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

Tatiana Koval is an international expert in employer branding, employee happiness, workplace wellbeing, corporate culture and HR communications. She has more than 20 years of experience across human resource management and marketing, works with organisations in different markets and is based in Brazil. Tatiana is also the founder and host of the Happy@Work podcast and contributes to international HR communities, mentoring and professional education.

Connect with Tatiana on LinkedIn
Visit Tatiana's website
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An employer brand attracts and retains talent when its promise matches the reality people experience. Start by deciding whom the company is genuinely right for, clarify the employee value proposition and communicate both strengths and trade-offs honestly. Then deliver that promise through recruitment, onboarding, everyday work, recognition and even offboarding. A memorable campaign can create interest, but trust grows only when candidates and employees repeatedly see the same values in company decisions and behaviour.

An authentic employer brand describes the organisation people will actually experience. It does not need to make the company attractive to everyone. It needs to help the right candidates recognise a credible match between their priorities and the way the company works.

That requires more than listing benefits. Employers should communicate meaningful strengths, working expectations and relevant trade-offs. A demanding culture can still attract strong candidates when the reality is explained honestly and fits what those people want.

Authenticity also creates useful self-selection. Candidates who value the environment can move closer, while people who need something different can decide earlier and with better information.

Start by identifying the roles, capabilities and behaviours the business genuinely needs. Then research what those people value, what concerns them and which parts of the employee experience can meet those expectations without inventing a promise.

The target audience should connect directly to the organisation’s identity. If the company depends on intensity, autonomy, stability or experimentation, those realities should shape both the message and the experience offered to candidates.

A focused employer brand is usually more useful than a universal one. It gives recruitment teams clearer stories and helps candidates assess fit before either side invests too much time.

An employee value proposition is a promise. Candidates judge that promise through the recruitment process, and employees continue testing it through decisions, management behaviour, workload, communication and access to opportunity.

The gap closes when HR, communications and business leaders treat EVP as an operating standard rather than a campaign. Each major touchpoint should either support the promise or trigger an honest review of what the company can claim.

When expectations exceed reality, trust falls quickly. A more credible approach is to communicate both advantages and limitations, then improve the experience where repeated evidence shows the promise is not being delivered.

The first three months are a moment of truth because the image created during recruitment meets the actual organisation. New employees notice whether managers are prepared, colleagues make space for them, processes work and the role resembles what was discussed.

A strong onboarding experience does not need theatrical perfection. It should create clarity, belonging, useful relationships and a realistic path to contribution. Small positive surprises can help, but they cannot compensate for a misleading role or broken management practices.

HR teams can use the period to ask what new employees expected, what they found and where the gap is widest. That feedback improves both onboarding and the employer brand messages used for future candidates.

Employer branding continues long after onboarding. Recognition and gratitude help people notice valued aspects of work that can become invisible once benefits, support or team practices feel normal.

It also continues when employment ends. Clear communication, respect and practical support during layoffs or other exits protect trust among departing employees and the colleagues who remain. Legal compliance is only the minimum; people remember how decisions were explained and carried out.

Former employees can become credible advocates, future hires, clients or referral partners. Alumni communication works best when it remains genuinely useful and voluntary rather than treating former colleagues as a marketing list.

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

Timur Novopashin: Hi, everyone again. It's Timur here, and I believe that this is the perfect opportunity to remind everyone of the idea of this podcast. HR Circle is a platform where we bring industry leaders and HR professionals together so they can have a conversation about what's really happening with the labor force, what's happening with career development, how we can advance ourselves, and how we can further develop our professional skills.

And basically, this podcast and the platform helps us, HR professionals, and industry to evolve, so to get paid more, find clients, get promotions, develop professionally and personally so we can grow together. That's the idea of the podcast. So HR Circle is a podcast for HR professionals and by HR professionals.

Ksenia Izotova: Hi, guys. My name is Ksenia. I am from UnifyHub, a corporate language learning platform, and I will be co-hosting today's episode with Timur again, as always.

Can you briefly introduce yourself? Tell us about you as an expert, about your professional way, so everything we need to know.

Tatiana Koval: First, I want to say that I'm an international expert in employee happiness. This is my favorite topic. I'm an HR consultant with more than 20 years experience. We are making projects for global and local companies on the different markets and projects in corporate culture, transformation projects with employer branding, working with employee well-being and employee happiness. And employee experience, of course, it's a part of all these three types of projects.

Now I am living in Brazil, so I am working on three languages — Russian, English, and Portuguese. And also I have a great network and great connection, participants of different international communities. And also I am a member of a local Brazilian HR community. I'm a mentor of different organization here, mostly for the younger generation because I really like to work with the younger generation.

And I want to add some personal information. I think it's also really interesting. I am the mother of three children. One of them is now studying at the best Brazilian university, and two others are in school and preschool.

And if I talk about my career path, I'm coming from marketing to HR, so I'm mostly focused on both these two parts, and I bring all communication and marketing tools for the HR life internally and externally.

Ksenia Izotova: Can you please briefly say a few words about yourself in Portuguese? Just briefly.

Tatiana Koval: Obrigada. E a experi- em experiência dos colaboradores.

Ksenia Izotova: Tatiana, how did you learn Portuguese at such a level so quickly? How come?

Tatiana Koval: We moved to Brazil two and a half years without language. Brazil is a really huge country, 270 million people who are living here. It's a really huge internal market, so most people don't speak English, only 5%. So for your daily life and for your business life here, you need to speak the local language because all the HR events here, all business events here, they are in the local language. So for working here, for living here, for having connections, for having friends here, I need to speak the local language. So it was my great motivation to start to speak.

Ksenia Izotova: How did you learn Portuguese? How many lessons a week?

Tatiana Koval: Firstly, I started independently watching video on — I started on the Babbel, but then I decided to switch and started the grammar rules via YouTube. When I understood this level, I also joined a run group. It was very funny because I made a lot of mistakes but it helped me to overcome a barrier about speaking.

Timur Novopashin: I'm just taking notes because I'm about to revive my French because I do speak English. I work primarily in English, but I now live in Belgium, and French is one of the official languages. I live in Brussels, and Brussels is mainly a French-speaking area. So I do need French for daily life and stuff like that. I've got the bridge language, which is English, so it makes it easier. But again, it's always fascinating for me to hear other people's learning journeys when it comes to languages. Because definitely language is not just a big part of culture and the foundation for the culture, but it's also a prominent topic in business. Accents, the way you speak, how you communicate, how you sell.

But what really caught my attention in your introduction is definitely the employee happiness part and happiness part in general. In my personal perception and opinion, I read your posts, I read your news, I subscribe to your newsletter on LinkedIn, and there is this connection in my mind. Tatiana Koval equals employee happiness, employee experience. So let's dive in deeper into that, and let's start with the beginning. In your opinion, or maybe you can give us some tips for the companies, how a company can make a candidate fall in love with the company before the even start of the recruitment process.

Tatiana Koval: If you talk about employer brand, it's firstly what is really important. It's authenticity. So we should not be the best choice for everyone. We should not be a company like Google in the past. It's more than 20 years ago, but now people associate Google as a company that everybody loves. But really we should not be like Google in the past. Now Google is not the same. They should understand what are our people which we want to attract, and what do these people want to find? And what they want to find should be a part of our core, our identity.

For example, we have some really strong brands like McKinsey. It's a really very hardworking company. For working in McKinsey, you should be ready to work very, very hard. You should be ready to work on Saturday also, on your weekends, and so on. But this company is really attractive. They have more than 500, 1,000 candidates for one open position. And they couldn't say, "Well, we're a company with life balance." No, they understand that this is a part of their lives. And people who want to join this organization are ready for this type of work.

Timur Novopashin: I think we can make notes to everyone who's listening right now. If you're about to launch a career in the employer branding sphere or just explore this area, there are certain steps that you should take. So everything starts with authenticity, as you mentioned. You definitely should define your target audience. So who would you like to attract to work in your company? Because as you mentioned, everybody on the market knows that if you would like to work for a big three company — McKinsey, Bain, BCG — you will do a lot of overtime, so you will work hard, but that's an asset. Having the McKinsey company on your CV definitely is going to help you.

So after that, you should sell the audience the advantages of working for your company. There's three essential steps. I'm like, "Okay, I better start my own company and start with those three steps." But take us further. Okay, so we've done all these three steps. What happens after that?

Tatiana Koval: So what we could give as our advantages, what we could get, so what we expect from our potential employees. And after understanding, we should implement these ideas as a part of EVP. It's a key message about us. It's about the image which we want to create. And firstly, we implement it in communication, internal, external. It's about building your image.

And after that, what is actually more important, especially now, because at the beginning, I think more than twenty-five years ago, when the companies started to work in employer branding, they mostly focused on communication. Let's try to talk about that, and mostly about advantages. Never tell the truth. Tell just about the advantages. Now we should talk about the whole organization — our pluses and minuses.

And also the second part now is more and more and more important. It's about experience. Because what you say is a promise, but what the real perception of your company, which is based on the experience during the recruitment process and then inside of the organization, it's much more important.

You try to be better than you are in reality. For example, today I met a client and I said, "It's like different stages of our marriage." While we try to attract the right person, we try to show us from the best side. But for a happy marriage — because I've been happily married for a long time — I could say, you also should tell a little bit more about your disadvantages, about your real life with you.

Timur Novopashin: When you have a honeymoon, the honeymoon is the first three months inside the organization. "Hi, I'm here. I have this job," especially. But the other side is a moment of truth. What do I expect? What do they promise to me? What I really want to find, and what is reality? It's very interesting. It should need a balance. The worst situation when you have this balance from reality is more negative than expectation.

Ksenia Izotova: Let's dive a little deeper in the honeymoon part. So an employee is happily married. He's inside the company already. But very often, the first three months don't feel like a honeymoon. What does the company have to do inside their business processes to make an employee feel really welcome? I'm not talking about some obvious stuff, but from your personal perspective, what are the little things that make a new employee happy and motivate him to work hard with pleasure, make him engaged, and so on?

Tatiana Koval: I think it depends on which type of honeymoon we will have. It also depends on the situation, because in some situations, a honeymoon is a real honeymoon. For example, I joined the organization, but I open every day, there's something new, very interesting about this organization. It's wonderful people around me, very interesting projects inside, and very well-done processes. So it could overcome expectations.

As a first piece of advice, let's try a little bit to overcome the expectations of your employees. Here we need to know our audience because what does it mean to overcome the expectation? What is important? Our audience will usually have a reference in their past experience. If you talk about new candidates, it's really important for a company to have a benchmark for other companies, which for you is a source for the best candidates inside your organization.

So my expectations and also the previous experience. It's really important. With a low expectation, it's much easier to achieve more. But for the high expectation, we need to add something more. And the second important rule for us — what else is important during a honeymoon — is to align all what we do with our promise.

Timur Novopashin: Kind of my reflection on the honeymoon part and before the honeymoon during the interviewing process, what's important is do not sugarcoat it too much. Be honest. So if there is overtime from time to time you gotta stay late, please be transparent about it. Candidates and employees like when companies are not overpromising and under-delivering. That's been my experience in the talent acquisition area. Be honest. As transparent as you can, and that could lead to a kind of great honeymoon period, as you mentioned.

I think what's also important to touch on the subject that we definitely need to touch on today is how an employer brand works for employees. So you're inside the organization. You've been working for a year, for two years. Is there such a term and is there such a thing as internal employer branding?

Tatiana Koval: For me, it's a very important part. It's like being in a marriage. At all the times I said this comparison for a lot of years, and I said, if you are living with a great man — I usually like to use it with leaders, and usually it's a man, and I told them about their wives. You have a great wife, and for example, in the beginning, you said, "Oh, my wife, she's cooking such a wonderful meal. I really like it. She's caring about our children. She's so wonderful." After two, three years, you forget about it. You forget to say, "Wow, this fish was so tasty. I like what you do." You forgot to say thanks for what you are doing.

So you look for these like the usual things and stop to focus on it. And here I think where science of happiness could help us, and then we talk about our marriage, and if we talk about our employee experience, especially with the very experienced employees.

What tells us the science of happiness? Firstly, we need to cultivate the sense of gratitude, the sense of gratitude for your everyday life. It's really good. It's improving employee happiness, the people's happiness from one side. It's really scientific-based advice. It's not just my idea, it's scientific-based advice.

If you help your employees to cultivate this gratitude about your professional life, for example, every day mark three topics that I really like in my work day today. You could ask about it. Your leader could ask about it. Or on a week basis, your leader could ask, "What do you really like the previous week in our job? What are the three things which you really like, which you're really passionate about?" It was a cultivation of gratitude, and you should understand why you do it.

And the second, also just a focus. Usually, people forget about these advantages. You could, for example, compare with any other organization. You should focus on this, for example, if you have any awards, HR awards, if your company is a winner.

Ksenia Izotova: Celebrate little wins, right? Little and bigger wins, that's super important too. I wanted to just add a little bit about gratitude practice. I fully agree, Tatiana, with you that gratitude and being grateful to colleagues, it's a very important part of the corporate culture of a successful company, of a happy company. For example, how we do it in UnifyHub, at every sync that we do with a team every Tuesday, we have a recognition part where every team member, if she or he has something to say, what he's grateful for, what she's grateful for, then thanks another employee. It's an obligatory part of every Tuesday meeting, and it really works.

And with this gratitude, we give one apple, and when an employee has five apples, then it's a gift certificate that we reward. And I am very generous usually. I give away a lot of apples during the meeting because this is a chance to say thank you. Like in a family, like to a kid, like between friends, same between colleagues. I totally agree. Gratitude is important, and focus, and recognizing the small wins.

Tatiana Koval: Usually, when we are HR, especially if we are working with a highly competitive industry, we try to focus on what we could do more. And usually the companies, especially big companies or companies in industries like IT, are really doing a lot for the employees. But usually from the prior, it became like a norm. It's like usual for us.

We have one client that was very interesting. It was a company. Their head office is based in one region, but they're working in different regions. Ten years ago, before our project, they were the best employer in the region. Everybody wants to work for this organization. That means they overcome the expectation of employees. After 10 years, they understand that now they are not so attractive. I try to understand why. What's happened?

I think everybody in HR knows the Herzberg model. Our advantages, our motivation factors, hygienic factors. Some of our motivation factors could come to the hygienic side. So this is the normal expectation for employees. Now I joined you, I'm on a honeymoon. I understand, for example, you have a lot of events for your employees. It was wonderful for me. It was great motivation for me. After five years, "Oh, yes, New Year party again." Yes, it could be very wonderful, but again. What's important for us, remember about it.

What could help us here from the science of happiness? Unexpected positive events. New Year party, we expect it every year. Salary, we expect it. Bonus, we expect it every year. Something additional, unexpected, positive events. Maybe send something for the children. What's important for the employees, for young employees, for example, we could give them one day outside office for volunteer projects. Today is because it's a year of volunteers, so anyone who wants could take this day for their organization for working as a volunteer. Unexpected? Unexpected. Positive? I think so.

Timur Novopashin: Amazing. I think another great example to add to the toolbox of each company. So those may be small but unexpected and positive momentos. That's what we can utilize as an HR, especially if your company is on a budget. Let's say you've got a small team, so it's a really nice way to again highlight the importance of an employee to the company.

And what also stuck with me is that benchmarking — that's what we definitely gotta do. Because if at some point your competitors were lagging behind, it doesn't mean that it's still the case. If you start googling or using GPT and Claude and Gemini on the topic of employer branding, employee experience, candidate experience, you will find numerous articles, studies, etc. But everyone keeps forgetting that it is not just a story when you're looking for a position, starting a new job, and working for a company, but the part when your company and employee are parting.

When an employee is leaving the company, it's also a point of contact, a big one. Exit interviews, etc. So could you please elaborate here a bit more how you can make it happy, not a divorce, but happy parting. When the company is parting with an employee, how can we also utilize it as a potential employer branding tool.

Tatiana Koval: I think it's also a very important moment of truth when you are diverse with your employees. It's a really hard moment sometimes for both sides, sometimes for one side, because they have a different situation. For example, our employee decided to leave the company. That could be a tough moment for the company, not just for the employee. Another way, we have for now a lot of resignation when the company decided about the people in need of this layoff.

What is important for me is the most important topic which I promoted. When I talk about happiness, I talk about a people-centered approach. So it's really easy. Stay human.

What does it mean for us? Now we have a lot of examples, and we discussed it, a lot of my colleagues from different countries. The company due to the legislation, they have different rules for layoff. In some countries, you could make it in one day without any problems. In other countries, you need to do much more.

Firstly, I want to discuss the layoff situation. The company decided to cut the budget, and a lot of employees should leave the company. Your goal is not just to cut the budget. Your goal also is to keep all your investments you did in your employer brand in the past. Because one action, it's really — if you have a good reputation, it helps you to build trust from the potential candidates and also from employees. This trust is really important for building the engagement of your current employees and newcomers in the future.

What is important? Trust is a really easy part of our reputation. If you do this layoff in an inappropriate way, it could break everything. Break your reputation. What will it mean for you in the future? Inside the companies, employees also stop trusting you. They start to have a huge fear about their future. If you have fear, you have a high level of cortisol, it's a low level of happiness. For us, it means a decrease in productivity. Not right now, but for the future. It's a decrease in productivity. This is the way when the employee will feel unsafe and have more fear and company with more impacts and so on.

And also will have an impact on the market. The other candidates who are looking at what, how diverse, they will understand, "No, I'm not sure. I don't like to go to this company because they are really not people-oriented. They really do not care about their employees."

What is important? For example, we have insurance which could let us meet with our therapist who helps us to overcome this period, for example. You could add something with some consultation with a career specialist. You could — now in the era of AI — you could prepare your AI agent, which could help your employees with career advice based on their experience. For example, if you don't have a lot of money for the personal consultation, but it's important for me at least one human contact should be included in this. Because it feels limited for the first experience.

What is important stuff? To keep the trust, to understand that you are really human-oriented, and also to keep these people as your potential talent pool because situations could change. And these people, they are ambassadors of your organization who could recommend or not recommend the organization in the future.

I would, if you don't mind, I want to add one case, my lovely case, of how we should do. I think all companies should go this way, especially when there are layoffs in most public organizations. I think a lot of HR knew about Airbnb during the pandemic. They needed a great layoff for 25% of the organization. It's a big part of the employees. But what they are doing, how they are doing.

Firstly, they make an assessment of all employees, and they make a decision based on the real results, expectations, and really business needs. So it helps them to explain to every employee the way to make these decisions. So it makes this decision really open and really understandable, and they give this explanation.

Also, they were very honest about the situation inside the organization, because during the pandemic they had a huge decrease because nobody traveled during this period. They told me what it's really like — we have a huge impact, but we really care about you, which is why we decided to make this layoff. Which people will lay off? What they could offer to these people — we stay open for the future and also for some people, for example, we understand that they also transform their business. They also propose to some people not leave the company, but to change their position inside the organization.

HR really makes a lot of preparations. I would recommend reading these cases. This is a brilliant case, how you go. It's very quick. They organize it very quickly, but work really hard. For example, we need this position, we want to develop this sphere because it's not have such a huge impact. Maybe we need to do this business here. We need more people, so we could recommend some people to join this position. If outside to really open communication, understand this process, give some advice, some help about career perspective. So for me, it had a really huge positive impact on the employer brand of the organization.

Now we talk a lot about employee advocacy programs, but the ex-employee advocacy program also could be very interesting. You could share this with some news of your organization, especially during the six months, one year after they are leaving. We are really interested in what you have inside the organization. You could share this with them, and maybe they want to share it via their social media channels, their audience. So it's also the way to stay in touch. And the best way for waking strategy now, for me, and I think it's important when we talk about employer brand, and also ETA strategy.

Timur Novopashin: I think I came up with a great title for this episode of the HR Circle Podcast. That's how you do employer branding, because I think we definitely went through almost the entire journey from a candidate or just an outside observer, not even a candidate, just a person observing the company as an employer. Then we got to the candidate stage, honeymoon period, an employee, and then when you're parting with the company.

And there is just one question that I would like to ask, and I would be happy to hear your perspective on this topic. So we discussed a lot of things, principles for employer branding, great employee candidate experience, but what type of organization would you be happy to join if you were a candidate?

Tatiana Koval: Firstly, my advice to everybody, candidates and to my friends, you need to understand you. You need to understand your strong sides. And here I could recommend my favorite, and I use it for my mentee everywhere. It's my favorite test — VIA characters. Also, we have another type of test, the Gallup Strengths sides, but I like the VIA character, which helps us. It's free of charge, and you could do this and understand your strong sides. If you implement your strong sides at what you are doing, you will be happier. So firstly, know you. Firstly, from a strong side.

And second part, know your values, which are important for you. Because people are really different. For one people, values is stability. They really expected, they want it, it's really important for them. For other people, they like the innovation, something new. They feel themself very sad when they do the same every day. They like changes. For them, it's important part of their lives. So it's better to set your values, what are important for you as a person.

And the third part is reflection, your previous experience as an employer and your list of expectations. And for me, it's a list of pluses and also a stop list, which I'm not ready to.

If I talk about it from my perspective, for example, I remember my strong sides and use it, I think, every day in my life. For example, my first strong side, it's my love of learning. So for me, that means to be an employee organization where I could learn every day. For me, it's a great advantage.

And also one of my advantage, it's love. For me, it also means that I like bringing love to other people in my everyday life. So this is why I am working in the happiness area. It's why I promoted a people-centered approach. The love to other people. It's my passion. It's my mission to promote this idea because it's close to my strong sides.

If I talk, for example, about my values, one of my values is freedom. So for me, I should also be an employer where I could feel freedom, freedom in what I'm doing. Freedom is finding a way of achieving the results. So it's about value. I have a list of my personal values, not too big, but it's important.

And so about expectations about employees, based on my previous experience, I have something. For example, I like open communication. And in my stop list organization, for example, who are really not honestly with employees. Can never have a dialogue with employees. For me, it's important. It's independent of my position or organization. It's important that they really could hear me and I have my voice inside the organization. So I think it's some parameters.

And it's really interesting when I analyze, for example, where the money is in this range. I understand money, it's important, but not only because of money, but it's also because it's also a price for what I'm bringing to the organization. And for me, it's important when I talk about employer brand and I talk about employees. Every time I ask you not only what a company could give to me, but what I could give to the company and more. Give through the company to the society. And I think the company also should focus on it. For me, it's not about social organization. It's about how every organization brings something good to the world.

Understanding the missions, the meaning of work is really important. I have a list of criteria for organization based on my value and those criteria for a job inside this organization. And I really could say, for example, "I would not be very good for this job because of..." And it's a really good answer. On the other hand, I could be the best for this because based on what I know myself very well.

My work to help other people love this organization. I'm really strong in making love.

Ksenia Izotova: Thank you so much, Tatiana. You speak a lot about happiness, and it's been such a pleasure communicating with you today, learning things from you because you are a really happy person, a very energetic, dynamic, positive, and loving, caring person. Thank you so much. Very insightful conversation. It sounds like it's not a podcast but a series of podcasts because we've covered today all the stages of the employee, from having an interview with the company then up to becoming alumni and the company ambassador after leaving it. Thank you so much.

Timur Novopashin: It's definitely been a pleasure. I think we put together a very decent tool book for HR, and not just HR professionals but for every professional who is somehow connected with hiring and building an employer brand to founding a company. So thank you for that.