The content in this article was updated on September 11, 2026.
In the staffing industry’s cutthroat world, standing out is tough. Many struggle to find ways to make their mark and attract top talent. But here’s an inspiring story: at a leading U.S. university, a class is changing the game by helping local athletes build their personal brands. And the best part? Their success holds valuable lessons for staffing firms like yours.
The Cal Poly Story
California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) is one of California’s oldest polytechnics, founded in 1901 and led by Jeffrey Armstrong. Notable alumni like James Madden and Weird Al Yankovic have added to its renown.
In a cool move, Randy Rovegno, former VP of Marketing for CBS and Fox News, leads a senior-level marketing class at Cal Poly. What’s the twist? He’s hooking up Mustang athletes with local businesses to craft killer marketing campaigns.1
But here’s the kicker: Rovegno isn’t just teaching marketing; he’s empowering college athletes to cash in on their personal brands. Traditionally, NCAA rules kept athletes from profiting, but with the ban lifted in 2021, it’s game on. However, at Cal Poly, where resources aren’t as deep as bigger schools, scoring these opportunities can be tough.
That’s where Rovegno’s Athlete Lab comes in. He’s created a sweet setup to help Mustang athletes monetize their game beyond the field. This savvy move connects student-athletes with opportunities and showcases the power of collaboration in boosting personal brands.
Through his methods, students became brand champions.
4 Lessons for Staffing Firms
Staffing firms often skip to publishing brand values, handing recruiters a social policy, and hoping advocacy appears. What they miss is that people become confident representatives or champions when they understand the point of view, see how it applies to their work, and have repeated chances to use it.
1. Be Known for Something Before You Ask People to Amplify It
A brand champion cannot advocate for a message that changes every week or tries to appeal to everyone. Staffing firms need enough specificity that employees can tailor their branding to reflect their unique expertise and explain why the firm is genuinely useful to a particular audience.
A niche can be a market problem, operating environment, geography, talent community, or service model. The important part is that the positioning creates a recognizable pattern. “We place great people” gives a recruiter almost nothing to champion. “We help food manufacturers stabilize high-volume hiring without losing sight of attendance, shift fit, and retention risk” gives that recruiter a point of view, a target audience, and proof points to discuss.
- Who are we especially well equipped to help?
- What recurring problem do we understand better than a generalist?
- What proof do we have beyond claims and testimonials?
2. Let Real People Carry the Story Further Than the Company Page
Social media still matters, but the stronger lesson is believable human distribution. Company pages can establish consistency. Recruiters, leaders, account managers, and subject-matter experts can add context, judgment, and lived experience. Vogue reported in 2025 that brands were increasingly using employee-generated content to show expertise, craft, workplace reality, and behind-the-scenes experience; the strongest programs emphasized voluntary participation, training, and recognition rather than forcing everyone to become a creator.2
A staffing firm should still protect visual consistency, including brand colors and typography. But visual consistency is not the same as identical voices. A recruiter explaining why a role is difficult to fill should sound like a recruiter. A branch leader discussing local workforce pressure should sound like someone who actually sees it.
This human layer matters even more as synthetic content becomes easier to produce. A 2026 Guardian investigation highlighted transparency concerns around AI-generated influencer content that can imitate real customer experiences.3 Staffing brands have another reason to make real expertise visible and clearly attributable to real people.
3. Choose Partnerships That Transfer Credibility, Not Just Reach
Strategic partnerships can strengthen credibility, but the partnership should prove something specific. A training provider can reinforce skill readiness. An association relationship can show category participation. A local workforce organization can strengthen community relevance. A technology partner can support an operational promise only when the workflow behind that promise actually works.
| Partnership type | Credibility transferred | Proof opportunity |
| Training provider | Skill development and role readiness | Joint skills guide, readiness checklist, or candidate workshop |
| Industry association | Category participation and market awareness | Event insights, trend commentary, practitioner education |
| Community organization | Local presence and workforce connection | Local hiring resources and outreach events |
| Complementary technology | Process capability | Workflow demo, implementation lesson, measurable improvement |
Read more: In-House vs Outsourced Marketing: Finding the Right Fit for Your Staffing Firm
4. Candidate Experience Is Where the Brand Promise Gets Audited
Positive candidate experiences are crucial. Candidates encounter the brand through a chain of small decisions: job language, response time, interview clarity, status updates, feedback, handoffs, and what happens after placement.
A brand can say it is transparent and still leave applicants guessing. It can say it is people-first and still make candidates repeat the same information to three different people. A 2025 study of job-seeker fairness concerns in online recruitment identified recurring issues around discrimination, interaction bias, interpretation of qualifications, and power imbalance.4 For staffing firms, candidate experience is a repeated fairness-and-trust test.
Brand champions emerge from this experience too. A candidate who receives clear communication, honest expectations, and respectful closure may recommend the recruiter even without getting the job. A placed worker who feels remembered after day one can become a stronger source of referrals and reputation than another polished campaign.
Turn Employees Into Brand Champions Without Making It Feel Forced
The fastest way to weaken advocacy is to treat employees as an unpaid distribution channel. The stronger approach is to create conditions where informed participation feels useful, safe, and credible.
Teach the Brand as a Decision System, Not a Script
If you want employees to represent the brand consistently, teach them to do so first. Training should help people make decisions, not memorize slogans. Cover the audience, the problem the firm is trying to solve, proof points, careful claims, strong story examples, and how the brand changes by channel. Then let employees practice with real scenarios.
Give People Permission to Sound Like People
A useful operating rule is “shared point of view, individual voice.” Marketing can provide facts, guardrails, examples, and assets. Employees decide how to express the insight in language that fits their role. Participation should remain voluntary.
Recognition Helps; Manufactured Enthusiasm Does Not
Reward useful contribution, not raw posting volume. A recruiter who shares an honest market insight or an account manager who surfaces a client pattern may create more value than someone publishing five generic posts a week. Recognition can include internal spotlights, professional development, access to events, peer nominations, or visible credit.
Leaders Are Part of the Brand System
Employees notice whether leadership behavior matches public messaging. Gallup’s 2026 State of the Global Workplace report found global employee engagement fell to 20 percent in 2025, while manager engagement dropped to 22 percent.5 A brand-champion program cannot compensate for a workplace where people do not trust the promise they are being asked to promote.
Start With Five People, Not a Company-Wide Mandate
A staffing firm does not need a large advocacy platform to begin. Start with a small group of people who already have credibility in different parts of the business: perhaps one recruiter, one salesperson, one delivery leader, one marketer, and one executive.
Give the group one clear topic territory for 60 days. Provide proof points and examples, hold a short monthly review, and capture what they hear back from the market. Ask which messages employees are comfortable owning, which stories generate useful conversations, and what internal friction prevents the public promise from feeling true. Then expand based on evidence.
The Real Goal Is More Believable Proof
The Cal Poly story shows that brand champions do not appear through slogans alone. They develop through clarity, coaching, practice, collaboration, and opportunities to turn identity into action.
So, to create champions, you need to be specific enough to own a niche, use real people to make the brand human, choose partnerships that strengthen credibility, and treat candidate experience as part of the brand. The next step is to connect those lessons to an internal system that helps employees represent the firm without becoming scripted mouthpieces.
That is the difference between a brand that is merely promoted and a brand that people are willing—and able—to champion.
You Do Not Have to Build the System Alone
Take a cue from the lesson and make brand advocacy deliberate. Allied Insight helps staffing firms connect positioning, content, candidate experience, and marketing execution so the brand is easier to understand and easier for real people to represent.
Reach out to us today to discuss how a stronger brand system can support visibility, trust, and growth.
References
- Pemberton, Pat. “Show Me the Money: Marketing Students Help Mustang Athletes Build a Brand.” Cal Poly News, 21 Feb. 2024, www.calpoly.edu/news/show-me-money-marketing-students-help-mustang-athletes-build-brand.
- Maguire, Lucy. “Are Brand Employees the New Influencers?” Vogue, February 14, 2025. https://www.vogue.com/article/are-brand-employees-the-new-influencers
- The Guardian. “Brands Using AI-Generated Influencers to Promote Products on Social Media.” June 21, 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jun/21/brands-using-ai-generated-influencers-to-promote-products-on-social-media
- He, Changyang, Yue Deng, Alessandro Fabris, Bo Li, and Asia Biega. “Developing a Fair Online Recruitment Framework Based on Job-seekers’ Fairness Concerns.” arXiv, January 23, 2025. https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.14110
- Gallup. “State of the Global Workplace 2026.” 2026. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx
