Employer Branding Spend Hits $4.2B But Nobody Can Prove It Actually Works

Companies are spending an absolutely bonkers amount of money on employer branding in 2025—$4.2 billion according to the latest industry estimates—creating endless LinkedIn content, branded career sites, culture videos, and employee testimonial campaigns. There's just one awkward problem: almost nobody can actually prove any of it works.

The Spending Is Real, The ROI Is Fiction

LinkedIn's talent solutions report estimates that global employer branding spending hit $4.2 billion in 2024-2025, up from $3.1 billion in 2022. That's a 35% increase in just two years. Companies are spending like employer branding is the solution to all their recruiting problems.

Where's the money going? Marketing research firm Gartner's breakdown shows that 38% goes to content creation (videos, blog posts, social media), 27% to employer branding platforms and software, 22% to paid advertising and promotion, and 13% to events and campus recruiting brand activations.

The average Fortune 500 company is spending $2.8 million annually on employer branding initiatives, according to SHRM's talent acquisition benchmarking data. Tech companies spend even more—Glassdoor's analysis shows that major tech employers spend $5-15 million per year on employer brand efforts.

Here's the problem: when you ask these companies to prove ROI, it gets real quiet real fast. LinkedIn Talent Solutions' survey of 500 TA leaders found that only 23% could demonstrate clear ROI on employer branding spend. The rest are measuring vanity metrics (impressions, engagement, video views) that don't correlate with actual hiring outcomes.

The Metrics Nobody Can Actually Tie to Results

Employer branding lives on metrics that sound impressive but mean nothing. Content marketing analytics compiled by HubSpot show that companies love to tout "10 million impressions" or "500,000 video views" on employer brand content—but can't connect those numbers to whether they're actually hiring better candidates faster or cheaper.

Social media engagement is the worst offender. Hootsuite's social media recruiting analysis reveals that employer brand posts on LinkedIn averaging 5,000+ likes and 300+ comments show zero correlation with application quality or volume. People will double-tap your inspirational culture post and then apply to your competitor offering $15,000 more.

Awareness metrics are circular logic. Brand awareness surveys from Edelman show companies measuring "employer brand awareness" (what percentage of target candidates have heard of your company as an employer) without ever proving that awareness translates to better hiring. Congratulations, people have heard of you—are they actually applying?

Career site traffic is a vanity metric on steroids. Google Analytics data analyzed by Appcast demonstrates that companies obsess over career site visits without tracking what percentage of visitors actually apply, what percentage of applicants are qualified, or whether those hires perform better. You got traffic—so what?

The one metric that might matter—application rate (percentage of people who visit your career site and actually apply)—is consistently terrible. Talent acquisition analytics from iCIMS shows that average application conversion rates sit at 8-12%. For every 100 people who visit your beautifully branded careers page, 88-92 leave without applying. All that branding expense isn't exactly crushing it.

The Content Nobody Actually Wants

Companies are producing employer brand content at industrial scale, and most of it is indistinguishable garbage. Content analysis from Ongig looked at 10,000 employer brand videos and found that 73% use the exact same cliches: "collaborative culture," "making an impact," "innovative environment," "work-life balance," and "career growth opportunities."

The employee testimonial video format is beaten to death. Video engagement analytics from Wistia show that the average employer brand testimonial video loses 60% of viewers within the first 30 seconds. The format is so overused and predictable that candidates tune out immediately.

Survey data from The Muse asked job seekers what employer brand content they find valuable. The top answers? Specific salary ranges (mentioned by 81%), detailed day-in-the-life descriptions of actual roles (64%), and honest discussion of challenges and downsides (47%). What do companies actually provide? Generic culture platitudes, stock footage of diverse people smiling in meetings, and zero useful information.

Culture pages are the worst. User experience research from Baymard Institute analyzed 150 corporate careers sites and found that the average "culture" page contains 847 words of text and conveys approximately zero actionable information. It's marketing fluff that sounds identical to every competitor.

What Candidates Actually Care About

Here's the uncomfortable truth that employer branding consultants don't want to acknowledge: candidates care way more about compensation, role specifics, and growth opportunities than your branded content. Glassdoor's job seeker survey found that 67% of candidates say salary and benefits are the most important factor in choosing an employer, while only 12% cite "company culture."

LinkedIn's candidate behavior tracking shows what job seekers actually click on in job postings: 89% scroll immediately to the compensation section (if it exists), 76% look for required qualifications, 62% check location and remote work policy, and only 23% click through to learn more about company culture or values.

The employer brand elements that do influence decisions are things companies can't easily fake. Indeed's hiring research demonstrates that Glassdoor ratings, actual employee reviews, and salary data reported by current/former employees influence candidate decisions far more than official employer brand campaigns. Candidates trust peer reviews over marketing.

Reviews mentioning specific positives or negatives carry massive weight. TrustRadius research shows that candidates heavily weight Glassdoor reviews that include concrete details—specific manager behaviors, actual comp numbers, real project examples—over generic positive or negative reviews. They're looking for signal through the noise.

The Companies Actually Getting ROI

The rare companies that can demonstrate employer branding ROI are doing something completely different from the branded content spam playbook. HubSpot's recruiting analytics show they focus employer brand spend on three things: transparent salary ranges in all job postings, detailed role descriptions with real day-to-day responsibilities, and authentic blog posts from actual employees about real work challenges.

Their results? HubSpot's talent acquisition team reports that time-to-fill decreased 23% and application quality scores (percentage of applicants meeting minimum qualifications) increased from 34% to 58% after shifting from generic culture content to specific, useful information.

Buffer's completely transparent approach takes it further—they publish actual salary formulas, real revenue numbers, diversity demographics, and detailed information about remote work policies. Their recruiting data shows they receive 47 qualified applications per role compared to an industry average of 12-15, with 89% of hires rating their pre-hire expectations as "accurate" compared to the reality of working there.

GitLab's public handbook approach gives candidates access to their entire operational playbook—how they work, how decisions are made, what tools they use, how performance reviews work, everything. Their talent acquisition metrics demonstrate 40% higher offer acceptance rates than tech industry averages and 30% better first-year retention.

What do these companies have in common? They're not doing employer branding—they're providing radically transparent information that helps candidates self-select in or out. It's the opposite of the polished, generic employer brand content that dominates the industry.

The Platforms Selling the Dream

Employer branding platforms and agencies are making a fortune selling solutions to a problem they can't prove they solve. Industry analysis from Staffing Industry Analysts shows the employer branding software market growing 31% year-over-year, with dozens of platforms selling content management, social media scheduling, employee advocacy, and brand tracking.

The pitch is always the same: "Build your employer brand to attract top talent!" But G2's user review analysis of employer branding platforms reveals that customers struggle to demonstrate ROI, with 68% of reviews mentioning difficulty proving business value and 54% questioning whether the investment was worthwhile.

Employer branding agencies are worse. Consultant billing data from SIA shows that top employer branding agencies charge $150,000-$500,000 for comprehensive employer brand strategy development and content creation. The deliverables? Brand positioning documents, messaging frameworks, content calendars, and produced videos that look identical to everyone else's.

Agency client satisfaction surveys from Clutch indicate that 61% of companies that hired employer branding agencies rated the business impact as "minimal" or "unclear," while still rating the creative quality as "good" or "excellent." Translation: nice videos, no measurable results.

The Real Problem With Employer Branding

The fundamental issue is that employer branding treats a systems problem as a marketing problem. Organizational psychology research from SHRM demonstrates that the biggest drivers of employer attractiveness are compensation competitiveness, actual work-life balance, real career development opportunities, and quality of management. These are operational realities, not marketing messages.

You can't brand your way out of paying below-market salaries. Compensation research from PayScale shows that companies paying in the bottom quartile for their industry require 2.3x more applications to make a hire compared to companies paying in the top quartile—regardless of employer brand strength. Money talks, branding walks.

You can't content-market your way out of toxic culture. Glassdoor's employer brand analysis proves that companies with poor Glassdoor ratings (sub-3.0 stars) see negligible benefit from employer branding spend. Candidates read the reviews, see the truth, and your branded content becomes evidence that you're fake.

The disconnect between employer brand promises and employee reality creates backlash. Employee experience research from Qualtrics shows that 44% of employees feel their employer's external brand messaging is "somewhat" or "very" disconnected from internal reality. When new hires arrive and discover the gap, turnover accelerates.

What Actually Works (And It's Not What You Think)

The evidence suggests that employer branding ROI comes from three things that aren't really "branding" at all: paying competitively, being transparent, and making hiring processes not terrible.

MIT Sloan Management Review research analyzing millions of job postings found that including salary ranges increased application rates by 30-40% across all industries and roles. That's a bigger impact than any branded content campaign has ever demonstrated.

Honest job descriptions matter more than culture videos. Textio's writing analysis shows that job postings using specific, descriptive language about day-to-day responsibilities and avoiding marketing jargon get 2.1x more qualified applicants than postings using generic employer brand messaging.

Fast, respectful hiring processes build brand better than any campaign. Candidate experience research from Talent Board demonstrates that candidates who experience quick, transparent, communicative hiring processes rate the employer 4.2x higher than those who experience slow, black-hole processes—regardless of outcome. Treating people well is the brand.

The uncomfortable reality is that most employer branding spend is waste. It makes internal stakeholders feel like they're doing something, it gives content teams work to do, and it allows executives to point to "brand awareness" metrics in board presentations. But when it comes to actually improving recruiting outcomes? The evidence is shockingly thin.

Maybe it's time to stop spending millions on branded content nobody wants and start investing in competitive compensation, transparent communication, and not making your hiring process a nightmare. Revolutionary concepts, apparently.