On July, 4th, at the 8th Congress of the International Test Commission (ITC) we presented our idea to introduce the measure „g“ to estimate whether a company attracts candiadates who qualify as talents.

Employer Branding is one of those „magic terms“ in modern HR work. Attracting talented candidates is the cruicial challenge for companies in times where globalized markets require top staff, technologies get more and more complex and skilled professionals get scarce.

Assessments and tests only produce good results, if enough candidates of good quality can be attracted in the first place.

Our idea, to measure „g“ in order to estimate whether a company attracts Talents, candiadates who are able to learn new skills and knowlegde quickly in order to contribute to a successful market performance of their employer.

We have examined three data sets in order to see whether our idea finds empirical support. In all three cases, our dependent variable was scores in a metrices test used in the hiring process to estimate „g“.

Firstly, we examined differences of one employer brand between eight different countries.

Secondly, we examined differeces between candidate groups applying for a Management Trainee Programme in three different companies: two automotive importers and one German retail innovator.

Thirdly, we examined differences in the brand strength of one company before and after brand change.

As we are consultants working with real clients, we faced the difficulties that there always are in field studies; many eventually confouding variables and aspects that cannot be controlled fully in our „real business settings“ unlike experimental settings.

Nevertheless, the data supported our idea at least in parts. Therefore, we see ourselves on a good way to contribute to the Employer Branding discussion, and we will continue our analyses with new data gathered from online testing in the future.

We want to thank all the colleagues at and after the congress who addressed us directly or in writing to discuss implications and perspectives for an HR-Analytics approach.