Employer Brand Data Reveals the EVP Gap
Your EVP may be everywhere in your company. Clear pillars. Polished language. A nice mix of purpose, growth, and flexibility.
And yet, when we look at external employer brand data, it often tells a different story. There can be a significant gap between what companies say, what people experience, and what people outside of your firm actually think.
And you can't find out what this is without employer brand data.
Employer Brand Data Exposes the EVP Gap
We've seen multiple clients with the same pattern:
- Strong alignment between the EVP from employer brand teams, and the internal perception of what the company stands for
- Almost no awareness of the same claims externally. The EVP's landed internally, but it is not showing up to external talent.
We call this the EVP Gap.
Closing the EVP Gap
Employer brand strategies have to be targeted. By using employer brand data to identify where your internal EVP is misaligned with what talent expects, you can make sure that talent arrivees with a clear of what you stand for - attracting talent that fits - and thrives - in your culture.
Campaigns have to aim at ensuring your internal EVP matches reality. If they do, those campaigns strengthen trust. But when they don't, they highlight the disconnect faster.
Our clients have used our employer brand data to make that visible in real time - showing how those two things become aligned.
How have our clients already done this?
One of our clients used Wisdom's employer brand data to identify that they were percieved as a Structured employer - someone that offered traditional, reliable forms of compensation.
This wasn't what people thought internally. Focus groups and interviews revealed that this firm saw themselves as a Purpose employer - somewhere to make a positive impact. This disconnect in the employer brand data meant they weren't attracting the right kinds of candidate.
The Risk: Scaling the Wrong Signal
Without employer brand data, it’s easy to scale the wrong message. Maybe your content is positioning you as a purpose employer, when internally people are driven by a culture of connection.
And when that happens, the impact compounds:
- Lower offer acceptance when expectations don’t match reality
- Higher early attrition from misaligned hires
- Internal scepticism when employees don’t recognise the employer brand amplified online
Employer brand data doesn’t just measure performance. It prevents you from amplifying the wrong signals.
What to Do With Employer Brand Data
If you want to move from campaigns to commitments, employer brand data needs to sit at the centre of your strategy.
That means:
Start with reality, not aspiration: Use employer brand data to understand what employees actually experience before defining your EVP.
Track perception continuously: Monitor how your employer brand is landing across different audiences. See what categories your content falls into, and if it is widening or narrowing the EVP gap.
Focus on signals, not outputs: Engagement metrics matter. But employer brand data tells you whether you're having a strategic impact - if you're shifting the message towards something credible.
How Wisdom closes the EVP gap
If you want to know where your employer brand is currently sitting - and start to close the employer brand gap - you need credible, reliable employer brand data. That's where Wisdom comes in.
Consumer-grade data that helps you see how you're showing up externally, identify EVP gaps, and discover the content and channels to fix them.
Book a demo to find out more.
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