Talent Branding: How to Control Your Story in the Candidate Market
Branded microsites deliver one clear, consistent message – personalised by recruiters, tracked by client. Every view, share, and hire is visible, so you know what’s working and who’s doing the work.
Control The Narrative
Add. Share. Track.
Every agency tells your story differently — PDFs, plain text, even just your website copy. And none point candidates to your careers page.
With TalentHub Live, your message stays consistent, so candidates always get the version you want them to hear.
Add your story: Drop in the information you want candidates to see — facts they’d find anyway, framed to answer objections and highlight strengths.
Share with your agents: Agents add their profile, logo, testimonials, and calendar links — without touching your content.
Track what matters: See which agencies are most active, which stories get clicks, and which microsites convert views into candidate meetings.
Your story stays consistent. Recruiters shine. Candidates see clarity.
1. Add Source Information
Branding for talent, not customers
Don’t start from scratch — build from what you already have.
Pull material from your corporate site, careers page, annual reports, analyst coverage, product reviews, press, social channels, or YouTube. Anything a sharp candidate could uncover on their own can be woven into the story — but now you control the narrative.
Highlight growth, showcase leadership, and frame the company in a way that attracts the right talent.
2. Add Agency Information
Your Story, Their Platform
Bring your agencies into the story without losing control.
Share the page builder and let them add their agency profile, logo, recruiter bios, photos or videos, testimonials, and calendars to make connecting with candidates seamless. They extend reach and add personality, while your content stays fixed and consistent.
The result is simple: you own the message, they own the distribution.
3. Track Performance
From Visits to Submits
Every visit and CV submission is measured. See which agents drive traffic, how well it converts, and where drop-offs occur.
Ask AI adds the “why” – capturing candidate questions, hesitations, and content impact. It turns basic analytics into actionable insight.
Compare formats, track conversion speed, and refine your story with data that shows both performance and intent.
Let the data guide you.
Book a demo to see how your story could be built into a TalentHub microsite.
Why this matters
The right message, to the right people, every time
In Japan, most candidates first hear about you through a recruiter. Too often that story is outdated – or worse, improvised: a pasted job description, a recycled PDF, or a throwaway one-liner. The result is inconsistent messaging that never answers the key question: why does this matter to me?
Candidates don’t buy job descriptions, they buy the why. They want to know why your market is exciting, why your company has momentum, why your leaders inspire confidence, and why the role is a genuine step forward. If those answers aren’t clear, top bilingual GTM talent will walk away.
Our solution puts you back in control. With structured storytelling, branded microsites, and consistent recruiter access, every candidate hears the same compelling why – turning curiosity into commitment and making your brand stand out in Japan’s toughest talent market.
And the impact compounds. Each recruiter link is tracked, so over time you build a clear agency scorecard: who delivers, who lags, which recruiters move fast, and which messages convert best. This isn’t just branding – it’s the foundation of agency governance.
Improving Your Talent Brand
Your content strategy needs to focus on applicants, not customers.
From websites to PDFs to improvised email pitches, your story is often told inconsistently – and you don’t control what candidates actually hear.
The difference between noise and a message that converts comes down to four things: creating a central micro-site, structuring the story, adding the right content formats, and giving agencies controlled access. Get these right, and every recruiter becomes a consistent amplifier of your brand, not an improviser. This is exactly what our RPO recruiters and platform deliver.
Fixing the Pitch: The recruiter reality
Some recruiters are excellent storytellers – usually because they’ve had proper sales training. They can pitch your business clearly and persuasively. But most aren’t trained that way. What you actually see is a patchwork of approaches:
PDFs hastily built from your website content
Plain-text emails with no design or consistency
Vague explanations that fail to inspire
The content medium is all over the place, and you have no control over what candidates are being shown, or by which medium. Your target audience may see information that is outdated, inconsistent, or even misleading.
That’s a real risk when you’re competing for scarce bilingual GTM talent.
Micro-sites – your story, told consistently
Our solution is simple: micro-sites for every hiring project. These are branded pages designed specifically for candidates, with content you control. Recruiters no longer improvise – they share your dedicated site. Candidates no longer hear mixed stories – they see a consistent, accurate, and compelling one.
Each site follows a storytelling model proven to resonate with bilingual GTM talent:
Industry trends and drivers – why now
Company positioning – where you fit and why you’re credible
Product-market fit and impact – the problem you solve
People – leadership credibility and cultural signals
The role – concise, not bloated
Career path – what this means for the candidate’s future
Whether the candidate is approached by us in an RPO, by your internal TA, or by an external agency, they see the same high-quality story.
Content that builds trust
Candidates are curious and resourceful. They will research everything they can about you. That’s why our platform (originally Referable.ai) starts with a scan of public information – the same data they’ll find. Even the negatives matter. Transparency builds trust, and we help you contextualise challenges while highlighting strengths. The goal is not just to accentuate positives, but to eliminate doubts that stop a candidate from saying yes.
We support multiple content formats that go beyond text:
Leader videos – e.g. your Country Manager explaining the vision
Webinars – recorded and reused as candidate-facing material
Charts and visuals – to illustrate growth and impact
Profiles and calendars – so candidates can book meetings directly
This turns static information into dynamic storytelling – candidates get a real sense of people, culture, and opportunity.
Partner access and message consistency
In an RPO context, our recruiters act as your extension. They carry your branded content directly into the market, embedding their own profiles and calendars so candidates can book meetings seamlessly, with their favourite calendar app.
External agencies also benefit. They can add their own details – logos, recruiter bios, testimonials – but your company’s message is read-only, with you in control. That means your brand story is always consistent, accurate, and up to date, while still allowing agency partners to add their personal credibility.
The end result is a unified voice: whether a candidate is approached directly by us, by your internal TA, or by an external recruiter, they’re hearing the same core story.
Know Your ICP: Branding for talent, not customers
Define your audience as carefully as your marketers define theirs. Employer branding for talent is not the same as marketing your solutions to customers. The audience is different, and so are their priorities. Just as marketers define an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), you need to define an Ideal Candidate Profile (ICP).
This is where Ask AI comes in. The chatbot captures the real questions candidates ask and shows you what content they care about most. Instead of guessing, you get live insight into motivations, objections, and decision drivers – the data you need to sharpen your Ideal Candidate Profile.
Your marketing team may want to control what’s shared, but their materials often focus on buyers, not joiners. Candidate branding must go deeper, addressing career motivations, culture, leadership style, and growth opportunities. And it must be consistent across all touchpoints – job boards, LinkedIn, agency briefs, recruiter outreach – so candidates hear one clear, compelling story. If you let marketing dictate the story, you risk sounding like a sales brochure. With Ask AI, you can shape the story around what talent actually wants to know.
What this means for leaders
Get the right message to the right people – consistently!
If you don’t control your employer story, you’re leaving it in the hands of whoever happens to tell it – with all the risks that come with inconsistency. Some will be good, many will not.
Your ATS may provide content but agency partners will not send candidates to your application page. Micro-sites solve this problem. They give you a central, controlled story that every recruiter and every candidate can access, in a format that converts curiosity into genuine interest.
For leaders expanding in Japan, this is not optional. In a market where candidates are scarce and sceptical, consistent client branding is the foundation for successful direct sourcing, agency partnerships, and long-term hiring success.
Deep Dive:
Telling Your Story And Measuring It
Candidates don’t buy job descriptions. They buy the why.
Most agency recruiters stop at the JD, which is why candidates say pitches all sound the same. The real story has layers:
☐ Industry drivers – why the market matters
☐ Company momentum – growth, customers, analyst recognition
☐ People – leaders, colleagues, culture
☐ The role – the next logical step in a career
☐ Connection – tie it back to the candidate’s own goals
This pyramid approach works best in person — but it can also be built into the microsites created on our platform. Charts, videos, customer wins, and team stories bring it to life. When candidates see not just what the job is, but why it matters, they listen. And they act.
And because every recruiter link is unique, we don’t just shape the story – we measure its impact:
Agency adoption – which agencies and recruiters are promoting you
Top performers – who emerges as your “Champion” recruiter
Candidate engagement – how many candidates visit and interact
Content insights – which stories and assets attract attention
Introductions – which recruiter drove each candidate forward
Hires – tracked through to successful placement
The result is branding that not only convinces candidates but also holds agencies accountable, turning your narrative into measurable outcomes.
Trust Earned, Not Claimed
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Goh Hattori, APAC Talent Acquisition
“Instrumental in hiring key people, including Country Manager, and delivering RPO”
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Sung Hae Kim, Global Head of People
Murray built our Japan team, securing key sales & engineering hires. High quality, knows his stuff.
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Jon Robertson, APAC VP
“Murray has been a tremendous help in hiring dozens of individual contributors as well as key leaders”
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Josep Garcia, APAC VP
“Impressive research and a job well done! Thanks for the great work.”
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Kate Berkeley, APAC Talent Acquisition
“One of the top recruiters VMware has worked with, across the whole of Asia Pacific. Exceptional.”
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Anthony Palladino, CRO
“Thanks for your work. Nice job! I appreciate you running at a very intense pace. ”
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Anesh Ravi, APAC Sales Director
“Thanks for all your work throughout the process - I’ve enjoyed working together!”
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Patrick Cook, Director Innovation
“Murray has done outstanding work for PARC in a difficult talent space”
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Matt Thatcher, Global Sales VP
“His business sense and creativity helped fill a high level executive position in a relatively short period of time.”
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Stephen Beck, Services VP
"Murray was invaluable. His advice, cultural guidance, and results were outstanding. I highly recommend him.”
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Gerry Sillars, APAC VP
“If you need someone to assist as you try to enter the Japanese market don’t look any further.”
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Mathew Fleming, APAC Sales Director
“Helped us lock in a key leader for Japan. Did an excellent job.”
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Barry Kent, Global Sales VP
“Excellent work to hire a key sales lead for our new all-flash product in Japan.”
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Brian Burns, Founding Partner
“I see Murray as the only recruiter that really understands the markets that he recruits into.“
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Matt Young, APAC VP
“We almost exclusively found Murray to be our go-to recruiter. I highly recommend him.”
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North Compton, Executive Recruiter
“Murray has deep knowledge and experience about all things RPO.”
