The Playbook
Employer brand content starters for the channels where talent actually spends time. Take these further with your creative team.
"An EVP that lives in a PDF is a hypothesis. An EVP that shows up in a TikTok, a job ad, and an onboarding email is an employer brand."
The Core Insight
The Playbook takes an employer brand territory and generates platform-specific content concepts for the channels where talent actually pays attention: TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and LinkedIn. It answers a question most EVP projects skip: how does this promise show up as content that real people choose to watch, share, or engage with?
These are not generic social video concepts. They are employer brand content designed to attract, engage, or convert talent on the platforms where hiring decisions increasingly begin.
Why Activation Matters
Most employer brand work stops at the EVP document. A consultancy delivers a 60-page deck, the careers page gets a refresh, and the same copy gets reformatted for every channel. Generic careers page messaging pasted into a LinkedIn post is not employer brand activation. It is repurposing.
The Playbook generates content concepts that are native to each platform: designed for how people actually scroll, watch, and decide whether an employer is worth their attention. A behind-the-scenes culture clip on TikTok works differently from a thought leadership piece on LinkedIn, even when both express the same EVP.
Platform Behaviours
| Platform | Behaviour | Employer Brand Use |
|---|---|---|
| TikTok | Discovery-driven. Sound-on. Trend participation. Authenticity over polish. | Behind-the-scenes culture content, day-in-the-life, honest "what it's actually like" formats. Strongest for early careers and passive talent awareness. |
| Instagram Reels | Interest-based. Aesthetic matters. Mix of sound-on/off. | Workplace culture moments, team stories, visual employer brand storytelling. Good for creative and design-led roles. |
| YouTube Shorts | Search context. Slightly longer attention. Long-form crossover. | Role explainers, employee career journey stories, "what I actually do" formats. Candidates searching for specific roles find these. |
| Professional. Sound-off dominant. Authority and insight valued. | Employee thought leadership, hiring announcements, culture pieces, leadership perspectives. Primary channel for experienced and senior hires. |
How It Works
Step 1 - Activation Brief: Organisation name, employer brand territory, communication objective, and optional additional context (talent segment, constraints, seasonal moments like graduate recruitment season).
Check Competitor Recruitment Advertising (Optional)
Before generating concepts, you can search for competitors' recent employer brand and recruitment advertising on Facebook and Instagram. The Playbook analyses current messaging themes, creative approaches, and channel choices, then feeds this directly into concept generation to ensure your content differentiates from what competitor employers are already running.
What it finds: Active recruitment campaigns, employer brand messaging themes, creative formats (video/static/carousel), platform preferences, and audience targeting patterns.
Why it matters: If three of your talent competitors are running "day in the life" employee videos on LinkedIn, generating the same format puts you in a crowded space. Knowing what is already running lets you differentiate.
Communication Objectives
| Objective | Best For |
|---|---|
| Awareness | Employer brand discovery, reaching passive talent who are not actively looking but open to the right opportunity |
| Engagement | Building employer reputation, employee advocacy, culture content that gets shared within professional networks |
| Conversion | Driving applications, event registrations, referral programme participation, careers site visits |
Step 2 - Format Selection
Choose how your concepts will be produced:
| Format | Description |
|---|---|
| AI Animated | Runway, Pika, Kling-style AI video generation |
| Motion Graphics | After Effects, animated typography, kinetic text |
| Live Action | Filmed content, employee-generated, talking head |
| Mixed Format | Combination of AI, motion, and live elements |
Duration options: 5s, 15s, 30s, 60s, or Series (3-5 parts)
Platform selection: TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn, or Multi-platform. Each platform has different recommended behaviours which influence concept generation.
Step 3 - Creative Direction Sliders
Five sliders shape the creative direction of your concepts:
| Slider | Range | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Tone | Serious ↔ Comedic | Controls humour level and emotional register |
| Reality | Familiar ↔ Surreal | How grounded or fantastical the concepts feel |
| Era | Retro ↔ Contemporary | Visual and cultural references |
| Energy | Subtle ↔ Chaotic | Pace, intensity, and visual complexity |
| Production | Lo-fi ↔ Polished | Production value and finish quality |
Moving sliders produces noticeably different concepts from the same territory. A "Serious + Familiar + Subtle" combination (suited to senior hiring) yields very different results from "Comedic + Contemporary + Chaotic" (suited to early careers).
Executional Considerations (Optional)
This field lets you add strategic guardrails that sliders cannot control:
- Employer brand constraints: "Must acknowledge cultural transformation honestly" or "Cannot promise remote working, policy under review"
- Target segment specifics: "Target is mid-career engineers leaving Big Tech, not graduates"
- Tone guidance: "Honest and direct, not corporate" or "Confident but not arrogant about our culture"
- What to avoid: "No 'we're like a family' language" or "Avoid stock photography aesthetic"
- Campaign context: "Graduate recruitment season" or "Response to negative Glassdoor coverage"
The sliders control how concepts feel (serious/comedic, familiar/surreal). Executional considerations control what concepts can and cannot say.
Concept Output
Each run generates 3 distinct content concepts. Navigate between them using the concept carousel (1 of 3, 2 of 3, 3 of 3).
Action Buttons
- ⟳ REGENERATE ALL: Generate 3 completely new concepts with the same inputs
- ✦ VARY THIS: Create variations of the current concept (same core idea, different execution)
- 💾 SAVE: Save concepts to your library for later reference
- 📤 EXPORT: Download as PowerPoint or Word document
What Each Concept Includes
Concept Name: Memorable creative title
The Hook: First 1-3 seconds that stop the scroll
The Spark: What unexpected elements collide to create interest
Synopsis: 2-3 sentence elevator pitch
Scene Breakdown: Shot-by-shot sequence with timing
Visual Treatment: Style, lighting, mood, references
Audio Direction: Music, sound design, VO notes
Format Fit: Why this works for the selected platform and talent audience
Production Notes: Execution considerations and requirements
AI Prompt (Midjourney/DALL-E): Ready-to-use prompt for generating key visuals
Stakeholder Pitch: One sentence sell for presenting the concept to leadership
The Midjourney/DALL-E Prompt
Each concept includes a production-ready AI image prompt. This lets you quickly visualise the concept for internal reviews or stakeholder presentations. The prompt is tailored to the visual treatment and can be used directly in Midjourney, DALL-E, or similar tools.
"The best employer brand content does not feel like a recruitment ad. It feels like a window into what working here is actually like."
Tips for Best Results
- Be specific with territory: "Honest Ambition" generates better concepts than "great culture" or "innovation"
- Check competitor recruitment advertising first: Avoid accidentally mirroring what other employers in your talent market are already running
- Match platform to talent segment: TikTok for early careers and passive awareness, LinkedIn for senior hires, Reels for creative roles
- Add executional considerations for honesty: "Must be credible to current employees, not just attractive to candidates" prevents aspiration-reality gaps
- Experiment with sliders: Run the same brief with different slider positions to explore the creative range
- Use VARY THIS: If you like a concept but want different executions, use Vary This instead of regenerating all concepts
- Use the AI prompts: Generate visuals in Midjourney/DALL-E to make concepts tangible for stakeholder buy-in
Exporting Concepts
The Playbook provides two professional export formats. Click the EXPORT button and choose which sections to include:
Export Options
- Include workspace logo (if uploaded)
- Brief summary (organisation, territory, format, platform)
- All concepts (or just the currently selected one)
- Scene breakdowns (shot-by-shot timing)
- AI Prompts (Midjourney/DALL-E prompts for visual references)
PowerPoint Export (PPTX)
- Professional presentation with title slide + concept slides
- Each concept laid out with Hook, Spark, Synopsis
- Visual Treatment, Audio Direction, Format Fit, Production Notes included
- Scene breakdown visible on each slide
- Clean design with dark theme, ready for stakeholder and leadership presentations
- Final slide shows Creative Direction sliders and Executional Considerations
Word Document Export (DOCX)
- Detailed document with all concept information
- Professional formatting for editing and sharing
- Includes brief summary, all concept details, and creative direction
- Ideal for internal documentation and project deliverables
How to export: Click the EXPORT button, select which sections to include, then choose EXPORT PPTX or EXPORT DOCX. Both formats are presentation-ready.