The most sophisticated employer brands don't rely on instinct. A proper brand assessment is the only true way to measure brand equity year-on-year, understand shifting talent trends, stay relevant in a fast-moving market, and prove — with real data — that your employer brand investment is actually working.
6Drivers
42Attributes
360°Research View
PrimaryResearch
AnnualCadence
fathom.inc · talentgravitystandard.org
01 · What is the Employer Brand Assessment?
The questions every EB leader needs answered.
The Employer Brand Assessment (EBA) is a structured, evidence-based diagnostic. It answers the questions every serious EB leader needs to know — but rarely can.
Attract & Retain
How do you win — and keep — the best people across different markets, demographics, and roles? Your brand assessment shows you exactly what your target talent prioritises so you can optimise your messaging.
Stand Out From Rivals
In a noisy talent market everyone is trying to shout louder. Your brand assessment shows you how you can outperform competitors on the things talent cares about, helping you stand out without yelling.
Credibility Check
Is what you're saying true and landing well? Or is there a gap between your brand promise and what people actually experience. Building trust is where the best brands win.
Prove It's Working
Are you winning the war for talent? Becoming more attractive? Are the things you communicate (your EVP) actually being associated with your brand? Annual brand assessments give you the data to know.
02 · Why it matters
Build an employer brand that means business.
Your brand assessment gives you the data to make smarter decisions, defend your budget, and prove your employer brand is actually working.
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Say the right things, loudly
Know what your target talent values most. Make sure your messaging reflects exactly that and stop wasting spend on things that don't move the dial.
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Win the talent your rivals are after
See how you're perceived vs. competitors on the attributes that matter most. Sharpen your points of difference where they'll have the biggest impact on talent decisions.
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Fix the gap before it costs you
The gap between what you promise and what employees actually experience is a silent driver of attrition and disengagement. The EBA makes it visible — driver by driver — so you can close it.
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Make the business case. Win it.
Walk into any budget conversation with hard data on how your employer brand equity has moved year-on-year. Not anecdotes. Not engagement survey proxies. Real measurement.
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Stop spreading investment too thin
Know which drivers move the needle for your specific talent segments and put your resource behind what actually makes a difference to hiring and retention outcomes.
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Prove it's working, every year
Annual EBAs show exactly what moved: brand equity up, credibility gap closed, EVP association improved. The evidence that turns employer brand from a cost centre into a strategic asset.
03 · Research Modules
Start with external. Add what you need.
Every EBA starts with the External Module — real primary market research with your target talent. Add the Internal and/or Enhanced Competitor modules to build a fuller picture.
Core · Always Included
External Module
Primary research with your defined target talent — what they prioritise, how they perceive you, and how you compare to key rivals.
Target talent survey (your defined segments)
Attraction priorities across 42 attributes
Brand perception mapping
Competitor benchmarks from the source
Segment cuts — role, seniority, market
Always included
Add-On
Internal Module
Your employee survey — capturing the lived reality behind your employer brand and generating the Credibility Gap diagnostic.
Employee survey across 42 attributes
Credibility Gap vs. external perceptions
Retention risk signals by driver
Segment heatmap by function and seniority
Year-on-year experience tracking
Add to scope
Add-On
Enhanced Competitor Module
Deep competitor analysis — for clients who want a full market picture beyond the core survey benchmarks.
Glassdoor scan + sentiment analysis
Competitor careers site audit
AI citation (GEO) analysis
EVP messaging & claims gap analysis
Review themes mapped to TGS drivers
Add to scope
↗ All modules feed one unified dashboard. Repeat annually and data becomes directly comparable year-on-year.
04 · The Methodology Advantage
Built on a global open framework. Designed to set you free.
The EBA is built on the Talent Gravity Standard (TGS) — a global open framework for measuring the forces that determine whether an employer attracts and keeps the people it needs. The framework is openly licensed, so you're never locked into a single provider to repeat your measurement.
TGS
Talent Gravity Standard
A global open framework, openly licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 for non-commercial use. Licences start from free. Built on decades of research. Your data is always yours.
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0Open FrameworkAcademically GroundedLicences from Free
01
Your data is always yours.
The data your EBA generates belongs to you — not to us, not to a platform. You can take it anywhere and build on it year after year, regardless of which provider you work with.
02
Repeat it every year. With anyone.
TGS licences start from free. That means your annual EBA can always be repeated — with Fathom, another TGS-certified provider, or in-house — with no dependency and no switching cost.
03
No lock-in. Ever.
Most EB research is proprietary — the methodology is theirs, the data lives in their platform, and switching means starting from scratch. Because TGS is openly licensed, that model doesn't apply here. Your investment compounds, not theirs.
04
Year-one data comparable to year five.
Every EBA uses the same open framework — so your results are directly comparable year-on-year, and benchmarkable against every other employer in the TGS pool. The methodology never shifts beneath you.
05 · The TGS Framework
6 drivers. 42 attributes. One universal standard.
Core Drivers
Pay & Security
What do I get?
The Work Itself
What will my day feel like?
Growth & Progression
Where will this take me?
Higher Drivers
Flexibility & Wellbeing
Is this sustainable?
Culture & Leadership
How will I be treated?
Purpose & Impact
Am I proud to be here?
← Click a driver to explore its 7 attributes
What does your employer brand actually measure?
Every EBA question maps to one of these six drivers — covering every meaningful aspect of why people choose, stay with, or leave an employer. Exhaustive, mutually exclusive, and stable across industries and geographies.
Exhaustive & Mutually ExclusiveStable Across Industries & Markets42 Validated AttributesYear-on-Year ComparableLicensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
06 · Segmentation & Benchmarking
Your talent, your rivals, your data.
You define who you're researching and who you're benchmarking against. Every cut of the data is yours.
Survey your target talent directly — not scraped Glassdoor reviews or LinkedIn behavioural signals. Exactly the people you want to hire, surveyed with professional methodology, statistical rigour, and full quality controls.
Compare any group, any market
Slice results by any demographic — compare Engineering vs. Finance talent, or how your brand lands in Singapore vs. London. Tactical, granular, and fully in your control.
Apples-to-apples competitor data
Your chosen rivals are included in the same survey, assessed by the same respondents on the same framework. Not industry averages. Actual, primary competitive intelligence.
✓ Proper market research — done right
07 · How It Works
From brief to strategic insight — in 6 weeks.
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 1
Scoping & Alignment
Define objectives, target segments, competitor set, and quotas. Align on success metrics before a question is written.
SegmentsCompetitorsResearch plan
Week 2
Programming & Testing
Surveys built on TGS instruments, programmed with logic, quality controls, and quotas. Fully tested before launch.
Survey buildQA & testingLive surveys
Weeks 3–5 · Longest phase
Field Period
2–3 weeks live
Surveys live with your defined target talent. Real-time monitoring of quota attainment, response quality, and early directional signals. Data cleaned and validated as it arrives.
Preference vs. perception vs. experience. Credibility Gap modelling. Competitor benchmarking. Priority drivers by segment and market.
Credibility GapBenchmarkingPriority themes
Week 6
Reporting & Delivery
Dashboard, insight report, and strategic action brief delivered. Structured on TGS for clean year-on-year comparison from day one.
DashboardReportAction brief
6 weeks, start to finish
Fully managed by Fathom · Professional survey methodology · Statistical rigour throughout
08 · What You Get
Six deliverables. One clear direction.
01
Benchmark Dashboard
Interactive, filterable view across all six drivers vs. your competitors. Slice by segment, seniority, market. Updated with every annual EBA.
02
Talent Preference Map
What your target talent values most — ranked and segmented across 42 attributes by role, seniority, and career stage. The foundation for everything you communicate.
03
Credibility Gap Report
Driver-by-driver gap between your brand promise and what employees actually experience. The diagnostic that shows you where trust breaks down.
04
Competitor Positioning Report
How your chosen rivals are perceived by the same talent pool — where they lead, where they're vulnerable, and where you can differentiate with real impact.
05
Strategic Insight Report
Executive-ready report with key findings, priority themes, and evidence-backed conclusions. Written for CHROs, boards, and senior leadership teams.
06
Strategic Action Brief
Prioritised recommendations: what to fix, amplify, and invest in next. Feeds directly into EVP development, activation, or ARC reputation management.
09 · Measurement & Brand Equity
The only true way to measure employer brand.
The EBA answers the question every EB leader struggles with: "Is what we're doing actually working?"
Culture & Leadership dropped — caught before it became a retention problem.
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Are you becoming more attractive?
Track brand equity movements and see whether your employer brand is becoming more or less attractive to those you want to attract — overall, driver by driver, attribute by attribute. No more guessing.
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Is your EVP working?
Are your EVP attributes actually landing with talent? Your brand assessment tracks whether what you communicate is increasingly associated with your brand — not just broadcast into the void.
✓
Prove activation is working
Run a campaign, change a policy, refresh your EVP — then measure the impact. The only true before-and-after test that proves what is, and isn’t, moving the dial.
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Catch drift before it hurts
Spot a weakening driver early. Fix it before it becomes a Glassdoor story, a hiring crisis, or a budget conversation you can't win.
10 · Why Fathom
Not a data scraper. A research standard.
Most EB research tools aggregate public data and call it intelligence. We do something fundamentally different — we go to the source.
Capability
Universum
LinkedIn Talent Insights
Glassdoor
Fathom EBA
Data source
Student panels — limited professional data
Platform behaviour data
Anonymous public reviews
Primary research — your target talent, surveyed directly. Real data from real people.
Talent preferences
Outdated attribute framework
Not measured
Not measured
Core output — 42-attribute preference map across your defined segments and markets
Credibility Gap
Not measured
Not measured
Not measured
Promise vs. reality, driver by driver — only Fathom measures this rigorously
Competitor intelligence
Survey only — no positioning data
Platform-defined comparisons — no brand data
Platform-defined comparisons — no brand data
Your chosen rivals in the same survey, by the same respondents. Apples-to-apples.
Research rigour
Varying — methodology not published
Behavioural signals, not research
Unverified public reviews
Professional methodology — quota controls, quality screening, statistical analysis
Year-on-year tracking
Annual index — not your own data
No structured annual cadence
Continuous but unstructured
Your own YoY data on the same framework — brand equity that compounds over time
Methodology ownership
Proprietary — locked to their platform and cadence
Proprietary — locked to their platform and cadence
Proprietary — locked to their platform and cadence
TGS is openly licensed (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) — repeat with any certified provider or in-house
TGS
Unlike every other provider, you’re never locked in.
The EBA is built on TGS — a global open framework, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. The framework is openly accessible, licences start from free, and the data your EBA generates is yours. That means you can repeat your annual measurement with Fathom, another TGS-certified provider, or in-house. No switching cost. No starting from scratch. No dependency on a single vendor.
For EB leaders who are done with flying blind.
The EBA gives you what you have always needed but rarely had: the intelligence to be both strategic — setting the right direction, making the right investments, building a brand that compounds — and tactical — winning in specific markets, for specific roles, against specific rivals, right now.
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Measure what matters
Set a real baseline. Know where you stand. Have hard KPIs for the first time — and the data to back them up.
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Activate with confidence
Know what to say, where to say it, and who to say it to — because the data tells you what your target talent actually responds to.
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Prove year-on-year impact
Return annually. Track movement. Show leadership that your employer brand is becoming a real, measurable competitive advantage.
Talent Gravity Standard
talentgravitystandard.org
Institute of EB Professionals
iebp.institute
Contact
hi@fathom.inc
Platform
fathom.inc
Methodology
talentgravitystandard.org
Ready to know where you stand?
Tell us your target talent segments and the rivals you want to benchmark against — we’ll scope your EBA and send a quote within 24 hours.
