Employer Branding Diary Series | Part 2

Confessions of a marketer who discovered that the hottest collab isn’t with Creative — it’s with HR.

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Dear Diary,

We talk about customer journeys like they’re epic quests — but have you ever actually tried to apply for a job at our company? It’s like being invited to a dinner party where the host keeps changing languages mid-sentence.

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Note to self 1:
Why Candidate Experience = Brand Experience

A job application is basically a first date with your brand — and nothing kills the spark faster than a confusing form or a ghosted reply. The candidate experience doesn’t just introduce your culture; it is your culture’s opening line.

We spend fortunes defining our brand voice, then let our forms whisper in bureaucrat. Candidate experience is where the brand either lives up to its promise — or clears its throat awkwardly.

Wizard, can you back me up with some numbers before HR thinks I’m exaggerating again?

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Note to self 2:
The Form-Language Fiasco

Our application starts in friendly English, ends in bureaucratic Finnish, and somehow asks if you’re a resident of Sweden before it asks what you can actually do. Talk about mixed signals.

Wizard, what’s the ROI hit of this bilingual chaos?

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Note to self 3:
The Friction Zone

Uploading a CV shouldn’t feel like filing a tax return. The more hoops we add, the faster great people vanish.

Wizard, can you design a dashboard HR will actually dare to open?

🔮📈 CMO Wizard’s Check:

Stage	Friction	KPI	Target
CV Upload	File errors, format issues	% of failed uploads	< 3 % → Less than 3% of upload errors
Address Fields	Complexity, redundancy	Step drop-off %	< 10 % → Fewer than 1 in 10 candidates abandon the process here
Completion	Overall effort/time	Time-to-submit (min)	≤ 5 min → The full application should take 5 minutes or less

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Note to self 4:
The Autoresponder Paradox

Minutes after sending your application, you get a survey: “How likely are you to recommend us as an employer?”

That’s like being asked to rate the restaurant before your food arrives.

Wizard, tell me if this has a formula — you love formulas.

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Note to self 5:
From Process to Promise

Dear Diary, maybe we’ve over-automated ourselves out of empathy.

Fixing tone mismatches and autoresponders may not trend on LinkedIn, but they rebuild trust faster than any campaign.

Wizard, can we track that — empathy ROI, maybe?

Dimension	KPI	Formula	Target
Form Consistency	Language + Tone match %	Aligned fields ÷ Total fields × 100	> 90 % → 9 out of 10 form elements use the same tone and language.
Candidate Friction	Step drop-off %	(Starters − Finishers) ÷ Starters × 100	< 10 % → Max 1 in 10 drops before completion.
Candidate NPS	Promoters − Detractors	(Promoters − Detractors) ÷ Respondents × 100	> +30 → Strong positive experience sentiment.
Brand Correlation	Candidate ↔ Customer NPS r	CORR (Candidate NPS, Customer NPS)	> 0.5 → Positive relationship between how candidates and customers perceive the brand.

Those last two formulas close the loop between experience sentiment and brand equity:

• Candidate NPS quantifies empathy.
• Brand Correlation proves that better hiring experiences lift customer trust, too.

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Note to self 6:
My Takeaway

Dear Diary, maybe empathy is the next KPI. Fixing forms may never win a Cannes Lion — but it might just save the brand one candidate at a time.