HR Brand Strategy for 3 Years: Development Stages
How to Distribute 3 Years: Phases, Not Just a List of Stages
Most articles about HR brands list 6-8 stages — from analysis to monitoring — and stop there, as if the development ends with the launch. In practice, the launch is only the beginning. Each stage lives in the strategy repeatedly, but with different intensity and different tasks depending on the year. Here's how it actually breaks down, based on data from employer branding projects (Preparation 2-3 months, Discovery 1-3 months, Strategy & Messaging 3 month, Launch and Maintenance — ongoing):
| Year | Focus | What happens | Budget share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-year | Launch | Research, EVP, brand platform, initial communication campaigns, basic analytics | 40-45% |
| 2-year | Strengthening | EVP correction based on feedback, expanding channels, internal ambassadors, working with reviews | 30-35% |
| 3-year | Scaling | Localization for regions/countries, process automation, integration with hiring business strategy | 25-30% |
Such budget distribution is logical: the first year is always the most expensive, because it covers the research phase, EVP development, and launch of infrastructure — the career website, content plan, first videos, and employee cases. In large companies, the analytical phase can stretch up to a year — Nina Borisenko from Skyeng notes this separately, saying that 6-8 months of active actions are typical for medium-sized businesses, and up to a year for large organizations due to the volume of data that needs to be collected and structured.
Year 1: launch — what companies actually manage to accomplish
A common mistake among companies is trying to 'do everything' in the first year: conduct research, write the EVP, launch the website, social networks, ambassador programs, and advertising campaigns all at once. This doesn't work because data for evaluating effectiveness only becomes available 6-8 months after launching the first activities.
A realistic sequence of the first year looks like this:
- Preparation (2-3 months) — setting goals, audit of the current perception of the employer brand, forming the project team.
- Discovery (1-3 months) — surveys of employees and candidates, competitor analysis, audit of reviews on platforms such as hh.ru and Glassdoor.
- Strategy & Messaging (approximately 3 months) — formulating the EVP, developing the brand platform, key messages.
- Launch (2-3 months) — launching the career site, initial campaigns, content.
KPI of the first year are the baseline metrics: brand recognition among the target audience, number and quality of responses, source-of-hire mix (from which channels candidates actually come), cost per vacancy filled. It is not advisable to expect a sharp decline in turnover or hiring cost in the first year: the effect manifests later, usually by 6-8 month of active actions, the cost of hiring may decrease, for example, from 74 000 to 60 000 rubles, and the vacancy closing time may be reduced by 30%, from 30 to 20 days.
Year 2: consolidation — this is where the real work with the EVP begins
The second year is not a repetition of the first on autopilot. By this point, the company already has data: which EVP messages resonate with candidates, and which remained pretty words on the website. It is precisely on the second year that the EVP is adjusted — not completely rewritten, but the formulations are refined to match the real employee experience revealed through surveys and exit interviews.
Communication strategy is also changing: if the first year was focused on broad reach and recognition, the second year shifts focus to conversion — specific vacancies, targeted campaigns for segments (IT, sales, production), working with reviews. This is important because 37% of reviews on HR platforms are left by people who have never worked at the company — their opinion shapes candidates' perception even before submitting a resume, and without active work on this, the second year will pass in vain.
KPIs for the second year shift from reach metrics to quality metrics: cost per qualified applicant, turnover of newcomers in the first 3-6 months (realistic goal — reducing it from 40% to 25% over the course of a year with active work on onboarding and managing expectations), and the share of candidates who learned about the vacancy through employee referrals.
Year 3: scaling and multinational context
The third year is the moment when strategy should start working without constant manual management, and at the same time — the moment of going beyond a single market. If a company is growing in several countries, the third year is usually dedicated to EVP localization: the common core of the value proposition is preserved, but messages, channels and tone are adapted to the local labor market.
Practical approach to scaling in a multinational company:
- The centralized brand core (mission, values, visual code) remains unchanged for all regions.
- Local teams receive guidelines, but adapt EVP formulations to the local labor market and cultural context.
- Metrics are collected centrally, but interpreted with regard to regional specifics — what works in Moscow does not necessarily work in Almaty or Tashkent.
- A portion of the third year's budget goes toward infrastructure: HR platforms for analytics, automation of feedback collection, a unified content database that local teams can reuse.
KPIs for the third year are already business metrics: HR brand ROI (the ratio of brand costs and savings on hiring), the share of closed positions through incoming flow without active search, the stability of turnover indicators without constant HR team intervention.
What the HR brand strategy consists of: theory for those who want to understand it in depth
The classical process of HR branding development is usually described through 6-8 steps: goal setting, analysis of the current situation, research of employees and candidates, formation of EVP (Employee Value Proposition — employer value proposition), brand platform creation, communication strategy, launch and monitoring. This is true, but this description refers to one cycle, not a three-year strategy — hence the confusion among many companies that think that the work is finished after the launch.
In practice, the entire cycle described above is the Planning and Execution phase of the first year. Refinement, that is, adjustment, spans the second and third years and includes not one-time fixes, but a continuous cycle: data collection → analysis → message refinement → relaunch in an updated form.
Strategic vs Tactical employer branding: why these are different budgets
It is important to distinguish between tactical and strategic employer branding — these are different-scale tasks with different success metrics.
| Parameter | Tactical employer branding | Strategic employer branding |
|---|---|---|
| Horizon | Campaign for a specific role or hiring wave | 3-year roadmap for talent brand development |
| Budget | One-time, for a specific task | Fixed annual, with distribution by phases |
| Success metric | Number of applications for a vacancy | Cost per qualified applicant, source-of-hire mix, ROI |
| Responsibility | Recruiter or HR marketer | Cross-functional team with participation of top management |
If a company plans to build an HR brand only tactically — for current vacancies — it will get a short-term surge in applications and lose the effect within a few months. A three-year strategy is built differently: the budget is fixed for the entire period from the start, not negotiated again for each campaign, because only this way can you track the cumulative effect — reduced hiring cost, shortened vacancy closure time, decreased turnover of newcomers.
What usually goes wrong
The main mistake is evaluating the results of the first year by the standards of the third. Companies expect a reduction in turnover and hiring cost immediately after launching the website and social networks, and then become disappointed and cut the budget exactly when the strategy should transition to the reinforcement phase. The second most frequent mistake is freezing the EVP after the first launch and not reviewing it, although it is precisely the adjustment in the second year that determines whether the brand will work for retention or remain a pretty presentation for investors. A three-year horizon makes sense only if the company is ready to change formulations, channels and metrics from year to year, not launch the same plan three times in a row.
How to Distribute 3 Years: Phases, Not Just a List of Stages
Most articles about HR brands list 6-8 stages — from analysis to monitoring — and stop there, as if the development ends with the launch. In practice, the launch is only the beginning. Each stage lives in the strategy repeatedly, but with different intensity and different tasks depending on the year. Here's how it actually breaks down, based on data from employer branding projects (Preparation 2-3 months, Discovery 1-3 months, Strategy & Messaging 3 month, Launch and Maintenance — ongoing):
| Year | Focus | What happens | Budget share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-year | Launch | Research, EVP, brand platform, initial communication campaigns, basic analytics | 40-45% |
| 2-year | Strengthening | EVP correction based on feedback, expanding channels, internal ambassadors, working with reviews | 30-35% |
| 3-year | Scaling | Localization for regions/countries, process automation, integration with hiring business strategy | 25-30% |
Such budget distribution is logical: the first year is always the most expensive, because it covers the research phase, EVP development, and launch of infrastructure — the career website, content plan, first videos, and employee cases. In large companies, the analytical phase can stretch up to a year — Nina Borisenko from Skyeng notes this separately, saying that 6-8 months of active actions are typical for medium-sized businesses, and up to a year for large organizations due to the volume of data that needs to be collected and structured.
Year 1: launch — what companies actually manage to accomplish
A common mistake among companies is trying to 'do everything' in the first year: conduct research, write the EVP, launch the website, social networks, ambassador programs, and advertising campaigns all at once. This doesn't work because data for evaluating effectiveness only becomes available 6-8 months after launching the first activities.
A realistic sequence of the first year looks like this:
- Preparation (2-3 months) — setting goals, audit of the current perception of the employer brand, forming the project team.
- Discovery (1-3 months) — surveys of employees and candidates, competitor analysis, audit of reviews on platforms such as hh.ru and Glassdoor.
- Strategy & Messaging (approximately 3 months) — formulating the EVP, developing the brand platform, key messages.
- Launch (2-3 months) — launching the career site, initial campaigns, content.
KPI of the first year are the baseline metrics: brand recognition among the target audience, number and quality of responses, source-of-hire mix (from which channels candidates actually come), cost per vacancy filled. It is not advisable to expect a sharp decline in turnover or hiring cost in the first year: the effect manifests later, usually by 6-8 month of active actions, the cost of hiring may decrease, for example, from 74 000 to 60 000 rubles, and the vacancy closing time may be reduced by 30%, from 30 to 20 days.
Year 2: consolidation — this is where the real work with the EVP begins
The second year is not a repetition of the first on autopilot. By this point, the company already has data: which EVP messages resonate with candidates, and which remained pretty words on the website. It is precisely on the second year that the EVP is adjusted — not completely rewritten, but the formulations are refined to match the real employee experience revealed through surveys and exit interviews.
Communication strategy is also changing: if the first year was focused on broad reach and recognition, the second year shifts focus to conversion — specific vacancies, targeted campaigns for segments (IT, sales, production), working with reviews. This is important because 37% of reviews on HR platforms are left by people who have never worked at the company — their opinion shapes candidates' perception even before submitting a resume, and without active work on this, the second year will pass in vain.
KPIs for the second year shift from reach metrics to quality metrics: cost per qualified applicant, turnover of newcomers in the first 3-6 months (realistic goal — reducing it from 40% to 25% over the course of a year with active work on onboarding and managing expectations), and the share of candidates who learned about the vacancy through employee referrals.
Year 3: scaling and multinational context
The third year is the moment when strategy should start working without constant manual management, and at the same time — the moment of going beyond a single market. If a company is growing in several countries, the third year is usually dedicated to EVP localization: the common core of the value proposition is preserved, but messages, channels and tone are adapted to the local labor market.
Practical approach to scaling in a multinational company:
- The centralized brand core (mission, values, visual code) remains unchanged for all regions.
- Local teams receive guidelines, but adapt EVP formulations to the local labor market and cultural context.
- Metrics are collected centrally, but interpreted with regard to regional specifics — what works in Moscow does not necessarily work in Almaty or Tashkent.
- A portion of the third year's budget goes toward infrastructure: HR platforms for analytics, automation of feedback collection, a unified content database that local teams can reuse.
KPIs for the third year are already business metrics: HR brand ROI (the ratio of brand costs and savings on hiring), the share of closed positions through incoming flow without active search, the stability of turnover indicators without constant HR team intervention.
What the HR brand strategy consists of: theory for those who want to understand it in depth
The classical process of HR branding development is usually described through 6-8 steps: goal setting, analysis of the current situation, research of employees and candidates, formation of EVP (Employee Value Proposition — employer value proposition), brand platform creation, communication strategy, launch and monitoring. This is true, but this description refers to one cycle, not a three-year strategy — hence the confusion among many companies that think that the work is finished after the launch.
In practice, the entire cycle described above is the Planning and Execution phase of the first year. Refinement, that is, adjustment, spans the second and third years and includes not one-time fixes, but a continuous cycle: data collection → analysis → message refinement → relaunch in an updated form.
Strategic vs Tactical employer branding: why these are different budgets
It is important to distinguish between tactical and strategic employer branding — these are different-scale tasks with different success metrics.
| Parameter | Tactical employer branding | Strategic employer branding |
|---|---|---|
| Horizon | Campaign for a specific role or hiring wave | 3-year roadmap for talent brand development |
| Budget | One-time, for a specific task | Fixed annual, with distribution by phases |
| Success metric | Number of applications for a vacancy | Cost per qualified applicant, source-of-hire mix, ROI |
| Responsibility | Recruiter or HR marketer | Cross-functional team with participation of top management |
If a company plans to build an HR brand only tactically — for current vacancies — it will get a short-term surge in applications and lose the effect within a few months. A three-year strategy is built differently: the budget is fixed for the entire period from the start, not negotiated again for each campaign, because only this way can you track the cumulative effect — reduced hiring cost, shortened vacancy closure time, decreased turnover of newcomers.
What usually goes wrong
The main mistake is evaluating the results of the first year by the standards of the third. Companies expect a reduction in turnover and hiring cost immediately after launching the website and social networks, and then become disappointed and cut the budget exactly when the strategy should transition to the reinforcement phase. The second most frequent mistake is freezing the EVP after the first launch and not reviewing it, although it is precisely the adjustment in the second year that determines whether the brand will work for retention or remain a pretty presentation for investors. A three-year horizon makes sense only if the company is ready to change formulations, channels and metrics from year to year, not launch the same plan three times in a row.
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