For a strong employer brand, create synergy between marketing and HR

We often talk about the employer brand—that perceived identity that brings together your positioning in the job market, the reasons to choose you as an employer, your values, and your company culture. But in practice, who should be responsible for bringing it to life and sharing it—both internally and externally?

For a strong employer brand, focus on synergy and collaboration between human resources and marketing. It’s time to break down silos and move forward!

Is your employer brand a marketing or HR mission?

No need to remind you why your employer brand is so important: it helps you stand out from the competition, attract qualified prospects, and engage your existing talent.

Even if everything looks good on paper, challenges often arise in practice—for example, ensuring employer brand consistency across all platforms when multiple teams are involved. While HR is usually responsible for creating or maintaining the employer brand, and marketing focuses on promoting it, it’s crucial to unite their efforts.

Consistency is the key to credibility and success—and it depends on well-crafted HR marketing.

Bring HR and marketing together on common ground: HR marketing. This discipline combines both areas of expertise to develop, execute, and refine a game plan that distinguishes your employer status in the job market. Want to know how to get them working in harmony—without missing a beat?

Unite HR and marketing in 5 steps

1. Communicate marketing priorities internally through HR

Take care of your internal audiences as much as your external ones. To make sure everyone is aligned, integrate your company’s marketing positioning into onboarding and orientation programs for new hires. A quick refresher for long-standing employees can also help bring everyone to the same level.

As a bonus, familiarization with your goals, mission, and standards can boost employee involvement and sense of belonging. Two birds, one stone!

2. Create consistent internal and external messages

Key marketing messages for your corporate and employer brand should be aligned so your people can validate them. That’s where HR comes in—ensuring external messages match the reality and day-to-day experience of employees.

To make things easier, have teams collaborate on an employer brand guide with examples for both internal and external communications.

3. Use HR marketing for recruitment

Put marketing tactics at the service of HR by combining their strengths. HR teams specialize in labour market knowledge and best practices, while marketing excels at strategic content planning and targeted communication.

Understanding people’s needs and knowing how to reach them is common ground—essential in both recruitment campaigns and employee engagement.

4. Improve candidate and employee experience.

Just like potential customers who have a bad experience may never buy from you, talents with poor recruitment experiences may never apply again. Focus on clear, consistent, and professional communications—and don’t forget to nurture employee engagement.

Bring HR and marketing together to map out the candidate journey or build an employee engagement program.

5. Segment candidate profiles

Prospect segmentation is common in marketing—and it works just as well in recruitment when you use smart tools and proven practices. It’s a powerful way to boost visibility and efficiency.

The (not-so-secret) ingredient of a strong employer brand: the HR–marketing alliance

The key is synergy—finding opportunities for collaboration between these two areas and the people behind them. Sharing their expertise and experience lays the groundwork for strong HR marketing and a credible employer brand.

A good starting point is to ensure that at least one HR representative is involved in HR marketing projects, and at least one marketing representative joins HR meetings.

For more ideas, stop by for a coffee with our experts—in person or via video—and let’s talk about your challenges.