Stop Selling 'Authenticity': Why Employer Brands Need 'Belief Beyond Reason'
Let's cut through the corporate noise. If you're in recruitment, brand, or marketing, it’s not just a fight for consumers, clients or candidates. The real war we’re fighting for is for influence and, more importantly trust.
While brands are pouring money into external influencers -$800m spent in Australia, increasing 13% year on year (Meltwater 2025), I’m predicting there’s a crucial tipping point coming. Gen Z is highly cynical, have a built-in spidy-sense in determining what is or isn’t real and if it’s the later – they will call you out on it! So, surely, it’s going to be a matter when, not if, an influencer/s succumb to ‘cash for comment’ and fall down in a heap of inauthenticity by doing or saying something that seems out of sorts with their almighty personal brand.
It does beg the question, how long will the reign of external, paid influencers last and what impact will it have as trust erodes?
The solution? It's not out there. It’s inside your business. t’s the reason why ‘recruitment’ + ‘marketing’ need to join forces and come together. Be more united, find ways to connect the dots, cross-pollinate ideas for a bigger, collective win to create Belief Beyond Reason.
The Age of Hyper-Cynicism
We’re up against two major headwinds right now:
- The Trust Cliff: Australians' overall trust has fallen into the "distrusting" category. People are worried about being purposely misled by government, business leaders, and the media (Edelman Trust Barometer 2025).
- The Gen Z Factor: The next generation of talent is highly cynical and will call you out if it doesn’t look for real.
When trust is declining, consumers and candidates constantly bombarded with platitudes and thin messages, will see right through empty promises. Sending them the same old messages—like focusing only on similar benefits —simply isn't enough to stand out.
This is why we have to move past simple authenticity. Authenticity is a fact; 'Belief' is an emotion. To win, we need to go beyond being merely authentic to finding ways to connect with candidates on a deeper, emotional level.
Blurring of Brand Lines
Our premise is simple: the people you want to hire and the people you want to sell to are potentially one and the same.
- They see it all: They’re not experiencing your brand in two different ways - they see one, integrated brand.
- The Golden Rule: How someone is treated as a candidate (successful or not) can impact their likelihood of becoming a customer, and vice-versa.
Why? Because brand perception is fundamentally shaped through experiences, filtered through a sense of trust and belief, which ultimately shapes reputation and what people think of you. People experience your brand in a far more integrated way than ever before; the lines are short and blurred. Today the time, space and moments between an employee and a consumer are becoming more compressed, frequent and high touch. Equally, what employees say, feel and think is being amplified across different channels and reaching candidates in ways that can have a far-reaching impact.
If you deliver on what you say, the impact is positive. If you "over embellish and gloss over the tough bits," it will have a negative impact.
The Ripple Effect is Real (and Expensive)
With social media, there's nowhere to hide. Poor candidate or customer experience triggers a "ripple effect":
It gets shared on socials.
It leads to public backlash and reputation damage.
The result is negative sentiment, loss of trust and ultimately, customer/candidate churn.
The numbers back it up:
- 64% of consumers stopped purchasing a brand after hearing news of that company's poor employee treatment. (CareerArc)
- 96% of companies believe employer brand and reputation can positively or negatively impact revenue. (CareerArc)
Your Three-Point Action Plan to Building Belief Beyond Reason
To thrive in a world where trust is dropping and AI is fuelling misinformation, you must shift your focus to being more human.
Here’s what progressive companies are exploring right now:
- Be Human First: To stand out, let your people stand up. Democratise your brand by putting it in their hands. It's about letting go and trusting your people to have an authentic voice for the brand to help build it from the bottom up.
- Be More Efficient: Break down functional silos. Let employee-generated content drive your brand. Technology like The Martec or VideoMyJob can gather stories, and sophisticated AI can analyse trends and extract insights from that employee-generated content. You can then repurpose these insights to activate both your EVP and CVP.
- Be More Influential: This means achieving a consolidated view of brand. By bringing all those voices together with less friction, you can accelerate trust and strengthen your reputation. The goal is to create a brand that’s bigger than the sum of its parts.
The future of brand is people. So, let's start empowering the only influencers who truly matter: your own employees.
