Today, Mike Jones leads a global function at Novartis that brings together employer brand, recruitment marketing, talent attraction and market intelligence. This isn’t his first rodeo. After six years agency-side and a talent attraction lead role at bp, he’s seen the field from every angle.
In this blog, we cover:
The biggest shift in employer branding over the past decade
What separates an EVP that works from one that falls apart
How to win internal buy-in, including across corporate affairs
What actually makes a talent campaign stand out
The three trends set to define the next three to five years
The biggest shift of the past decade: from broadcast to proof
Asked what's changed most, Mike points to the move away from broad, brand-led storytelling toward targeted, insight-driven engagement that's continuously validated. The old model pushed a generic message out at scale and measured how many people saw it. The current model uses data, audience segmentation, and performance marketing to reach specific talent pools and checks that the message is credible before it goes anywhere.
The second change is who controls the narrative: candidates are losing trust rapidly and are no longer taking companies’ words at face value.
"Candidates aren't just relying on what companies say. They're looking at what employees share on LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and other peer-driven platforms. Employer brand is now something you demonstrate consistently from within, not just something you declare."
That shift raises the stakes on consistency. Candidates piece together information from one source to another, and any point where the company's story and the employee's reality don't match is where trust breaks down.
What separates an EVP that works from one that falls apart
It comes down to two things: differentiation and operational credibility.
Differentiation is the one most people talk about, and the one many companies still get wrong. Too many EVPs are well-crafted but interchangeable; remove the logo, and they could belong to any competitor. An EVP has to be rooted in genuine insight into your organisation. What is meaningfully distinct about the experience someone would have at your company versus somewhere else, not just what your aspirations are. We need to lead with credibility rather than aspiration, which is the part that gets overlooked.
"The strongest EVPs are designed with application in mind from the outset, clear frameworks, messaging hierarchies, the guardrails that keep you consistent while still allowing for local market nuance. Distinctive enough to stand out, grounded enough to be credible, and structured to be usable across markets, functions and talent segments."
Winning internal buy-in
A common failure point is treating the EVP as something owned solely by the employer brand team. The people who shape your employer brand are far broader than the team that manages it, so education and upskilling have to reach across the business. Mike is running exactly this exercise at Novartis now, and the starting point is plain comprehension.
"People know the word EVP; it gets thrown around a lot, but their understanding of it usually isn't as deep as what it genuinely is. Your EVP is who you are today. It's not who you're trying to be in five or ten years."
The fix is role‑specific clarity. Recruiters need to understand how the EVP shows up in applications, ATS workflows and candidate conversations. Corporate affairs needs to understand when the EVP takes precedence over the corporate narrative.
"When corporate affairs talk about anything to do with talent, development, learning or culture, the EVP needs to take precedence over the corporate narrative. Candidates don't care whether corporate affairs wrote something or employer brand did. They view you as one organisation."
The risk of misalignment is evident in shared channels. Corporate and careers content may live on separate channels elsewhere, but on LinkedIn they appear together, and any inconsistency there erodes trust with talent.
What makes a talent campaign stand out
The historic measure of a campaign was how arresting the creative was and how far it reached. Mike argues the strongest work is insight-led and tightly targeted, seen by the people who matter, rather than by everyone.
"Reaching people isn't the hard part in marketing. You can reach millions with a message in days. Reaching the right people who'll engage and convert into quality applications and hires, that's where it gets difficult."
That reframes the metrics. A campaign that reaches a smaller, well-defined audience and converts is worth more than one that reaches millions and hires one person who isn't the right fit. It also licenses transparency, so the wrong-fit candidates self-select out.
The second point is scope. The strongest campaigns aren't standalone external pushes; they span the entire candidate journey and reach internal audiences too. External messaging has to align with the careers site, the campaign landing page and with recruiter and hiring manager conversations. Recruiters need to understand the proof points, so they communicate consistently. And the audience isn't only external: internal mobility, referrals, the networks already inside the organisation and alumni all belong in the campaign.
Creative still matters, but Mike is clear about the order of priority: "It's all about the strategy that sits behind it. Otherwise the creative just falls flat."
Three trends that will define the next three to five years
1. AI changes who controls the narrative for better and worse
Large language models are reshaping how candidates research employers, and they pull from sources no company controls.
"We used to shape our narrative through careers sites, campaigns and social channels. Now the narrative is decentralised. Employee voices feed into LLMs and review platforms, and the story candidates see is built far beyond an organisation’s control. "${size=small}
The response isn't more polished messaging; it's building a culture that matches the external positioning, so the credibility holds up under AI scrutiny. Mike also sees a clear upside: AI is a faster route to research, audience insight, segmentation and campaign optimisation. The net effect is accountability.
2. Employee advocacy becomes a core driver
Advocacy isn't new, but declining trust in corporate messaging makes it more central than before. Candidates increasingly rely on real employee voices and peer validation to make informed decisions, which calls for a joined-up approach across employer brand, recruitment marketing, talent attraction and corporate affairs, so authentic employee storytelling can be governed rather than left to chance.
3. Talent strategy moves earlier and gets proactive
Skills-based hiring has widened the field and the competition. Companies used to hire on industry experience. Now it's skills-based, so you've opened yourself up to talent across sectors. But that also means everyone is your competition.
The shift is from reacting to open roles to building awareness and pipelines ahead of demand, so teams aren't on the back foot when roles land. At Novartis, that has moved the function up the chain.
“Our team is part of the organisation design discussions, not left as an afterthought. We’re thinking about talent gaps and building awareness in key locations before the design has even completed, so that when the new operating model lands, we’re ready to hit the ground running with hiring”
Key takeaways for employer brand professionals
Lead with credibility, not aspiration. If the EVP wouldn’t survive having your logo removed, it isn't differentiated. Root it in what's genuinely distinct about working at your company.
Design the EVP to be used. Frameworks, messaging hierarchies and guardrails make it usable across markets and functions. A statement nobody can apply is just a tagline.
Make it concrete for every role. Buy-in comes from showing each person where they touch the employer brand, and getting corporate affairs to defer to the EVP on talent topics for consistency.
Measure conversion, not reach. Precision beats volume. A tightly targeted campaign that converts is better than mass reach that doesn't. Be transparent enough that the wrong people opt out.
Move earlier and build pipelines. Proactive, always-on engagement means you're ready when roles land, not scrambling after they're posted.
