Candidates have always researched companies before applying. LinkedIn profiles. Glassdoor reviews. Company websites. The process was predictable.
Now they're adding a step that most companies haven't prepared for. They're opening ChatGPT and asking questions like "What's the leadership like at [Company]?" or "Is [Company] a good place to work?" or "What's the CEO known for?"
And they're getting answers. Not generic company descriptions. Actual synthesized perspectives based on what AI can find across the web about your leadership team, your executives, and your company culture.
When someone asks about your company's leadership, ChatGPT doesn't pull from your careers page. It searches for signals of credibility across the internet.
LinkedIn activity. Published articles. Media mentions. Conference talks. Anything that demonstrates what your executives actually think about and care about.
If your leadership team is visible—sharing insights, engaging with their industry, contributing to professional conversations—ChatGPT has material to work with. It can say "Here's what the CFO focuses on" or "The CEO has written about transformation and culture."
If your executives are silent, ChatGPT has nothing. The answer becomes generic, vague, or nonexistent. And candidates notice.
This creates a new kind of screening process. Before candidates ever apply, they're using AI to determine whether your leadership is credible, engaged, and worth working for.
If the AI's answer suggests strong, visible leadership, candidates move forward with more confidence. They feel like they know something real about the company beyond the marketing materials.
If the AI's answer is thin or absent, candidates start questioning. Why isn't the leadership visible? What are they hiding? Is this a company where leaders engage or stay distant?
You're being evaluated before you know candidates exist. And most companies have no idea this filtering is happening.
Traditional research was time-consuming. Candidates had to click through multiple sites, read various reviews, piece together information from different sources.
AI research is instant. One question. One synthesized answer. Candidates can evaluate five companies in the time it used to take to research one.
This raises the bar. You're not just competing against the companies candidates manually research. You're competing against every company they can evaluate through AI in seconds.
The companies with visible leadership show up well in that comparison. The ones without don't.
Companies that recognized this early started building executive visibility months ago. Their leadership teams are already active on LinkedIn. They've been publishing insights. They've been contributing to industry conversations.
Now when candidates use ChatGPT to research them, there's substance. The AI can reference recent articles, synthesize perspectives, and present their leadership as credible and engaged.
Meanwhile, companies that haven't prioritized executive visibility are getting generic responses. No real signal. Nothing that makes them stand out. Nothing that builds candidate confidence.
That gap compounds every month. The longer you wait to build visibility, the further behind you fall in AI-mediated candidate research.
Traditional employer branding focused on company messaging. Careers page content. Brand campaigns. Culture videos.
All of that still matters. But it's no longer sufficient. Because AI research bypasses your controlled channels. It looks for authentic signals from your actual leaders.
If you've invested heavily in employer branding but your executives are invisible, you're optimizing for a research path candidates aren't using anymore.
The companies adapting well are building employer brand through executive visibility. Not instead of traditional channels, but as the foundation that makes everything else credible.
Based on what I'm seeing, these are the kinds of questions candidates are asking ChatGPT about potential employers:
"What's the leadership culture like at [Company]?""Is the CEO of [Company] respected in the industry?""What does [Company] actually value based on what their executives say?""How transparent is [Company's] leadership team?"
These aren't questions your careers page answers. They're questions that get answered by what AI can find about your leadership team's public presence.
You can test this right now. Open ChatGPT and ask it the questions candidates are asking about your company and your leadership team.
Look at what it surfaces. Is the response substantive or vague? Does it reference recent activity or outdated information? Does it present your leadership as engaged and credible, or absent and unknown?
Then do the same for your main competitors. Compare what candidates are seeing when they research you versus when they research them.
If your competitors have more substance in those AI responses, they're winning candidate perception before you're even aware candidates are researching.
This isn't about gaming AI. You can't fake your way into good ChatGPT responses about your leadership team.
What works is genuine, consistent executive presence. LinkedIn activity that demonstrates expertise. Articles that share real perspective. Engagement in industry conversations that shows thought leadership.
That presence becomes the source material AI pulls from. The more consistent and substantive it is, the better your company shows up in candidate research.
Most organisations still haven't connected these dots. They know candidates research them. But they're not thinking about AI-mediated research as a distinct channel that requires specific preparation.
They're investing in traditional employer branding while their executives stay silent. And they're wondering why top talent seems harder to attract, why candidates seem less informed in interviews, why conversion rates from application to acceptance are declining.
The answer is often visibility. Candidates are using AI to screen companies. And invisible leadership fails that screening.
What changes when you show up well in AI research
When companies get this right, the entire recruitment dynamic improves. Candidates arrive already convinced your leadership is credible. They've seen what your executives care about. They've read their perspectives. They feel like they understand the culture before the first interview.
This reduces time-to-hire. Increases offer acceptance rates. Improves early retention because candidates joined based on real alignment, not just marketing promises.
And it happens because you built the executive visibility that makes AI-mediated research work in your favor rather than against you.
ChatGPT search is new enough that most companies haven't adapted. Most leadership teams are still invisible. Most organisations are still thinking about candidate research the old way.
Which means there's an advantage available to companies that move now. Build executive visibility before your competitors do, and you'll show up better in AI research when it matters most—when top talent is deciding whether you're worth their time.
But that window won't stay open long. As more companies recognize how candidate research has changed, visibility will shift from advantage to expectation.
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