a judgement needs one. A number summarises the available support. It is not proof on its own. Stronger marks need stronger material, and unsupported or contradicted claims sit at the bottom of the scale.

For capability and fit, look for employer-branding substance: a defined EVP, a careers site that meets accessibility and consent expectations, a plan for employer review sites and a way to measure candidate experience. A candidate experience survey is one concrete test. An option that cannot show how it affects these things scores low.

Check reach and advertising claims in context

For reach, ask whether a claim fits the intended audience. Check a population reference such as the ONS mid-year population estimates for its date and the age and region it covers. Keep potential reach separate from hiring outcomes, since they answer different questions. The attribution methods cover linking activity to outcomes.

Name the rules rather than recording only that compliance was checked. The CAP Code's Section 3 covers misleading advertising. Section 20, rule 20.2, covers employment advertising: it requires genuine vacancies, accurate descriptions of pay and conditions, and no charge to applicants for information. The Equality Act 2010 makes discriminatory job adverts unlawful, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission publishes guidance on them.

Check the ASA rulings database, but let a ruling affect the compliance score only where it relates to the claim being assessed. See how ASA scrutiny affects employer branding copy. Candidate data raises UK GDPR duties, covered in candidate data compliance.

Declare reviewer ties

Declare earlier work, referral fees and shared ownership, then explain how each connection relates to the assessment. A disclosed relationship is not an automatic bar. Keep the declaration with the relevant score and rationale. Use the disclosure policy as a related reference and supplier due diligence for other supplier checks.

Worked example: scoring two options

An illustrative brief: raise offer-acceptance among graduate engineers. Weights come from the brief. Here capability and fit is 30 per cent, evidence quality 25, compliance 15, commercial terms 15, audience reach 10 and independence 5. Option A is an employer branding agency, and option B is a careers-site platform. Both are illustrative, not market suppliers.

Option A scores 4 for capability and fit, 3 for evidence, 4 for compliance, 3 for terms, 3 for reach and 5 for independence. Weighted, that is 1.20 + 0.75 + 0.60 + 0.45 + 0.30 + 0.25 = 3.55. Option B scores 3, 4, 3, 4, 2 and 4 in the same order, giving 3.35.

The gap is 0.20, which is small. When scores are this close, decide on the brief and the evidence tier behind each mark, not on the mean. Do not let a lower price decide alone. A £900 software licence should not beat a £2,000 agency retainer merely because it costs less, since the two do different jobs.

The supplier comparison figure below uses its own sub-criteria and weights, scoring three illustrative supplier types. Close totals are common, so recorded reasons matter more than the final number.

Record changes instead of quietly replacing scores

Keep the brief, source tier, claim, score, rationale and relationship declaration together. When a score moves, write down what changed, why and when. Revise a judgement when accepted tier-one evidence supports the change. Review the method annually or after a material change in sources.

The review workflow can support ownership of this record. Preserve the individual marks so a later reader can see how the comparison was reached and what evidence underpinned it.