Employer branding team: roles, composition, KPI
Logic of scaling: from one person to a department
Employer branding is structured like any marketing function — it grows together with the hiring funnel and the brand's complexity. The maturity model used by mature HR practices divides investments into three levels: initial (1-3% of HR budget), systemic (5-8%) and leadership (8-12%). The difference is not only in money, but also in who physically performs the work.
| Company size | Who is responsible for EB | HR budget share | Focus of tasks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Startup, up to 50 people | HR-generalist or founder, 10-20% of time | 1-3% | Career page, content in social networks, employee reviews |
| Small and medium business, 50-300 people | Dedicated HR/marketer at 0,5-1 rate | 3-5% | Content plan, working with responses, basic analytics of sources |
| Medium business, 300-1000 people | Dedicated EB specialist or a team of 2-3 people | 5-8% | Brand strategy, EVP, campaigns, partnership with recruitment |
| Large business / corporation, 1000+ | Team of 5-8 roles, separate budget and P&L | 8-12% | Full cycle: strategy, content, analytics, programs, ambassadorship |
Data confirms: over 50% of medium and large companies maintain a dedicated specialist or team for EB, whereas in small business these tasks are almost always distributed among non-specialist employees — HR manager, marketer, sometimes a PR specialist. This is not a compromise born of poverty, but a normal stage of functional development.
What to do if there is no dedicated EB specialist
Eight classic roles — strategist, internal interface, external relations, SMM, campaign manager, content marketer, program manager and analyst — exist in any company regardless of staff size. The question is who actually carries these roles.
- Strategy and EVP — usually takes on the role of the HR director together with the marketing manager: without their consent, positioning won't survive longer than one campaign.
- Content and SMM — logically passes to marketing: they already have the tools, access to brand guidelines, and understanding of the tone of voice.
- Internal communications — is handled by the HR manager, as he or she is closer to employees and knows the real pain points that can be turned into content.
- External relations (media, reviews, partnerships with universities) — is the PR specialist's area, if one exists, or the recruiter with expanded authority.
- Analytics and KPI — is the responsibility of whoever already tracks cost per hire and time to fill, usually the recruitment lead.
The main rule for distribution: assign roles not by position, but by competence and proximity to the data. If this is not done, EB becomes a 'no man's land,' which people occupy in snippets between their main tasks.
Who owns the program and how to avoid silos
The sponsor of employer branding should be the HR director or CHRO — only they have enough weight to ensure the function doesn't get lost in the priorities of recruitment or marketing. But ownership does not mean isolation. The working model is the employer brand council: a cross-functional group from HR, marketing, communications, recruitment, and rotating employees from the business, which meets once a month.
Such an approach resolves the main problem of the EB-function—silos. When the program depends only on HR, it loses marketing discipline and content quality. When it is handed over entirely to marketing, credibility suffers—employees stop recognizing themselves in campaigns. The council balances both sides and prevents the function from being subordinate to just one department.
KPIs and their relationship to business outcomes
Metrics such as 'the number of likes under a post about the company' do not hold up under scrutiny from a CFO. The chief financial officer needs four indicators that directly impact the company's P&L:
| KPI | What it shows | Business alignment |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per hire by source | Cost of filling a vacancy through different channels | Reducing recruitment expenses |
| Offer accept rate | Offer acceptance rate | Speed of position closure, time to fill savings |
| First-year retention | Retention of new hires in the first year | Reducing costs related to rehiring and training |
| Qualified applicants per role | Share of relevant responses | Quality of hiring, less burden on recruiters |
Realistic benchmarks by year of operation: cost per hire decreases by 5-15% depending on company scale, offer acceptance rate grows by 5-10 percentage points. It's important to prepare management for the fact that ROI in the first year may be negative — program payback usually occurs after 12-18 months (depending on metrics and company), although some improvements are visible earlier.
How to justify the budget with management
The argument is not based on 'it's trendy and everyone is doing it,' but on the numbers of funnel efficiency. Companies with a strong employer brand receive 50% more qualified responses to job postings (in some LinkedIn studies, 2.5x more responses overall) and 28% lower turnover — these are LinkedIn data based on the Eda Gultekin study (originally 2011), which have been republished by LinkedIn, and which are easy to translate into monetary terms: lower recruitment costs, fewer losses from resignations in the first year. The second argument is that the job search channel has shifted: 73% of candidates find positions through social networks rather than job sites, according to Aberdeen Group. If a company continues to invest its budget only in posting vacancies on classic platforms, it misses most of its audience before they even see the job listing.
For the pitch, allocate 1-3% of the HR budget at the start with the commitment to show initial metrics (offer accept rate, quality of responses) within 6-9 months, and indicate investment growth to 5-8% as systemic processes emerge. This is fairer than promising a reduction in cost per hire already in the first quarter — such a promise is usually not fulfilled and undermines trust in the function for years to come.
Logic of scaling: from one person to a department
Employer branding is structured like any marketing function — it grows together with the hiring funnel and the brand's complexity. The maturity model used by mature HR practices divides investments into three levels: initial (1-3% of HR budget), systemic (5-8%) and leadership (8-12%). The difference is not only in money, but also in who physically performs the work.
| Company size | Who is responsible for EB | HR budget share | Focus of tasks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Startup, up to 50 people | HR-generalist or founder, 10-20% of time | 1-3% | Career page, content in social networks, employee reviews |
| Small and medium business, 50-300 people | Dedicated HR/marketer at 0,5-1 rate | 3-5% | Content plan, working with responses, basic analytics of sources |
| Medium business, 300-1000 people | Dedicated EB specialist or a team of 2-3 people | 5-8% | Brand strategy, EVP, campaigns, partnership with recruitment |
| Large business / corporation, 1000+ | Team of 5-8 roles, separate budget and P&L | 8-12% | Full cycle: strategy, content, analytics, programs, ambassadorship |
Data confirms: over 50% of medium and large companies maintain a dedicated specialist or team for EB, whereas in small business these tasks are almost always distributed among non-specialist employees — HR manager, marketer, sometimes a PR specialist. This is not a compromise born of poverty, but a normal stage of functional development.
What to do if there is no dedicated EB specialist
Eight classic roles — strategist, internal interface, external relations, SMM, campaign manager, content marketer, program manager and analyst — exist in any company regardless of staff size. The question is who actually carries these roles.
- Strategy and EVP — usually takes on the role of the HR director together with the marketing manager: without their consent, positioning won't survive longer than one campaign.
- Content and SMM — logically passes to marketing: they already have the tools, access to brand guidelines, and understanding of the tone of voice.
- Internal communications — is handled by the HR manager, as he or she is closer to employees and knows the real pain points that can be turned into content.
- External relations (media, reviews, partnerships with universities) — is the PR specialist's area, if one exists, or the recruiter with expanded authority.
- Analytics and KPI — is the responsibility of whoever already tracks cost per hire and time to fill, usually the recruitment lead.
The main rule for distribution: assign roles not by position, but by competence and proximity to the data. If this is not done, EB becomes a 'no man's land,' which people occupy in snippets between their main tasks.
Who owns the program and how to avoid silos
The sponsor of employer branding should be the HR director or CHRO — only they have enough weight to ensure the function doesn't get lost in the priorities of recruitment or marketing. But ownership does not mean isolation. The working model is the employer brand council: a cross-functional group from HR, marketing, communications, recruitment, and rotating employees from the business, which meets once a month.
Such an approach resolves the main problem of the EB-function—silos. When the program depends only on HR, it loses marketing discipline and content quality. When it is handed over entirely to marketing, credibility suffers—employees stop recognizing themselves in campaigns. The council balances both sides and prevents the function from being subordinate to just one department.
KPIs and their relationship to business outcomes
Metrics such as 'the number of likes under a post about the company' do not hold up under scrutiny from a CFO. The chief financial officer needs four indicators that directly impact the company's P&L:
| KPI | What it shows | Business alignment |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per hire by source | Cost of filling a vacancy through different channels | Reducing recruitment expenses |
| Offer accept rate | Offer acceptance rate | Speed of position closure, time to fill savings |
| First-year retention | Retention of new hires in the first year | Reducing costs related to rehiring and training |
| Qualified applicants per role | Share of relevant responses | Quality of hiring, less burden on recruiters |
Realistic benchmarks by year of operation: cost per hire decreases by 5-15% depending on company scale, offer acceptance rate grows by 5-10 percentage points. It's important to prepare management for the fact that ROI in the first year may be negative — program payback usually occurs after 12-18 months (depending on metrics and company), although some improvements are visible earlier.
How to justify the budget with management
The argument is not based on 'it's trendy and everyone is doing it,' but on the numbers of funnel efficiency. Companies with a strong employer brand receive 50% more qualified responses to job postings (in some LinkedIn studies, 2.5x more responses overall) and 28% lower turnover — these are LinkedIn data based on the Eda Gultekin study (originally 2011), which have been republished by LinkedIn, and which are easy to translate into monetary terms: lower recruitment costs, fewer losses from resignations in the first year. The second argument is that the job search channel has shifted: 73% of candidates find positions through social networks rather than job sites, according to Aberdeen Group. If a company continues to invest its budget only in posting vacancies on classic platforms, it misses most of its audience before they even see the job listing.
For the pitch, allocate 1-3% of the HR budget at the start with the commitment to show initial metrics (offer accept rate, quality of responses) within 6-9 months, and indicate investment growth to 5-8% as systemic processes emerge. This is fairer than promising a reduction in cost per hire already in the first quarter — such a promise is usually not fulfilled and undermines trust in the function for years to come.
Recent articles
MegaFon, BMW, VTB and more 240+ companies. See how it looks in the showcase reel:
Our branding agency is approached to order:
Branding agency services
