Candidates are asking AI about your workplace. Is the answer true?

Before they apply, more candidates now ask an AI assistant what it is like to work somewhere. The answer they get is assembled from whatever your organisation has left in public view. Here is how HR leaders can check what is being said, and fix the sources behind it.

Why AI answers are becoming part of the first impression

For years the candidate’s first impression of an employer was spread across a handful of places: the careers site, a job advert, a review site, perhaps a conversation with someone who already works there. Those places still matter, but a new step is appearing in front of them. A candidate opens ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot or Perplexity and types something like “What is it like to work at [company]?” or “Is [company] a good employer for working parents?”

The assistant does not phone your head of people to ask. It builds a summary from public material it can find or has already learned from: review sites, old press coverage, job adverts that should have been taken down, a careers page that has not been touched since before your last reorganisation. The answer often sounds confident and neutral, which is exactly why it carries weight. A candidate is far more likely to take a calm, three-paragraph summary at face value than a single angry review.

The problem is not that AI is hostile to employers. It is that it repeats what the public record says, and for many organisations the public record is thin, out of date, or dominated by a few loud voices. The employee experience people actually have and the one candidates hear about can drift a long way apart.

A simple audit HR can run in an hour

You do not need a specialist tool to find out where you stand. Block out an hour, open two or three of the main assistants, and ask each the same set of questions. Use a private browser window and do not sign in, so the answers are not shaped by your own history.

Questions worth asking:

1. What is it like to work at [organisation]?
2. What do employees say are the pros and cons of working at [organisation]?
3. What benefits and flexible working options does [organisation] offer?
4. How does [organisation] support career progression and development?
5. What is the culture like in [team or location that matters to your hiring plan]?
6. Would [organisation] be a good place to work for [a group you are actively trying to attract]?

For each answer, record four things in a simple spreadsheet: what was said, whether it is accurate today, which sources the assistant named (where it shows them), and how much it matters to the candidates you are trying to hire. That last column keeps the exercise honest. An outdated detail about a car-parking policy is a nuisance; an incorrect statement that you have no hybrid working, when hybrid is central to your offer, is costing you applications.

Repeat the same questions for one or two competitors for talent. The comparison is often more persuasive in a leadership meeting than any internal argument.

Where the inaccurate answers usually come from

When you trace the wrong answers back, the same causes come up again and again.

Old review content. Review sites are a major public source on employee experience, and older reviews do not disappear when things change. If the most detailed reviews describe a previous leadership team or a site you have since closed, that history can still shape the summary.

Thin or vague careers content. A careers page that says “we value our people” and little else gives an assistant nothing concrete to repeat. It will fill the gap with whatever else it can find.

Stale job adverts. Adverts that stay live on aggregator sites long after a role is filled can carry old salary bands, old benefits and old ways of working.

Inconsistent facts. If your careers site, your LinkedIn page and your job adverts describe your benefits or locations differently, the assistant has to pick one, and it may not pick the current version.

Missing proof. Claims such as “great place to grow” carry little weight without evidence: real progression stories, named programmes, published policies.

Fixing the sources

The fix is rarely a single campaign. It is closer to housekeeping for your employer brand, and most of it sits within HR’s existing remit.

Make the careers content specific. Replace general statements with facts a candidate, or an assistant, can repeat accurately: how hybrid working actually works, which benefits apply from day one, what the parental leave policy is, how promotion decisions are made. Specific, current and plainly written content is far more likely to be used than polished slogans.

Publish EVP proof points, not just the EVP. If your employee value proposition promises development, show it: the number of internal moves last year if you are happy to share it, a description of your learning programme, the routes people have taken from entry-level roles.

Use real employee stories. Short, first-person accounts from colleagues in different roles, locations and life stages give candidates a realistic picture and give public summaries something better to draw on than anonymous reviews alone.

Respond to reviews properly. A calm, factual response that explains what has changed since a review was written adds current information to the public record. Defensive replies do the opposite.

Clean up your job adverts. Agree a process with your talent acquisition team or recruitment partners for closing filled roles across every board and aggregator, and check that salary and benefits wording matches the careers site.

Keep the facts consistent. Make one owner responsible for the core facts about working for you, and make sure the careers site, LinkedIn, job adverts and any employer-review profiles all say the same thing.

How to keep checking, and who should own it

AI answers change as models are updated and as new content is published, so treat this as a regular check rather than a one-off project. A quarterly re-run of the same questions is enough for most organisations, with an extra check after any major change such as a restructure, a new benefits package or a return-to-office decision.

Ownership matters more than frequency. In many organisations the pieces sit in different places: talent acquisition owns job adverts, internal communications owns employee stories, marketing owns the website and the employer brand may sit in either HR or comms. Nobody owns the overall picture a candidate receives. Give that picture a single owner, usually whoever leads employer brand or talent attraction, with a short checklist and a direct line to colleagues in comms and marketing.

The organisations that do this well are not trying to game AI. They are simply making sure that what is true about working for them is written down, current and easy to find. If the employee experience is genuinely good, the most effective thing HR can do is make the evidence public and keep it up to date. The assistants will repeat what they can find.

Andy Pirie is the founder of SetpointHQ, a UK recruitment marketing consultancy that helps employers improve how their employer brand appears in search and AI assistants.