How to Build an Employer Brand That Attracts and Retains Talent

Employer branding and employee happiness expert Tatiana Koval explains how companies can attract the right people without presenting a polished fiction. The conversation follows the full employee journey: positioning and EVP, recruitment, the first three months, recognition, everyday employee experience, difficult exits and alumni advocacy.

Tatiana Koval · Employer Branding, Employee Happiness and Workplace Wellbeing Expert
Hosted by Ksenia Izotova and Timur Novopashin

Elena Logutova, GRP, is Chief Human Resources Officer at Ålber Blanc and an HR leader with more than 15 years of experience in technology companies, startups and periods of rapid transformation. She previously built the HR function at =nil; Foundation from the ground up and helped scale an international team across 25 countries. Her work spans global hiring, compensation, organisational design, leadership development and the people systems needed for fast-growing businesses. Elena studied at Cambridge Judge Business School, holds the Global Remuneration Professional certification and was recognised as one of the Top 10 HR Voices in Cyprus.

Connect with Elena on LinkedIn
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To get a job in crypto, learn how the industry communicates before you apply. Build a credible profile on X, follow relevant founders and specialists, participate in conferences and communities, and understand the product, business model and current market conversations. Do not assume a short tenure is automatically disqualifying or that every role pays only in tokens: projects move quickly, compensation structures vary and employers increasingly use fiat or stablecoins. For HR roles, add country-specific employment compliance and enough blockchain knowledge to speak with candidates and the business.

Crypto recruitment still involves interviews, offers and salary bands, but sourcing and credibility work differently. Elena describes X, formerly Twitter, as a core professional channel in the industry, while LinkedIn is often secondary for crypto-native candidates and conversations.

A generic vacancy posted from a corporate account may attract little attention. Posts from trusted founders, specialists or other recognised people can travel further when they explain the real problem behind the role in direct, natural language.

Candidates should therefore treat their X profile as part of the application. Follow relevant projects and opinion leaders, understand the language of the community, contribute thoughtfully and verify who is behind an opportunity before sharing personal information.

Networking is unusually important in a small, fast-moving industry where reputation, market information and hiring needs circulate through people. Conferences, side events and online communities can help candidates learn who is credible and where teams are forming.

The goal is not to collect random contacts. Intentional networking means following specialists whose work you can evaluate, understanding current products and debates, and building relationships before asking for a role.

For recruiters and HR professionals, this industry knowledge is part of job effectiveness. Without awareness of major projects, respected practitioners and current trends, it is harder to assess candidates or earn trust.

Crypto compensation is not one universal model. Established companies may pay salaries in fiat, some use USDT or USDC stablecoins, and tokens may appear as an additional incentive. The mix depends on the company, jurisdiction, role and stage of the project.

Pay can be higher than in more traditional industries, but that difference reflects uncertainty and risk as well as demand. Candidates should ask what portion is guaranteed, what is variable, how tokens vest, what currency is used and how payment will be documented locally.

Money is only part of retention. Elena also points to belief in the project, a strong team and the ability to work remotely as important reasons people stay — or move together to another project.

Crypto can suit HR professionals who enjoy transformation, ambiguity and building from scratch. It is less suitable for someone who needs mature systems, predictable priorities and a stable operating environment from the first day.

Basic HR practices may need to be explained repeatedly to founders and teams. That requires patience, business judgment and the ability to show why a process matters instead of importing a traditional-company playbook without adaptation.

Before accepting a role, ask whether you are comfortable with rapid change, incomplete information, reputational risk and projects that may close quickly. Investigate the founders, funding, product, legal structure and the authority HR will actually have.

International crypto teams cannot rely on one contract model everywhere. Employment status, service agreements, permanent-establishment risk, tax, data protection and dismissal rules vary by country, so HR must work closely with qualified legal advisers.

Elena did not enter the industry as a blockchain expert. She first learned enough about Bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins and the company’s product to begin hiring, then deepened her knowledge as the organisation recruited crypto-native specialists.

Industry literacy builds credibility with candidates and business leaders. At the same time, companies should fix data, process and standardisation gaps before treating AI or blockchain as a shortcut for basic HR operations.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and readability while preserving the speakers' meaning.

Timur Novopashin: Elena, if you're talking about the crypto industry, could you please tell us five things that are super common so you can distinguish the crypto industry from any other industry? If there are any — maybe it's just a mystery surrounding it — but in general, is it just the same as heavy machinery or fancy pharmaceutical? So what makes the crypto industry different?

Elena Logutova: I think the main reason for crypto is the age of the industry because it's a really young industry. Of course, it means it's very flexible and you need to build a lot of different things from scratch. At the same time, it's about creativity because people want to create something new and nobody knows the right answers. At the same time, I think it's not about the strict system. It's really more about some chaos that you need to build into the system. In general, these three factors mean that you can face a lot of scams because when you have a young industry, a flexible industry and a lot of chaos around you, you involve a lot of people who want to earn money and they don't care about anything.

Ksenia Izotova: How is the recruitment process different in the cryptosphere if you compare it to others?

Elena Logutova: In general, recruiting campaigns have interviewers, candidates, job offers, salary bands, etc. Here, unfortunately, we don't have a lot of companies with long histories. A lot of projects shut down very fast and very often. If you have a CV from crypto people, sometimes a person can work in one project for two months, in another project for five months, and in the third project nine months. For classic industry, it's really a red flag. But here you can't say so because you need to talk, you need to make some deep dive and after that make a conclusion.

I think in crypto recruiting we use different platforms of sourcing and tools. For example, in crypto people don't use LinkedIn very often, but almost everyone uses X, Twitter. If you're a recruiter, it's really important to use Twitter to understand how it works.

Timur Novopashin: That's actually very industry specific. In classical industries — FMCG, pharmaceutical, big tech — LinkedIn still is the number one source. If you're a candidate, you go to LinkedIn. If you're an HR recruiter and you wanna post a job, you go to LinkedIn. But what about Threads? I heard that this meta version of Twitter Threads is now gaining momentum, at least on the markets in Central Asia and CIS region and Eastern Europe. Is recruitment big in Threads if you're talking about the crypto industry, or it's just Twitter?

Elena Logutova: I don't think so. Just Twitter maybe, because crypto started on Twitter and at the same time people in crypto don't want to try something new.

On Twitter or X, it does not work when you post some ads from your company's account because people don't read it. They are ready to read different vacancies when they see some posts from famous people. It should be written in a specific language — it should be really natural. It should be more about some really sharp problem: why we are looking for some person and how this person can help us to solve this problem.

Ksenia Izotova: Can you just give us an example of a post like this? Because I'm super intrigued. You're speaking about the language, about a special message that you deliver while posting on the social network.

Elena Logutova: If we are talking about crypto, very often it's about critical thinking, and very often you use different metaphorical sentences. It's really interesting. For example, in previous years, it was very popular to post something about your personal life — to post some pictures with you and write something about three facts about you and one fact about your work. You should write something like, "I have a business trip during 44 hours at an airport." It was very popular. Or it was very popular to post some pictures from GPT chat and try to make different jokes about that. It was really interesting that on LinkedIn we can see the same trends, but later. It means that Twitter is more modern and faster, and LinkedIn is the second platform if you're talking about pace.

Timur Novopashin: So it's just a pro tip for everyone. If you're looking for a position in crypto, go to X, develop your profile, follow some opinion leaders.

Dwelling on the topic of opinion leaders — a friend of mine has been working at Binance, one of the biggest crypto exchanges in the world. There is a famous founder. I thought that there is just one, but actually it's a group of people, but everybody knew just CZ — the most famous person from this group of founders. The crypto industry is very big on events, conferences, etс, as you mentioned. Usually what happens when CZ enters the room — time stops. Everyone wants a piece of him, wants to talk to him. Speaking about hierarchy and the importance of networking — if there is a dinner or some kind of meal served after the conference, it's very important who is sitting next to CZ. There is this sense of "you gotta be close with someone," so you gotta build this connection.

Developing this topic — do you think networking as such is an important part of the crypto industry or in general professional development? What's your take on building the network within the industry where you work?

Elena Logutova: Obviously, social networking is the most important part in crypto, especially for founders, for marketing specialists, for PR specialists. If you are talking about HR or different business people, it's really important. I remember such pictures when you see Vitalik Buterin and everyone wants to talk with him and nobody cares about anything. I remember one conference where I was at the booth of our company. I remember this moment when we had a presentation from Vitalik Buterin and nobody wanted to go and talk with people in booths because everybody wanted to be next to him and talk with him. It's really a typical situation.

That's why conferences are really important for this industry because it's really small and everyone knows everyone. If you don't know trends, news, famous people in crypto, you can't be effective as a recruiter, for example, or as HR, as a marketer. Because it does not work. It's not about the system; it's about connections.

Timur Novopashin: So this next pro tip is build your network, but very intentionally and specifically — not just randomly connect with people, but do it wisely. If you wanna build a network in crypto, you gotta know who is important. Is that what you're saying?

Elena Logutova: Yeah. You should know important people. You should know some smart people in the industry. It's really typical for crypto to have a big conference and after that every evening almost every famous company arranges some after party for people.

Timur Novopashin: I just wanted to add that if you would like to — if you're a party animal, you gotta find yourself a job in crypto. Maybe you should send your CV, shoot your LinkedIn profile after the podcast.

I wanted to touch on a very important subject before we move on. That's money. A casual observer has a stereotype: crypto means money. If you're talking about compensations and total rewards landscape in crypto, paint us a picture. What is the typical approach to total rewards? Are those compensations basically really high or is it the same as neighboring industries? What's happening on that front?

Elena Logutova: First of all, crypto is about money, because it's money. Several years ago, maybe several decades ago, it was a very famous topic that in crypto you can get really huge money. Very often people had some tokens or some unstable currencies, and it meant a really high level of volatility. It was not about stability at all.

Right now, I see a different picture. First of all, many famous startups and companies pay people in fiat. Of course, they use different tokens as additional motivation. At the same time, very often companies use USDT, USDC stablecoins for paying salaries. In general, if you are talking about the level of money, it's higher than in more classic industries. I think it links to the specifics because you don't have a stable situation. Everything is very flexible and you have really high risks every time because it's really difficult to predict some future, especially your personal future. Sometimes the world changes and everything changes at the same time.

Ksenia Izotova: What actually motivates people to stay in crypto or to stay in a certain company? You've mentioned that mainly people can stay for a couple of months and then change jobs, change the place of work, change the company. So the question would be: how do you motivate those crypto employees who value freedom over anything? What motivates them apart from money?

Elena Logutova: Everyone who works in crypto believes that they can find a project where they can earn a lot of money because the project will be very successful. It's a really typical situation. At the same time, people think a lot about idea and for them it's really important to create something important for people. If people don't believe in your idea, they leave your company because they can find the same one with a better idea.

For crypto people, it's really important for a team because it's really difficult to find a good team. I think because we have a lot of short projects, you don't have a lot of time to work together. It means if you have a really good team, people try to work together and to change projects together.

For crypto people, it's really important to have the opportunity to work remotely. It's a really typical situation for this industry, and it's really difficult to motivate people to go to the office from 9 to 5.

Timur Novopashin: We as HR professionals tend to talk a lot about employees, stakeholders, business metrics, what's happening on this side or that side, and sometimes we forget to also think about our wellbeing and what is important for us. So we talked about what attracts people to the industry, what makes them stay there. But if you're talking about you — what attracted you to the industry and why do you enjoy working in this fast-paced environment?

Elena Logutova: I joined the industry several years ago, and it was a really unexpected experience because some of my former colleagues invited me to work together on a new crypto project. It was a really ambitious crypto project that wanted to build really great infrastructure and it was from scratch. First of all, it wasn't about the industry for me. It was more about new experience — to build something from scratch, to build all the team, all processes, all systems. It's really interesting when you have huge experience as HR, sometimes you want to come and to build something from scratch.

Of course, I had a lot of concerns about the industry and a lot of fears about this industry. I met really different people. At the same time, I faced a lot of difficulties and sometimes it was a challenge for me to change my approach and to learn how to work in another way.

Ksenia Izotova: Looking back, would you recommend an HR professional considering the crypto industry to dive into it, or you would say no, not now, maybe later? What would be your piece of advice?

Elena Logutova: It depends on the person because it's really difficult to predict if you are happy with such an approach or not. If a person is considering crypto as a possible industry, it's really important to ask yourself if you are ready to work in a fast-paced and very flexible industry, at the same time a little bit of a wild industry. It means you come and you need to explain to people everything from scratch.

It's really important to understand that you think that it's really obvious, simple things for good work and for a good environment for people, but in this industry people don't understand, don't know that it's some basic things. You have to explain to them every step, every decision. Sometimes it's really difficult to change their mind. You need to understand that you should be patient and you have to spend a lot of time on explanation.

Timur Novopashin: I think we touched a very industry-specific topic. One of my candidates when I was interviewing back in my active talent acquisition days — he was working from a big crypto exchange. From his employee perspective, he was working on a service agreement in one of the European Union countries. As the European Union is very strict on labor practices, when you go to court, if you're an employee and something is happening like wrongful termination, courts usually take the employee's side.

He was being terminated. He was working on this service agreement. According to the service agreement, it's not labor relations as such — it's more like B2B, depending on the form. He was being terminated, "We're gonna pay you one monthly salary and that is that." He wasn't satisfied. He consulted with his lawyer. Lawyers shared with him that based on the nature of your relationship with the company, it's employment. If you go to court, you can get the full four monthly salaries plus some other bonuses on top because there is probably an 80% chance that the court will side with you.

He discussed it with an HR representative of the company and they just paid him. They decided, "Okay, we've got money, we will just pay." These types of situations really highlight the importance of HR in the crypto industry. You gotta communicate and highlight all the risks to your stakeholders and management because sometimes they just don't care. They're like, "Okay, let's just hire everyone with service agreements," but it really depends on the location where you're hiring.

You gotta really spend time on the compliance part, GDPR part, because these are the risks and the company may face the consequences.

Elena Logutova: Yeah, definitely. I think in general several years ago Europe did not care about crypto and most countries did not want to think about crypto as an industry. Right now it's really different. Very often when you're a crypto company, you have to have really strong legal and you should learn about each country because in the US you have one reality, in Europe another, and in Europe in each country you have different laws. It's really important to spend a lot of time on that.

For example, in my previous company, we built a truly remote team. It means we had a lot of different employees from different countries. In each case we had to learn legal paths and to talk with people about that. For example, we didn't hire people in France because in France we have really strict laws about service agreements. For us it was a really huge risk — if we have several people in France, it means we are a company in France and we should launch a branch office in France. For us it means taxes and different legal moments. When you work as HR in crypto, you work really closely with the legal department and you have to learn a lot of different specifics from country to country.

Ksenia Izotova: Let's zoom out a little from the legal stuff and dive into the technical one. When you landed the job in crypto — your first job in crypto — how much did you actually learn about blockchain technology? Or it was totally new to you and you had learned from scratch? How much did you learn?

Elena Logutova: Of course, I heard something about Bitcoin, Ethereum and some scam projects. For example, when I joined the company, I did not know about Stablecoin, it was really new knowledge for me. I knew nothing about industry. I spent a lot of time learning. Guys around me helped me. I read a lot. At the beginning, I got some basic knowledge and it was enough for the start of hiring because we wanted to hire a lot of technical specialists from the web2 industry, and it was okay.

Later, I had to learn a lot about different projects and about different technologies because when we began to hire native crypto people, it was really next level. If you want to talk with natives, you need to know a lot about trends.

Ksenia Izotova: They expect HR to be aware of the current trends, about the technical stuff, and so on.

Elena Logutova: I think it's really important for each industry. Of course, if you want to have a good reputation, you want to influence business, you should know industry-specific things.

Ksenia Izotova: Speaking about industry-specific things — about blockchain — what is your personal opinion? Blockchain technology compared to AI for HR — is it the next thing? Is it the future of HR? Is it part of the future of HR or it's very niche and won't be a part of it?

Elena Logutova: It's really interesting. I think it's possible to combine AI, blockchain and HR. Right now I see really different levels of HR and really different levels of automation in our sphere. Everyone talks about AI and how to use it in HR recruiting, etс. But I know the reality of many companies. For example, a lot of companies don't have decent automation, and don't know how to collect data in HR. We have a lot of problems with processes, with standardization. In such a situation, every time I have a question: why are you thinking about AI when you have really huge problems with more basic things?

Timur Novopashin: So true. I could not agree more. Don't get me started on the topic of AI in HR and specifically in my professional field — talent acquisition. So much sham, different types of shenanigans. Everyone wants to sell you their AI-first something. But the reality is, if you really dive into it, each company is different depending on the size, on the geographical landscape, what type of people they hire, how they do it. There is no one universal approach or tool.

What I do see as a trend — especially it's strong in the US, and usually when it's strong in the US, at some point it's gonna become strong in Europe as well — companies, especially startup environments, they really tend to say, "We would like to get rid of as many HR-related processes and HR-related professionals as we can. We would like to automate it. Get rid of the recruiter, get rid of the HR ops specialists." My personal opinion — at some point we will hit the wall and we will start hiring back because we need humans. We need the connection in the workplace specifically. It correlates with your level of stress, with your loyalty. Right now we're in this big moment when everyone wants to try something in AI.

I know that Ksenia has a couple of short questions, so I will hand over the mic to her.

Ksenia Izotova: You're just reading my mind. But before we jump into the rapid-fire section, I wanted to play a Twitter game with you, Elena, because you were the one mentioning this three facts game. So two personal facts about you and one fact about work that you'd like to share with our listeners.

Elena Logutova: My first fact is I have a dog from the shelter in Cyprus. I adopted it here about two years ago, and it was really the best decision that I made during my life in Cyprus.

The second fact is I really love crypto. It was some surprise for me because at the beginning it was really difficult to understand my industry and to like it. Right now I can say that I love crypto. I believe in crypto and I think the industry has a really great future. I believe in that.

And one fact about my work — I have a lot of different experience and I worked in big companies and I worked in small companies. Several weeks ago, I had a conversation with my colleagues from another company about my experience. She said to me that when you work in big companies, you have a really stable environment and everything is understandable. When you work in a startup, it's about building something new and it's a really unstable situation. At that moment, I thought that I have never worked in a stable company because every time when I joined a new company — for example, a big company — it was a period of some transformation. As a result, I think I have never had a stable situation at work when you have really understandable, simple processes and you need to just live. I think I'm about transformation and about some changes every time.

Ksenia Izotova: That's an interesting observation. Observation number two, Timur, is that all our guests have a dog. Have you noticed that? Everyone has a dog. It's amazing. Maybe we need to check it. You have a dog? Okay, come join our podcast.

Timur Novopashin: I feel excluded. No dog on my side. Maybe I should get myself a virtual AI dog or something like that.

Ksenia Izotova: I saw a lot of different versions when I was traveling in Xianjiang this year.

Timur Novopashin: I feed myself already, so maybe it's enough. I don't wanna care about another being because you gotta feed it, bath it, go for walks with it. One piece of advice: if you wanna work in crypto, get yourself a dog. A stress relief advice.

It definitely was a very interesting take. The Twitter account — get yourself a Twitter account, get yourself a dog and you're gonna be just fine. So we can conclude that. Thank you so much. It was an in-depth, insightful conversation.