How to brief an employer branding agency for results

A weak brief costs you months. Not because agencies are slow, but because they will fill the gaps with assumptions. Those assumptions shape a concept. That concept generates feedback. And that feedback is about things you already knew before you started.

At Livewall, we work on employer brand campaigns, recruitment platforms, and preboarding tools for large employers across the Netherlands and beyond. What we see consistently: the briefs that produce strong results are not the longest ones. They are the most honest ones.

What to define before you call an agency

The recruitment problems you have right now. Not your ambition, your reality. Which roles have been open for months? In which locations? What do candidates say when they drop off? If you do not know this, your first step is internal research, not an agency brief.

Your EVP, or an honest admission that you do not have one. An employer value proposition is the foundation of any campaign. Without one, you are building on instinct. That can work for a single campaign. It does not scale. A good employer branding agency can help you develop your EVP, but that is a different project from running a campaign. Be clear about what you expect.

Your target audience at job level. Not 'young people' or 'people who like a challenge'. Which roles? What education level? What does that person do right now? What do they think about the work you offer? The more specific you are, the stronger the creative work becomes.

Your competitive position. Who else is competing for the same candidates? What do they offer that you do not? What do you offer that they do not? If you do not know, the agency definitely does not know.

What goes wrong in most employer branding briefs

Too much about the brand, too little about the problem. Most briefs open with three pages of brand values and guidelines. That is useful context, but it is not a brief. An employer branding agency needs one thing above all: a clear picture of the problem you want to solve.

Vague KPIs. 'More employer brand awareness' is not a KPI. 'Twenty percent more applications for logistics roles in the south of the country within six months' is a KPI. Without measurable goals, you cannot evaluate whether the work delivered.

An undefined budget. Agencies work better with a real number than with 'send us a proposal'. With a budget, they can give you honest advice about what is achievable. Without one, they quote based on what they think you want to hear. That leads to scope changes later.

Unclear stakeholders. Who signs off at the end? HR, marketing, the CEO? If three people need to approve and they disagree on direction, the agency should know that upfront. Do not surprise them in the feedback round.

What a good agency needs from you on day one

A strong brief contains at minimum:

• Context: what has been tried before and what did it produce?
• Problem: what is the specific recruitment challenge?
• Audience: who do you want to reach, with what profile, at what stage of their career?
• Success: what does success look like in six or twelve months?
• Budget and timeline: what can you spend and when does it need to go live?
• Decision-making: who are the stakeholders and who has the final say?

You do not need to have all the answers. But you should know what you do not know. 'We have not defined our EVP yet' is a perfectly useful thing to say in a briefing. It helps the agency understand where to focus.

The brief as a conversation, not an instruction

Most briefs are written as instructions. That approach limits the result.

A brief is the start of a conversation, not the end of one. Give your employer branding agency space to ask questions. Good questions are a sign they are taking the work seriously. If an agency accepts your brief immediately without pushing back, pay attention. They may have understood the brief, but they have not yet understood the problem.

At Livewall, we start every employer branding engagement with a briefing session, not a proposal. In that session we look together at what you know, what you think you know, and what still needs to be figured out. Only then do we define scope.

That sounds slower. It is faster. Because you do not restart the project halfway through.

What to avoid

Competitor references without explanation. 'We want something like what X did' says nothing unless you explain why that works in your context and for your audience.

A brief written by one person but reviewed by five. The contradictions in the feedback reveal the contradictions in the organisation. Resolve those internally first.

Choosing a recruitment campaign when the real issue is an EVP problem. A campaign amplifies what you already are. It does not replace what is missing. If candidates drop off because reality does not match the image, more visibility will not help. Honesty will.