Awards don’t happen by accident

What great employer branding actually takes

Let’s start with the obvious. Awards are lovely. They look great on LinkedIn. They make your mum proud. But the work behind them? That’s rarely glamorous.

Great employer branding – the kind that gets recognised, remembered and actually works – isn’t built on last-minute ideas or shiny slogans. It’s built on intention, collaboration and a lot of thinking before anyone opens PowerPoint.

So what does award-winning employer branding really take?

Spoiler: it’s not luck.

It starts with the problem, not the platform

The strongest campaigns don’t begin with “we need a new careers site” or “let’s do something on TikTok”.

They start with a much better question:

What problem are we actually trying to solve?

Hiring the wrong people.

Not being understood as an employer.

Struggling to compete in a tight market.

A culture that doesn’t translate externally.

When the problem is clear, everything else falls into place. When it’s not, you end up with nice-looking work that doesn’t move the needle – and definitely doesn’t win awards.

Clarity beats cleverness every time

Here’s an industry truth: the work that wins isn’t always the loudest.

Judges (and candidates) are looking for ideas that are:

1. Insight-led
2. Purposeful
3. Grounded in reality

Clever for clever’s sake rarely cuts through.

Clear, honest storytelling almost always does.

Great employer branding knows exactly who it’s talking to, what it wants them to feel, and what action it wants them to take – then strips everything else away.

It’s built with people, not about them

You can spot it a mile off when employer branding has been created in a vacuum.

The strongest work is shaped by real voices:

1. Employees who live the culture day to day
2. Leaders who are willing to be honest, not polished
3. Teams who understand what makes the organisation tick (and what doesn’t)

That level of collaboration takes time. It takes trust. And it takes listening more than talking.

But it’s also what gives the work credibility – something no amount of creative gloss can fake.

Consistency is the quiet hero

Award-winning employer branding rarely lives in one place.

It shows up in job ads. In career sites. In interviews. In onboarding. In how leaders show up on a Monday morning.

The brands that stand out are the ones that deliver the same message at every touchpoint – not because they’re rigid, but because they’re aligned.

That consistency is hard work. It requires buy-in, patience and a shared understanding of what the employer brand actually is.

There’s no shortcut to substance

Behind every shiny campaign is a lot of unsexy work:

1. Research
2. Strategy
3. Workshops
4. Iteration
5. Saying no to good ideas in favour of the right ones

Awards don’t reward shortcuts. They reward depth. They reward organisations that commit to doing employer branding properly – not just when hiring is hard, but as an ongoing investment in their people and their reputation.

The award is never the point

Here’s the thing we come back to time and time again.

Awards are a by-product.

Not the goal.

The real win is creating work that:

1. Attracts the right people
2. Sets honest expectations
3. Builds pride internally
4. Makes work… work better

When you focus on that, recognition tends to follow. And when it does, it’s just confirmation that the foundations were strong all along.

Because great employer branding doesn’t happen by accident.

It happens by design.