How to assess employer branding suppliers

What to take away

Treat the checklist as a scoring tool, not a wish list. In the CIPD's Autumn 2025 Labour Market Outlook, 38% of UK employers reported hard-to-fill vacancies, so weak selection carries a measurable cost.
Ask every shortlisted supplier for the evidence behind its claims, then score the answer rather than the presentation.
Check data protection before creative. The ICO guidance on direct marketing and privacy sets the baseline for candidate contact.
Confirm where candidate data sits, who can see it, and how long it is kept.
Read the wider comparison methods guide before you agree a scoring scale.

What should the checklist cover?

Cover five areas: the brief, evidence, data protection, delivery and exit. Each area gets a score out of five and a named owner. Anything unscored is opinion, and opinion is what suppliers are best at supplying.

Five areas to score

Briefoutcome in one sentence
Evidencetwo comparable examples with numbers
Data protectioncontroller, storage, termination
Deliverywho does the work
Exitnotice, data return, handover hours

Give each area a weight before you see any supplier answer. A weighting agreed after the proposals arrive tends to bend towards the most impressive deck.

For the brief, write the outcome you want in one sentence. A team hiring 40 engineers in Manchester might want more qualified applications per advert, not more impressions.

For evidence, ask for two comparable examples with numbers. If the supplier cannot share figures, ask what it measured and how.

For data protection, ask who is the controller for candidate records, where data is stored and what happens on termination. For delivery, ask who does the work and what happens if that person leaves.

Add exit terms even if you never expect to use them: notice period, data return and handover hours.

Which questions expose weak evidence?

Ask what changed after the last similar project. Ask which metric moved and by how much. Ask what the supplier would do differently.

Questions that expose weak evidence

What changed after the last project?
Which metric moved and by how much?
What is the source of the benchmark?
How is creative tested before launch?
Who owns the candidate relationship?
What will the supplier not do?
Which named people do the work?

Record each answer in the supplier's own words, with the date it was given. A verbal promise about reporting frequency is hard to enforce once the contract is live.

Ask for the source of any benchmark. A claim that a sector averages a certain application rate needs a named dataset and a date.

Ask how the supplier tests creative before launch. Ask how it reports underperformance and how quickly it escalates.

Ask who owns the candidate relationship. If the answer is vague, the supplier may be building its own audience on your budget.

Ask what the supplier will not do. Clear limits are a good sign. A supplier that agrees to everything has either misunderstood the brief or plans to subcontract it.

Ask which named people will do the work each week.

How do you score and compare answers?

Use a written rubric with weighted criteria. Weight evidence and data protection highest, because both are hard to fix later.

Scoring and comparing answers

Write a rubric with weighted criteria
Weight evidence and data protection highest
Score 1-5 against written definitions
Two assessors score independently
Reconcile differences in writing
Keep rubrics, answers and notes in one file
Set minimum scores for evidence and data protection

Score each answer 1 to 5 against a written definition of each score. Two assessors should score independently, then reconcile differences in writing.

Keep the completed rubrics, the raw answers and the reconciliation notes in one file. If a decision is challenged later, that written trail is the only defence you have.

The product comparison in England shows how to lay out side-by-side scores so a panel can challenge them.

Keep a note of every assumption used in scoring. If a supplier's price assumes no employer brand photography, the score changes.

Set a minimum score for evidence and data protection. Any supplier below the line drops out, whatever its price.

What does a good decision table look like?

Choose

You need employer brand pages built and measured: A supplier with named page owners and a published measurement plan
You handle candidate data in-house: A supplier that works inside your systems
You have no internal brand assets: A supplier with a defined discovery phase
You need to switch supplier mid-contract: A contract with a documented exit and data return clause
You are a small team with one recruiter: A fixed-scope project with a single contact

Avoid

You need employer brand pages built and measured: Suppliers who report reach only
You handle candidate data in-house: Suppliers who insist on their own candidate database
You have no internal brand assets: Suppliers who quote for media only
You need to switch supplier mid-contract: Rolling contracts with no exit terms
You are a small team with one recruiter: Retainers with unlimited scope

Use the table to shape questions, not to replace the rubric. Where two suppliers score the same, break the tie on the evidence score rather than the price.

Common questions

How many suppliers should we shortlist?

Three is usually enough to compare properly. More than five slows the decision without adding evidence.

Should the checklist differ for LinkedIn Career Pages?

Only slightly. If you plan to build on LinkedIn Career Pages, add a line for who owns the page content. Record how updates are approved, because the platform's own guidance puts page control with the employer.

What evidence should we accept for a claim?

Named data with a date, or a documented internal test. Ask for the test design as well as the result, so you can judge whether it transfers to your roles and regions. The CIPD knowledge hub is a reasonable starting point for workforce evidence, but it will not validate a supplier's own performance figures.

When should data protection be checked?

Before shortlisting, not after signing. Ask for the retention period, the lawful basis for candidate contact and the deletion process, then score the answers.