This article is aimed at HR and communications directors preparing a consultation. It starts from an industrial employer recruiting rare profiles, but the method applies to other sectors.
What do we mean by HR communications?
The term covers four areas, which companies often handle separately.
- Employer brand: the promise made to candidates, its proof and its limits.
- Recruitment: careers site, job pages, targeted campaigns, trade fairs, school relations.
- Internal communications: magazine, newsletter, video, intranet, rituals, events, welcome booklet.
- Manager communications: equipping managers to explain, relay and hold the same line as senior leadership.
These four areas are not four watertight professions. They are the same people at four moments: the one reading a job page one evening, the one sitting the interview, the one arriving on a Monday, the one wondering whether to leave eighteen months later. A useful HR communications agency is judged on its ability to keep the thread running between these moments. We come back to this point in Employer brand and internal communications: why give them to the same agency.
Three agency models
There are three families on this market. None is bad in itself: they meet different needs.
| Model | What it does well | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Employer brand specialist | Promise, careers site, campaigns. Focused on candidates. | What happens after arrival: does the agency understand onboarding and internal life? |
| Internal communications specialist | Magazine, intranet, events, manager relays. Focused on employees. | The link with what the candidate reads: is the internal promise the same as the one on the careers site? |
| Agency that handles both | One promise, one calendar, material produced once and used twice. | Depth: ask for references on each of the two sides, not just one. |
Many agencies now advertise both skills. What matters is not the advertising but the measurement: can the agency quantify the gap between what candidates say and what your employees say? If so, it really does hold both sides.
What an HR communications agency does not do
Better to know this before writing a brief.
- It does not put forward candidates. That is the job of a recruitment firm. We detail the difference in HR communications agency or recruitment firm: who does what?
- It does not replace an employee engagement platform. It can help you choose one, then bring it to life, but it is not its publisher.
- It does not fix a problem that is not a communications problem. Pay policy, job classifications, social dialogue, poor management: a good agency says so before producing anything.
What an engagement looks like, step by step
A well-built engagement follows five steps, in this order.
- Measure the gap. What candidates find about the company, what employees say, the distance between the two.
- Deal with what must be dealt with before communicating. When the gap comes from reality and not from the message, you fix reality first.
- Formulate the promise, with its proof and its limits, by job family.
- Produce. Careers site, content, internal programme, tools, campaigns.
- Measure again. Quality of applications, early departures, internal readership, citations in generative AI engines.
If a proposal skips the first two steps and starts straight with "the creative work", be wary: it is selling production, not a result.
Which deliverables to expect
Deliverables vary by area, but they must be named in the proposal.
| Area | Typical deliverables |
|---|---|
| Employer brand | Gap diagnostic, employer platform (promise, proof, what you do not promise), territory of expression, rollout across channels |
| Recruitment | Job page architecture and pages, campaign plan, trade fair materials, measurement of cost per qualified application |
| Internal communications | Editorial platform, magazine, newsletter, video, intranet, welcome booklet, internal events |
| Manager communications | Manager kits, explanation templates, support through moments of transformation |
Seven questions to ask before signing
1. Does it measure the gap before producing?
Producing content before knowing the distance between what candidates read about you and what your employees say about you amounts to amplifying a possible problem. Ask how the agency measures this gap, on which samples, and whether your team will be able to repeat the measurement without it.
2. Who will really work on your account?
In many consultations, the team that presents is not the team that produces. Ask that the person you meet be the one who does the work, and ask who produces: the agency itself or a subcontractor. An agency that has its advice produced elsewhere does not have the same command of the result.
3. Does it work with real images and real employees?
Stock photography and the scripted testimonial are the first warning signs for a candidate and for an employee alike. Ask how the agency produces images of your teams and how it gathers employees’ own words, and refuse any testimonial written in place of the person speaking.
4. Which programmes have lasted for several years?
In internal communications, regularity counts for more than a grand gesture. Ask for programmes that last: an internal magazine published issue after issue, an intranet redesigned after several years of use. With us, RTE’s internal magazine has been designed and produced since 2022, with eleven issues delivered. A title launched and abandoned after two issues is the counter-example.
5. Can it work in a constrained sector?
Defence, space, nuclear, energy: employee testimonials and imagery are tightly controlled there. The agency must know how to make a job desirable without showing what cannot be shown, work with a validation process and sign a confidentiality agreement before any detailed discussion. We develop this point in HR communications agency for industry.
6. Does it write down what it will not do?
A serious proposal states its scope, its price and its exclusions. Ask for fixed-price packages with a written scope, without automatic renewal. The agency that writes down what it does not do before signing spares you unpleasant surprises afterwards.
7. Who owns the deliverables, and what is left afterwards?
The deliverables, content, images and source files must belong to you. Also ask what remains when the engagement ends: a method your teams can pick up, reproducible measurement protocols, internal contacts trained to produce on their own.
How to write the brief
One page is enough, in four sections.
- The situation. Which positions are you unable to fill, and for how long? How many of your recruits leave within two years, and do you know why?
- The targets. Which jobs, which employment areas, which populations, including those without a workstation.
- The constraints. Confidentiality, validation by the legal or site security department, recruitment calendar.
- The steering. Who, on your side, owns the subject: HR, communications, or nobody? An agency works better with a designated duo, one contact on each side, present at the same meetings.
Do not skip the fourth section. A programme carried by only one of the two departments does not survive its second year: it loses either its material or its relays.
Where to start
The simplest way is to start with a measurement rather than an annual commitment. At Ocom Talents, three entry points are fixed-price: the employer gap diagnostic, the First 100 days workshop and the Jobs reportage. The detail is on the Our offers page, and our approach on the Method page.
Frequently asked questions
Does an HR communications agency replace our recruitment firm?
No. A recruitment firm finds and presents candidates. An HR communications agency makes sure those candidates know you and choose you before they are approached, then that they stay once they have arrived. The two complement each other.
Do we need an agency that specialises in our sector?
Not necessarily the same sector, but one that understands its constraints. If your teams work under confidentiality, the skill to look for is command of the framework: what can be said, who validates, and how to make a job desirable without showing its sensitive details.
Who should lead, HR or communications?
Both, preferably together. Just one of the two departments is not enough to sustain a programme over time.
How long before we see an effect?
It depends on the engagement. A gap diagnostic takes twenty working days, an employer brand platform six to ten weeks. Continuously published content produces its effects over several months.
Preparing a consultation? Describe your situation in a few lines: we reply within two working days.