Employer Branding in a Fractured World
Most employer brands were built for a different world
One where candidates trusted what companies said about themselves. But we're now operating in a fractured one: economic uncertainty, widespread layoffs, restructures, and global instability have changed what candidates need from employers, and how much they trust what they're told.
Candidates are now typing your company name into AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini and getting a summary of your culture, leadership, and reputation before they've looked at a single job ad. That summary is built from your careers page, Google and Glassdoor reviews, Reddit threads, news articles, and what your employees have said publicly. You don't control it. But you can influence it.
For many organisations, the employer brand they built a few years ago wasn't designed for that level of scrutiny. Candidates are more sceptical, more informed, and quicker to call out the gap between what an employer says and what it's actually like to work there. Randstad Australia's 2025 research says, 86% of job seekers research a company's reputation before applying, and what they find increasingly doesn't match what companies are putting out.
So what does employer branding look like when the old playbook has stopped working?
What we'll cover in this session
Why the trust gap exists and what's driving it — from post-pandemic disillusionment to the rise of anonymous review culture
What employees actually want versus what most employers lead with (spoiler: it's not your values wall)
How to build employer brand content that holds up when someone goes looking for evidence
Attendees will leave with
A clearer picture of where your current employer brand is losing people before they apply
A framework for making your content more credible (not just more polished)
Practical steps you can take in the next 30 days without a big budget or a rebrand
Who this is for
Anyone responsible for employer brand, talent attraction, or HR communications, particularly if you've started to wonder whether your current approach is actually landing.
About the speaker
Fiona Byarugaba is the Global Strategy Lead, Employer Brand & Inclusion at WORK180, where she works with endorsed employers across Australia and the UK to build employer brands that are honest, specific, and built to last. She's spent years helping organisations close the gap between what they say and what they actually are.