Recruiting Marketing

Employer Brand on a Budget: The 2026 Mid-Market Playbook

March 7, 2026 · 7 min read

You don't need a brand agency or a Super Bowl ad. You need three things, done consistently, for nine months. Here's the playbook our top-performing customers actually run.

The three things

A real careers page (not a Greenhouse-skinned iframe). Employee-voice content published every two weeks. A consistent reply-to-every-applicant policy. That's it. Everything else is decoration.

Why it works

Glassdoor and LinkedIn algorithms reward recency and engagement. Three thoughtful posts a month with employee names attached out-performs a quarterly polished video. Candidates Google your company before they apply — give them something to find.

The 9-month timeline

Months 1–3: ship the careers page and the policy. Months 4–6: build the content rhythm. Months 7–9: measure the inbound shift. Most teams see a 30–60% increase in qualified inbound by month 9 with under $20k in production cost.

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