We’ve all been living in the world of SEO for years. But there’s a new kid in town thanks to AI: Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and it’s on track to replace traditional SEO by 2028. Truth be told, that shift is already happening. Candidates aren’t just Googling job titles to find opportunities. They’re asking AI to tell them who to work for. 

When talent asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini about your company’s culture, or for career opportunities they are seeking with organizations that share their core values, what answer will it give? 

Your career site is the hub of your employer brand. It’s where your story can come to life. Unless that story is structured and optimized in ways that AI engines can understand and surface it, you risk being invisible in the very places candidates are already turning to, and inevitably will in the future, when they search. 

Here are some practical tips to consider: 

Optimize for “Who” Not Just “What” 

Traditional SEO strategy emphasized “what” people searched (software engineer jobs, nurse jobs near me). GEO is about the “who.” Who’s a great employer for data scientists that makes sustainability a business priority? Who actively supports veterans transitioning from the military? So make sure your site answers the “why work for us” questions to your ideal talent personas. 

Make Storytelling Your Strategy 

A list of employer perks isn’t usually all that memorable. But a nurse describing why he stays, or an engineer explaining the impact of her work? That’s not just the content job seekers crave. It’s the type of content that AI engines are more likely to pull into summaries. Build stories in testimonials, videos, and day-in-the-life spotlights and strategically place them across blogs, job descriptions, and campaign landing pages for the most impact. 

Structure Content for Machines and Humans 

Your site has to serve two audiences and that’s people and algorithms. Clear headers, logical site navigation, and schema markup (for jobs, events, and FAQs) help AI engines, including Google which is now serving up AI overviews, parse your information. Pair that with conversational copy that humans can actually connect with and you’ve got a great combo.

Audit with AI in Mind 

Run your site through an AI search yourself as if you were a job seeker. Ask ChatGPT: “What is it like to work at [your company]?” Then see what comes back. If the answers don’t reflect your true story, you’ve started to uncover gaps to fill on your career site. 

By 2028, GEO may fully overtake SEO, but every day between now and then, more candidates are increasingly going to use AI to help find the right job for them. As they say, the future is now and there’s no better time than the present to make sure your career site is optimized. 

Is your career site feeling more “meh” than magnetic? If it’s outdated, clunky to manage, or doesn’t reflect the story you’re trying to tell, you’re not alone. Many TA and employer brand leaders know that their career site isn’t where it needs to be, but getting budget approval can feel like climbing Mount Everest. 

Here’s some good news. You don’t need a 50-page business case to get the conversation started. You do however need a few clear, compelling reasons to share with the people who hold the purse strings. 

Attract the Right Talent, Faster  

Your career site is often the first impression candidates have of your company. If it’s hard to navigate, generic, or contains uninspiring job postings, you’re losing people before they even hit apply. A refreshed and content-rich site that brings your employer brand to life not only pulls in more talent, it improves conversions with the right talent for your organization. 

The numbers back it up. LinkedIn research has shown that companies with strong employer brands see 50% more qualified candidates and reduce cost per hire by as much as 50%. That’s tangible ROI. And with 78% of job seekers saying the candidate experience shows how much an employer values its people, a career site that’s easy to explore, visually engaging, and authentic to your culture is not a nice-to-have. It’s essential. 

Eliminate Bottlenecks and Keep Momentum 

We’ve all been there. You need to publish a campaign landing page, update messaging for a hiring event, or refresh content for a key role that’s really, really hard to fill ASAP. Instead, you’re waiting days for a ticket to be addressed to push the changes you need now through.  

A recruitment marketer-friendly career site platform eliminates that lag. It has the ability to build pages, test content, and personalize the experience for different audiences without a developer. That agility translates directly into recruiting outcomes. A modern, flexible career site lets you meet talent in the moment, not after the opportunity has slipped away. 

Show Leaders the Proof They’re Asking For 

Budget holders (and your hiring managers) care about impact. A modern career site is built to measure and prove its effectiveness. When leadership asks, “Is this working?” you can show them dashboards with metrics that matter, not just clicks. 

Right now, only 41% of organizations say they can measure employer brand ROI. That means most teams are flying a bit blind and struggling to defend budget. Sound familiar? Instead, turn your career site into a measurable, data-driven function, not just a cost center, because that’s the kind of story you want to tell and what decision-makers want to hear. 

Closing Thoughts 

In the end, making the case for a career site overhaul requires showing value. A stronger site attracts and converts the people you want to hire, eliminates inefficiencies that slow you down, and equips you to prove ROI with real numbers, not vanity metrics. 

So next time you’re teeing up the budget conversation, start with: “Let’s talk about giving our career site the upgrade our organization deserves because right now it’s costing us talent, time, and money.” And use these talking points to help make the case. 

As an employer brander, you’re sold on storytelling. You know deep down in your heart that the people you want to hire aren’t going to be satisfied by reading a list of your company’s values on the career site. They want to see them in action. What does growth look like? How do coworkers collaborate and celebrate successes? What’s the reality of a day in the life for someone in the same role?  

When these questions are answered by your people, the effect is powerful not only for attracting and engaging new talent but also for inspiring pride and advocacy in employees. And with every story, your EVP, personas and messaging framework collectively serve as your strategy’s north star — guiding your approach to storytelling in ways that will connect with the right audience, stir emotion and leave a lasting impression.

Budget, resources and time can challenge even the most “sold” employer brand leader to get a working plan off their vision board. How to begin can seem daunting, but when mapped across the entire talent lifecycle, the incredible possibilities of such stories are endless, too. So, let’s think about a realistic and very doable plan in the forever classic crawl, walk, run approach.

Crawl: Start with the Basics

Oh, where to begin? A great way to start is by developing content in the form of an employee Q&A blog series. Create a standard set of persona-led questionnaires to make the process scalable, easier to produce and focused on connecting with your target audiences internally and externally. Think of the resulting blogs as storytelling snapshots with bite-sized insights perfectly tailored to specific talent groups. For example, if your target persona is a group known to be ambitious problem-solvers, include a question that invites them to share a memorable challenge they successfully tackled or learned a ton from.

Add some at-work or at-play photos to the mix (bonus points if they’re candid) and you’ve got yourself the start of some very clickable and sharable content. Across relevant career site pages, job descriptions, social posts, nurture campaigns and even your company’s intranet or newsletter, a blog series can be the gift that keeps on giving when integrated into a wide variety of activations.

Walk: Take It up a Notch

Next, consider stepping it up to UGC (user-generated content) videos. Get employees and leadership excited and comfortable with the idea. Frame the exercise as a way to share authentic stories about being part of the team because an employee’s point of view is the ultimate job description. Provide clear guidelines and a prompt for each video request, such as “What’s your favorite thing about working here?” Even better, share an example or two of great UGC videos to inspire employees. While you can also offer optional training or tools to help with audio and video quality, like phone stands or ring lights, the camera on their phone or laptop is likely all that they’ll need. We really want to keep these real.

YouTube UGC videos versus brand-produced videos receive 10 times more views. As a dynamic element to your many talent touchpoints, imagine the impact on generating very meaningful engagement and quality conversions. And don’t forget to acknowledge and celebrate the employees who participate. Shining a spotlight on their stories company-wide helps build trust and jump-starts advocacy.

Run: Invest in Production

Moving right along, give serious consideration to investing in a professionally produced video series. Now, don’t worry. “Produced” doesn’t mean polished to the point of perfection. Authenticity still reigns supreme, but a little cinematic flair can go a very long way. Produced videos can creatively highlight key stories, showcase leadership or bring your EVP to life in a way that’s consistent with the look and feel of your employer brand that adds yet another level of credibility. Plus, the footage, including the bloopers, can be cut and recut into all sorts of applications to motivate and retain top talent.

The ROI of Storytelling

Investing in storytelling isn’t just a feel-good exercise; it’s also a business decision. According to LinkedIn, candidates are 3x more likely to trust a company’s employees over the company itself. By sharing real employee stories, you’re building trust, shaping perceptions, engaging candidates and fostering a sense of belonging before a candidate hits the “apply now” button or a new hire fires up their brand-new laptop on day one.

When tenured employees see their stories valued and shared, it deepens their connection to your organization. They can become your most authentic ambassadors, amplifying your brand to their networks and expanding your organic reach exponentially all by genuinely wanting to share this type of content.

So, whether you’re crawling, walking or running, the key is to start somewhere and make authentic storytelling an ongoing and highly rewarding journey.

I hear you.
I understand.
I’ve got your back.

When it feels like nobody gets you, can relate or extend a helping hand, it’s isolating. However, heartfelt and simple words like the above from another person can make a real difference.

Having an ally—a person who uses their own influence and makes a conscious effort to help another who is facing an adversity—is powerful. That power comes from knowing you are supported. It builds confidence that can be transformational and sow greatness, especially at work.

Building allyship between colleagues can only stem from an established foundation of mutual respect. In recent years, we’ve seen increased and purposeful efforts across organizations do just that through diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) programs. A recent Pew Research report noted that while there were marked differences by race, ethnicity and age to survey questions about the influence of these programs, 72% of workers confirmed that DEIB-related policies and resources have had a positive impact where they work. Often, Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) play a very important role in that success as do the allies that support and advocate for them.

Inclusion and allyship go hand in hand. How else can the often-stated claim from organizations that employees can be their true selves at work ring true without a culture that extends a safety net for open conversations and active listening?

Microsoft has had an allyship program in place since 2020 and I particularly like how they describe it as a different kind of diversity program “inspiring people to be better allies—and be OK with making mistakes.” The stated goal of the program is to provide their team with the language they need to discuss different viewpoints and difficult things inclusively and with empathy. It’s a noble one and bound to be imperfect. And that’s even with a two-year runway to develop it with a team of neuroscientists. People will unquestionably make mistakes but that’s no reason to not encourage allyship.

Making progress rather than perfection can be a very achievable goal. Efforts can start by communicating some of the basics on how to be an ally like these:

Always be curious. Take the time to learn about cultures, experiences and identities that are different from your own. By gaining a deeper understanding, you’ll deepen your empathy for others. Even more so, this type of education will also help ensure that well-intentioned, but out-of-touch communication misfires can be avoided.

Don’t stay silent. Speak up when your microagression radar pings. And use that opportunity not just to correct, but to explain why some words are truly harmful.

Be the change. Actions speak, so think about ways to actively show support for DEIB and ERG initiatives or offer mentorships to underrepresented employees in an impactful way.

The investment in fostering a more equitable work environment is important. Think of the appreciation for that investment from employees who genuinely need more people in their corner. Plus, it is an investment in creating a more empathetic and engaging culture.

A 2023 study by the Harvard Business Review indicated that organizations that integrated allyship into their core values and provided ongoing training saw a 34% increase in employee engagement. By incorporating the stories of allies into your employer brand activations and advocacy program, you can reinforce to each other, as well as prospective employees, that you’re committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce. These stories add authenticity and depth to your messaging, demonstrating that your organization isn’t just talking the talk—you’re walking the walk.

Your employee value proposition (EVP) is felt every single day. It’s built from that unique set of offerings as an employer—the culture, experience, rewards, and more—for the employee who brings their best self to work. On paper, your EVP should help you clearly convey that dynamic and by doing so differentiate you from your competition. In action, it should also help you accurately answer the question: Why would a person want to work for your company?

A great answer will connect with the people you hope to attract and retain and will leave others questioning if your company is the right fit (because it is not) and move on.

Your EVP acts as a North Star to your employer brand messaging both internally and externally and across every channel. And like any solid brand strategy, it needs to be validated and reevaluated on a regular basis to ensure its authenticity.

Is it time to rethink your EVP? Here are four reasons that point to a resounding “yes.”

1. Your EVP is a blast from the past.

If your EVP is from the pre-COVID era or even a couple of years old, things have most definitely changed. That doesn’t necessarily mean that your employee value proposition is wildly off base. It just means there’s a strong chance that the intel gathered to shape your current EVP and its supporting pillars isn’t necessarily a reflection of today.

2. There’s no back-up.

Knowledge is power and a powerful EVP is backed by research. Employee surveys, leadership 1:1’s, persona workshops, competitor reviews, external focus groups—insights from research along these lines is invaluable. Without them, how can you be so sure that what you’re saying is really and truly true? You can’t.

And put aside worries that you might be opening a can of worms once research findings start rolling in and get distilled to key stakeholders. Embrace the tensions. What you may believe or even aspire to be as an organization could conflict with reality. This level of knowledge will give focus to real opportunities for positive change and impact.

Inevitability, it will ground you and help craft stronger and more genuine messaging with your key audiences. Speaking of key audiences, another bonus is that nine times out of ten persona-based research also uncovers a treasure trove of great employee stories just waiting to be told.

3. The purpose is missing from the promise.

There’s emotional value in where we work. And that often stems from a shared purpose. Having a shared purpose feels right. It brings meaning to our work and a personal reason to be invested. When developing your EVP, challenge the language. Push harder and ask, “Does this clearly convey a connection between our company’s purpose and the employee experience?”

4. It’s generic.

If you give your EVP a read and your gut check is that it could easily be applicable to pretty much any company out there, don’t settle. What makes your company different is at the heart of what attracts and retains people who will thrive and drive outcomes for the business and themselves. That’s who you want to connect with and that’s not going to be everybody. It will be people who can confidently say, “I belong here.”

I hope your wheels are turning. I encourage you to engage in an ongoing investment in evaluating your EVP. Keep thinking, iterating, testing, and validating. Your efforts will pay off in many, many ways, especially when it comes to standing out from the crowd for all the right reasons.

Well, before I weigh in, let’s ask our new friend ChatGPT. Here’s the response I got:

“As of now, a person is generally better at writing a job description than AI. While AI tools can assist in generating job descriptions and even provide suggestions, they may lack the nuanced understanding, creativity, and context that a human can bring to the task.”

Yep. Can’t say that I disagree. But as you can plainly see, part of the intro to this very blog came courtesy of a quick prompt I entered into ChatGPT. The Pew Research Center reports that for those who are aware of ChatGPT, 16% are regularly using it at work. Generative AI tools provide a much-needed jump-start to speed up and streamline tasks. And when you look at any list of “great” use cases of AI for recruiters, the task of job description rewrites almost always tops the list.

Leveraging AI to boost productivity by automating time-consuming work that feels like pure drudgery makes obvious sense. Applications of smart automation in our tech stack workflows and sourcing engines have already been delivering efficiencies and hours back in our day for years. The boost of a job description rewrite in seconds especially when so many of our job descriptions could seriously use one, also makes sense. However, the rewrite you get back is really just that—a boost.

Today, there’s still a need for plenty of human oversight with a generative AI tool writing your job descriptions. Here are three very real reasons why:

Misguided prompts

Out of date, jargon-filled, too much information. Too little information. For all or some of these reasons, your job descriptions may have been riding along on the struggle bus for years. An accurate portrayal of the job itself and ideal attributes that sync to your company’s culture, values, and purpose might be sorely missing within them, too. So, if you want to get yours off that bus by running them through a generative AI tool, it’s not enough to ask “Hey ChatGPT, make this a better job description.” You will need to think about a well-constructed prompt before you begin.

Take a closer look at your EVP, employer brand guidelines, and personas. Tap into that treasure trove of informed research and include it in your initial prompt. Here’s a basic example of what I mean:

This [JOB DECRIPTION] for a [JOB TITLE] needs to attract a person with the following attributes [INSERT ATTRIBUTE LIST] that align with our [COMPANY’S VALUES] while portraying a concise and realistic overview of what it takes to thrive in this role based on the following [PERSONA OVERVIEW] and the [EMPLOYEE VALUE PROPOSITION] our company offers in return.

Even with a solid start, the resulting copy may warrant continued prompts for specific and necessary tweaks. Regardless, as you perform your review, there’s a very strong case to be made that you or another real live person invested in your employer brand messaging will want to invest in finalizing copy. Why?

Quality is questionable

Even AI is aware that there’s a lack of “nuanced understanding, creativity, and context that a human can bring to the task” when writing job descriptions. Without a solid set of training data (think minimally of the fill-in-the-blank intel in the example prompt), a great job description rewrite isn’t going to happen.

More importantly, the human touch is missing in action. And that’s a big miss. Style and originality that more powerfully convey your employer brand won’t be coming from parsed copy. It will come from the perspectives of people.

And speaking of parsed copy, there’s a real chance that over time using generative AI tools like ChatGPT may homogenize our writing. Not so great when you are trying to differentiate, is it?

Let’s talk about bias 

AI has been positioned as a bias-buster for job descriptions. Its ability to identify stereotypical language and recommend gender-neutral terms appears to be a wonderful advantage and there are solutions out there doing a great job of it. However, let’s not forget how a tool like ChatGPT gets its learnings. It gets them from existing data and language patterns. From us. That creates an imperfect solution. So again, enough said. Human oversight of what generative AI produces is a must.

While we’re strictly talking about copy creation here, there’s been plenty of examples of text-to-image models of generative AI playing into race and gender stereotypes, too. When reporting for Bloomberg Technology + Equality, Leonardo Nicoletti and Diana Bass prompted a text-to-image model to “create representations of workers for 14 jobs — 300 images each for seven jobs that are typically considered ‘high-paying’ in the US and seven that are considered ‘low-paying’ — plus three categories related to crime.”

After a review of the results, it is no surprise that their report is titled: Humans are biased. Generative AI is even worse. I encourage you to give it a read.

In the end, my answer to the question that this blog post poses isn’t a hard no. Not at all. Staring at a blank screen or looking at that three-page deep job description not knowing where to even begin is in itself a time suck you don’t need to suffer through. With some consideration to your prompts, personas, and people who know your employer brand, it’s a yes to having improved copy in a split second. Limit your reliance on generative AI to what it’s good at—a working draft—and tap into what only a human can bring to the written word for your job descriptions. It will be a winning combination for this very important task.