When you work in employer branding long enough, you notice a shift in the industry’s approach. From telling people what to think about you, to helping them feel something instead.
We sat down with Swapni Mehta, Senior Employer Brand Specialist at Arc'teryx, who’s been building brands across the world for over a decade. With a background in traditional and digital marketing, working at both Capgemini and TikTok, it’s clear to see why her approach to employer branding is rooted in storytelling, emotional connection, and strategic pattern recognition.
Today, she’s championing presence over performance in companies' employer brand messaging. Here are some of the themes that were covered:
Presence over performance:
Why feeling matters more than telling
"In a world of over-performance where brands want to be louder, faster and sharper; the ones that really stand out are the ones that feel familiar to the right people."
The core idea behind her approach is simple: let go of the need to impress. Instead, focus on the essential factor. Being understood. That means ditching hyperbole and aligning your messaging with how your workplace actually feels, not just how it looks.
It’s about crafting clarity in tone, honesty in storytelling, and emotional consistency across every interaction from the first scroll-stop and screen-tap on a LinkedIn job ad right through to the final interview stage.
Employer Branding as a Leadership Tool, Not Just a Hiring Tactic
Too often, employer branding is tucked away under HR or talent attraction. But the best brands understand that it’s far bigger than that.
"Employer branding isn’t just about how you hire. It reflects how you behave, communicate, and follow through, both internally and externally.
Done right, EB acts as a leadership tool. It sets cultural expectations, amplifies behaviours, and shows both employees and candidates what’s rewarded (and what’s not). But it only works when it’s built on reality, not just aspirations.
Local nuances, global narratives:
Designing permission structures
Having been a part of employer brand projects across continents, Swapni mentioned one common trap: trying to copy-paste a global brand into local cultures.
Instead, she advises building "permission structures" tailored to each market.
"In every market, you need to understand the local permission structures – the unspoken rules that shape what people are allowed to expect. What behaviours are amplified here?"
In some regions like EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Asia), candidates are focused on career progression. In North America, it’s emotional storytelling that resonates. In APAC (Asia-Pacific), stability and purpose often hold more weight.
Understanding these unspoken rules and adapting your storytelling accordingly is what transforms an employer brand from being jarringly generic to becoming genuinely global.
What 'Best Place to Work' really means:
(and why it’s not what you think)
When leadership asks for a "best place to work" campaign, the instinct is often to go shiny: big awards, bright slogans, beautiful imagery. But as she quickly learned, "best" is subjective.
"What's 'the best' for one candidate could be overwhelming for another. We need to define 'best' for the people we want to attract. "
In one project, she helped a brand move away from a generic, over-polished image. Instead of promising an easy ride, they celebrated their fast pace, steep learning curves, and culture of high standards.
It wasn't about being the easiest place to work. It was about being the right place for the ambitious, the curious and the resilient.
The results?
Better conversion rates
Stronger values alignment
Lower first-year attrition
“The real challenge isn’t defining ‘best.’ It’s resisting the urge to sand down your edges to appear universally attractive. That’s where most employer brands lose their sharpness.”
If you build your brand for everyone, you build it for no one. Build it for the right ones, the people who’ll thrive, not just survive.
Measuring what matters:
How to Track Emotional Connection
Here’s where it gets real: If you’re building an employer brand on emotional resonance, you need to be able to measure it. How? This is where what Swapni calls her Emotional Patterning Framework comes in.
“It starts with qualitative moments; what people are proud of, where they feel friction, and pairs those with external sentiment signals like advocacy, reviews, and content response. The goal is to find the emotional throughlines that keep surfacing and build your brand story from there.”
In her work, she looks to track both external and internal signals:
Internal surveys that score emotional connection to purpose, leadership, and daily experience
External perception tracking to measure how the brand feels in the talent market
"We’re not just looking for engagement rates on posts. We’re asking: How do people feel about working here? And does that match the story we're telling externally?"
Examples of things she measures:
% of employees who feel proud to talk about their workplace
Sentiment analysis of employer brand campaigns
EVP consistency across different regional hubs
Correlation between advocacy (employee-generated content) and Glassdoor/NPS scores
It's not enough to track clicks. You need to track trust, pride, and emotional ownership — because these are what convert passive interest into active loyalty.
How to shift from attraction to alignment:
One of the biggest themes of our conversation was the shift from attraction-first to alignment-first branding.
"We’ve spent years trying to be seen. Now we need to focus on being recognisable to the right people."
That’s the evolution. It’s not about getting millions of views. It’s about 1,000 of the right candidates seeing your brand and thinking: This feels like somewhere I belong.
“The irony? A lot of ‘authentic’ employer brand work still ends up sounding the same because everyone’s chasing relatability instead of clarity. But clarity is what creates belonging.”
Practical ways to shift towards alignment:
Use employee storytelling over brand-led messaging
Spotlight the hard stuff (challenges, trade-offs) alongside the good
Personalise journeys through career sites and social media channels
Value emotional authenticity over polished perfection
Practical Steps for Employer Brand Experts
Here’s what she recommends for anyone building a modern, emotionally resonant employer brand:
Track emotional patterns, not just engagement metrics: Look for what surprises and excites your people. Patterns matter more than individual quotes.
Redefine what ‘best’ means for your audience: Get honest about who thrives in your culture — and spotlight them.
Build permission structures: Adapt messaging regionally without losing your core purpose.
Measure emotional trust, not just clicks: Ask how people feel about your brand and work environment, and build from there.
Invest in storytelling that feels like conversation, not marketing: The best employer brands don't shout. They resonate.
One final thought:
“The shift this space is ready for is moving from attraction to alignment.”
Employer branding isn’t about impressing the masses anymore. It’s about helping the right people feel seen, understood, and inspired. When you do that, you don’t just fill roles — you build belonging.
If you want to hear more insights from Swapni, check out her Substack, Making the Invisible Visible, where she shares essays on workplace experience, story, and identity.
