Employer branding consulting backed by our own research.

Employer branding is how an organization is perceived as a place to work and the deliberate effort to shape that perception. It covers what the company offers employees, how it communicates this and whether the everyday experience matches the promise.

It matters because qualified candidates compare employers before they apply, often through career sites, review platforms, social media and increasingly AI tools. A clear and credible employer brand leads to more suitable applications, faster hiring and lower turnover, because people join with realistic expectations.

An employer value proposition is the core answer to the question: why should a qualified person work for you rather than a competitor? It summarizes what employees receive, such as pay and benefits, development opportunities, culture, purpose, flexibility and stability, and what the company expects in return.

A good EVP is based on facts. We develop it from interviews and surveys with current employees, feedback from applicants, an analysis of competitors in the labor market and the goals of management. The EVP then guides job ads, careers pages, social media and interviews.

The employer brand is what a company deliberately defines and communicates about itself as an employer: its values, what it offers and what it expects. The employer image is how applicants, employees and the public actually perceive it. The two often differ.

Employer branding closes this gap from both sides: by communicating what is genuinely good more clearly, and by improving what does not yet match the promise. As PhDr. Oliver Scharfenberg, CEO of Syntharis Group, writes in his Praxisleitfaden Mitarbeitergewinnung, applicants quickly notice whether an employer’s claims match reality.

Employer seals can increase applications, but only if they are credible. Research by PhDr. Oliver Scharfenberg, CEO of Syntharis Group, compared more than 60 employer seals and tested their effect in a representative experiment with 1,093 participants. Adding a credible employer seal to a job ad raised the share of people who said they would likely apply from 38% to 54%, a gain of almost 16 percentage points. The share who were unlikely to apply fell from 18% to 6%.

The condition behind that lift is credibility: it appears when a seal rests on transparent criteria and real verification (ideally an anonymous survey of the whole workforce) rather than on payment. In his Praxisleitfaden Mitarbeitergewinnung, Scharfenberg sorts seals into four categories, from representative employee surveys (the gold standard) to seals based only on online reviews. Since 27 September 2026, the EU EmpCo Directive, implemented in Germany through the third amendment to the UWG, prohibits sustainability labels without a transparent certification scheme; whether the same standard applies to employer seals is still an open legal question. Syntharis advises employers on which certifications are worth pursuing and how to communicate them without overstating what they prove.

The most credible employer seals are based on an anonymous survey of the whole workforce. Seals differ considerably in what they actually say. The Praxisleitfaden Mitarbeitergewinnung by our CEO sorts them into four categories:

• Representative employee survey: the whole workforce is surveyed anonymously. This is the gold standard, because the seal reflects the real internal mood and doubles as a diagnostic tool for HR.
• Self-assessment with verification: the company provides information that the awarding body checks. Useful for a first positioning, but without the employees’ view.
• Sample survey: only a small selection of employees is asked, which is scientifically weak and raises questions internally about who was allowed to take part.
• Study- or review-based: the seal relies on external data such as anonymous online reviews. It is often unclear whether real employees wrote them.

Before booking a seal, check which category it belongs to, who awards it and whether the criteria are published.

Whether the EmpCo Directive also covers employer seals is still an open legal question. The directive, (EU) 2024/825, is aimed at greenwashing. In Germany it was implemented through the third amendment to the Act against Unfair Competition (UWG), which has fully applied since 27 September 2026. Sustainability labels that are not based on a transparent certification scheme are now prohibited.

For employer seals, experts discuss “social washing”, meaning unproven claims about fair working conditions or a good company culture. The Praxisleitfaden Mitarbeitergewinnung therefore recommends a precautionary approach: an anonymous survey of the whole workforce, external third-party verification and a transparent catalog of criteria. This is general information, not legal advice; for a specific case, consult a lawyer specializing in competition law.

Show it where applicants make their decision: in job ads, on the careers page, in your LinkedIn profile and in the email signatures of your recruiters. In the study by PhDr. Oliver Scharfenberg, placing a credible seal in a job ad alone raised the share of people likely to apply from 38% to 54%.

Say what the seal is based on, for example “based on an anonymous survey of all employees”, name the awarding body and the year, and do not claim more than it proves. Use the survey results internally as well: they show where you already do well and where there is room to improve, which makes the seal a diagnostic tool rather than decoration.

Strongly, because applicants read them before they apply, and AI assistants use them when asked what a company is like as an employer. Old or one-sided reviews can therefore shape your image long after the situation has changed.

Claim your profiles, keep company information up to date, respond to reviews professionally, including critical ones, and encourage current employees to share honest experiences. Never write or buy fake reviews; apart from the legal risk, doing so destroys the very trust you want to build.

You can influence it, and the first step is to ask the assistants yourself. Prompts such as “good employers for [role] in [city]” or “what is it like to work at [company]?” in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini show how you appear. Often the answers rely on old reviews and scattered job-board data.

The employer-branding case in The AI Visibility SEO & GEO Playbook by our CEO, PhDr. Oliver Scharfenberg, describes what helps: an employer-facts page on your website, published benefits and culture proof, employee-survey results where available, updated LinkedIn, review and career-directory profiles, and credible third-party certification or coverage. Syntharis does this AI-visibility work alongside employer branding, so credible signals also show up where candidates now ask their questions.

We use measurable HR indicators, recorded before the project and tracked afterwards. The most common are the number and quality of applications per vacancy, time-to-hire, cost-per-hire, offer acceptance rate, early turnover in the first six months, employee engagement and ratings on employer review platforms.

We also check how your company appears when candidates ask AI tools about you as an employer, because this has become a new first impression. The AI Visibility SEO & GEO Playbook recommends an employer-facts page, verifiable survey results and consistent profiles on LinkedIn and review platforms, so assistants have current evidence instead of old reviews.