As more companies catch on to the value of employer branding software, the gap widens between those who have embraced these tools and those still relying on static career pages.

Your strongest candidates aren’t sitting on your Careers page waiting for you to roll out new opportunities. Instead, they’re gravitating toward companies that tell a compelling story and make every touchpoint feel personal.

If you’re not already using a platform to power your employer brand, now’s the time to consider getting one for your organization. But not all solutions are created equal — and choosing the right one takes more than a quick demo.

Whether you're an acquisition lead hoping to attract top-tier talent or an HR pro building a culture that keeps people around, the software you choose matters. Here are 5 key criteria to help you effectively evaluate employer branding software:

5 Criteria to Evaluate Employer Branding Software

1. Cost

Cost is, naturally, always part of the conversation when evaluating employer brand software — but it’s not just about sticker price. 

When evaluating platforms, think about the total cost of ownership. That includes onboarding, ongoing support, potential integrations, and the internal time it takes to actually get value from it.

Some questions to ask:

• Is this priced per seat or usage-based?
• Are there other upfront or implementation costs?
• What’s the ROI from a reduced time-to-hire or increased offer acceptance rates?

The best employer branding software will be clear and confident in its pricing model, and show you how it justifies the spend with measurable value.

2. Ease of Use

Software shouldn’t take multiple months to learn or require a dedicated Ops specialist to run a simple campaign. Modern talent teams move fast, so your tools need to keep up and be easy and flexible enough for everyone on the team to use. 

As such, you want a platform that feels intuitive and familiar from day one. More importantly, you want a platform that’s backed by a team who can jump on a troubleshooting call in the event you do get stuck or be a strategic partner in helping you achieve even your loftiest candidate engagement metrics.

During the free trial period, see if another member of your team can complete a task or create a campaign without asking for help.

💡 CoderPad evaluated employer branding software, and landed on Puck. Now, they’ve boosted candidate quality by 12.5%. Read the case study to learn how they did it.

3. Longevity

You’re not just evaluating employer branding software for today; you’re thinking about next year, and the one after that. That means picking a platform that’s purpose-built to evolve with your talent acquisition needs.

You’ll want to consider:

• Does the product roadmap already meet or align with where your company is headed?
• Can the platform support long-term goals such as global hiring, DEI initiatives, or more personalized candidate journeys?
• Is the vendor investing in continuous product development?

Just as your organization anticipates growing year over year, the expectation should be that the software you choose does, too — and you should ask about their trajectory in order to ensure alignment from both ends.

4. Reach

Reach is where a lot of solutions fall short, because a shiny new platform means nothing if it doesn’t actually reach your target candidates.

Evaluate your ideal employer branding software for distribution across channels like 

LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Indeed, Wellfound, or other niche job boards (even TikTok!). It’s also important that you’re able to personalize outreach for different roles or regions so you can 

engage both passive talent and active applicants.

Reach is about more than impressions; it’s about resonance. The right software puts your brand in front of the right people, at the right time, with the right message.

5. Effectiveness

This may seem obvious, but the last criteria in evaluating employer branding software is rating its effectiveness. Put simply: Does it work?

Any good employer branding platform should come with analytics that go deeper than vanity metrics, including dashboards that help visualize your performance on key performance indicators (KPIs) related to employer branding, like:

→ Time-to-fill

→ Turnover rate
→ Number of applicants

→ Attrition rate

→ NPS scores

The right tool won’t just help you look good — it’ll help you hire better. And it’ll prove it, with data you can actually use, by understanding the content that’s driving the most engagement, which campaigns led to more applications or better candidates, and where are people dropping off in the candidate journey.

Evaluating Employer Branding Software? Here’s Why Puck is the Top Choice

The best employer branding platforms feel like an ideal coworker: They’re collaborative, easy to work with, and focused on putting your brand in the best light possible.

At Puck, we built a platform that makes candidate engagement measurable, scalable, and — dare we say — delightful.

If you’re evaluating platforms and wondering how to bring your brand to life in a way that actually drives hiring results, we’d love to show you how we do it.

👉Book a demo with Puck and see the difference smart automation can make on your employer brand.

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