Job Overview
The Strategy and Brand Director serves as the strategic lead for employer branding, audience insights, market intelligence, competitive analysis, and recruitment marketing strategy across the program. This role owns the development, governance, and continuous evolution of the employer brand strategy and ensures that all recruitment marketing initiatives, messaging, campaigns, and outreach efforts align with a cohesive brand framework designed to attract highly qualified candidates.

The Strategy and Brand Director leads the research and insights function, overseeing labor market analysis, audience segmentation, competitor intelligence, employer brand measurement, and workforce research initiatives. Working closely with the Creative Director, Performance and Execution Marketing Director, Event Recruitment Director, Research and Insights Manager, and Government stakeholders, this position transforms market intelligence and audience insights into actionable strategic direction that guides campaign planning, messaging development, candidate targeting, and employer branding efforts. The role serves as the primary advisor on brand health, audience behavior, recruiting trends, and competitive positioning, ensuring that recruitment communications remain relevant, differentiated, data-driven, and aligned with workforce recruitment objectives.
This position will support a Federal Government customer in Washington, DC.

Core Responsibilities

• Own the overall employer brand strategy and ensure brand positioning aligns with organizational hiring goals, workforce priorities, and recruitment objectives.
• Lead the development, maintenance, and continuous refinement of the Employer Brand Guide, incorporating market trends, audience insights, industry best practices, and evolving recruiting needs.
• Direct market research, competitive intelligence, and employer brand analysis activities that support recruitment marketing strategy and workforce outreach initiatives.
• Lead labor market assessments, audience segmentation efforts, and candidate behavior analysis to inform messaging, targeting, and campaign planning decisions.
• Develop and maintain candidate personas, audience profiles, and recruiting market intelligence products used across the program.
• Monitor employer brand perception, public sentiment, audience engagement trends, and reputation indicators through social listening platforms, research tools, and market analysis.
• Produce recurring labor market reports, competitor analyses, employer brand assessments, and strategic intelligence briefings for program leadership and Government stakeholders.
• Identify workforce trends, recruitment challenges, emerging talent markets, and opportunities that may influence hiring outcomes and recruitment effectiveness.
• Translate research findings and market intelligence into actionable strategic guidance for Creative, Performance Marketing, Analytics, Events, and Recruiting teams.
• Partner with campaign, creative, and analytics leadership to ensure marketing initiatives align with audience insights and employer brand objectives.
• Develop strategic recommendations that improve candidate attraction, engagement, and conversion performance across all recruitment channels.
• Present brand strategy, audience research findings, market intelligence, and competitive assessments to executive leadership and Government stakeholders.
• Support long-term recruitment planning through workforce intelligence, audience forecasting, and labor market trend analysis.
• Establish measurement frameworks for employer brand performance and monitor the effectiveness of branding initiatives over time.
• Ensure consistency of messaging, positioning, and brand execution across all recruitment marketing, advertising, digital engagement, event marketing, and workforce communication activities.

Requirements

• Active Top Secret Clearance
• Minimum of eight (8) years of professional experience in employer branding, brand strategy, market research, audience research, workforce strategy, or related disciplines.
• Demonstrated experience developing and managing brand strategies, employer branding initiatives, or large-scale communications programs.
• Experience conducting market research, competitor analysis, audience segmentation, and workforce intelligence initiatives.
• Proven ability to translate research findings and market data into actionable business and marketing strategies.
• Experience presenting strategic recommendations, research findings, and business insights to senior executives and stakeholders.
• Strong analytical, strategic thinking, and problem-solving capabilities.
• Exceptional written, verbal, presentation, and stakeholder communication skills.
• Experience leading cross-functional initiatives involving marketing, communications, recruiting, research, and leadership stakeholders.
• Ability to work effectively in complex, fast-paced, and highly visible environments.
• Experience implementing quality control and review processes for creative deliverables.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making capabilities.
• Excellent written, verbal, and interpersonal communication skills.
• Demonstrated ability to navigate sensitive organizational environments and lead cross-functional collaboration efforts that result in compliant, mission-focused, and operationally effective solutions.
• Experience advising sin fast-paced, high-visibility environments requiring sound judgment, professionalism, and responsiveness.
• Exceptional written, verbal, interpersonal, and presentation communication skills, with the ability to translate complex objectives into compelling creative solutions and actionable recommendations.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously while maintaining exceptional quality standards in deadline-driven environments.

Preferred Additional Skills

• Federal Government, law enforcement, military, intelligence community, or highly regulated industry branding experience.
• Recruitment marketing, talent acquisition, or workforce communications experience.
• Experience developing employer value propositions (EVPs) and recruitment messaging frameworks.
• Expertise in social listening, sentiment analysis, and reputation monitoring.
• Experience supporting executive communications and organizational transformation initiatives.
• Familiarity with candidate journey mapping and audience engagement strategies.
• Experience integrating research, brand strategy, and analytics into campaign planning and decision-making.
• Knowledge of labor market dynamics, workforce planning methodologies, and recruiting trends.
• Experience supporting large-scale, multi-channel recruitment marketing programs.
• Familiarity with change management and organizational communications strategies.

Technical Proficiency

• Brand Monitoring Platforms
• Social Listening Tools (Brandwatch, Meltwater, Sprout Social, Talkwalker)
• Market Research and Survey Platforms (Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey)
• Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
• Power BI
• Tableau
• CRM and Marketing Automation Platforms
• Competitive Intelligence Tools
• Microsoft 365 Suite
• Presentation and Executive Reporting Tools

Preferred Certifications

• Professional Certified Marketer (PCM)
• Certified Brand Strategist
• Insights Professional Certification (IPC)
• Professional Researcher Certification (PRC)
• Google Analytics Certification
• Certified Analytics Professional (CAP)
• Project Management Professional (PMP)
• Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM-CP or SHRM-SCP)

Education

• Bachelor's Degree in Marketing, Communications, Business Administration, Market Research, Psychology, Sociology, Human Resources, or a related field.
• Six years' experience in lieu of education
• Master's Degree in Marketing, Business Administration, Organizational Psychology, Communications, or related discipline preferred.

Benefits

We offer a benefits package that is designed to keep our most important assets - our employees - healthy, happy, energized and moving forward. Our philosophy is simple - empower our employees with the benefits, resources and the financial incentives they need to be successful.

Benefits and Perks:

• A competitive Medical, Dental, and Vision plan
• Retirement Savings Plan
• Life Insurance
• AD&D Insurance
• Short Term and Long Term Disability Insurance
• 3 weeks of annual PTO
• 11 days of Holiday PTO
• Performance Awards
• Referral Bonus Plan (of up to $5,000/year)
• Education Reimbursement/Training (of up to $2,500/year)