The aim of this thesis is to investigate the significance of employer branding and how employer branding is currently carried out within cities in Finland. The importance of employer branding within the public sector has been brought up by researchers (Ritz and Waldner 2011). However, this area of study is still widely under researched. Therefore, the findings of the research offer crucial information on the current state of employer branding within Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and Oulu, for all cities to further develop their practices.

The theory section of the thesis examines the definitions, benefits and processes of employer branding within the private sector. Deeper understanding of these areas within the city context are investigated with the empirical section. The research data was collected through qualitative semi-structured interviews with four management level employer branding professionals.

The result show that employer branding is often part of the city level strategy and follows the visual identity of the city. In addition, the results suggest that the significance of employer branding is expected to grow in the future. All case cities had multichannel employer branding practices. The respondent and theory highlighted the importance of the employer branding being distinctive. However, the findings do not present major differences between the case cities employer branding practices. The research concludes with discussing the limitations and further research suggestions.