Your Office Helps Recruit Talent. Your Online Interview Should Too.

Walk a candidate through your office and the interview has already begun. They notice the entrance, the light, the places people gather, and the care taken over the room where you meet. They are trying to picture a future there. Your workplace gives them something concrete to judge alongside the promises on your careers page.

That is part of the business case for investing in a distinctive workplace. A headquarters can express a company’s ambition, welcome clients and partners, and help prospective employees imagine belonging. Research on recruiting makes that last connection especially clear: candidates read the space as evidence about the organization.

The office tells candidates what kind of company you are

A 2022 paper in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, “Saw the office, want the job,” examined creative workspace design in two studies. Creative rather than conventional spaces increased applicants’ job-choice intentions. The researchers linked this attraction to perceptions of a stronger climate for creativity and greater organizational ability to innovate.

The effect was stronger for applicants who saw creativity as part of their own identity. That suggests a useful recruiting principle: choose a setting that communicates the qualities you want candidates to recognize in your company. A design studio and an advisory firm may express their standards very differently.

The impression can form before anyone walks through the door

A 2025 study in Human Resource Management, “The Signaling Effect of Biophilic Job Posts,” examined workplace imagery in recruitment materials. Across three experiments, nature-inspired design increased organizational attraction. Perceptions of a warmer, more caring organization helped explain that attraction. The study also found lower stated minimum acceptable pay, although those perceptions did not explain the pay effect.

These were experimental responses, not observed job acceptances. The practical point is that candidates formed impressions from images of a workplace. Their assessment could begin with a job post, well before an office visit. For recruiting teams, visual presentation belongs in the discussion about employer brand.

A headquarters is an investment in people and relationships

The LEGO Group put its culture at the center of its Billund campus, which opened in April 2022. Designed for about 2,000 employees, the workplace reflects the company’s emphasis on play, creativity, and collaboration. Its People House, developed with employee input, includes spaces for creative workshops, exercise, and communal cooking, with families welcome too.

Google described a similar focus on employees when it opened its Bay View campus in May 2022. Conversations with staff informed the separation of quieter team spaces from gathering areas, while greenery, natural light, and outdoor views were part of the design. The company presented the workplace as a way to support both focused work and connection.

These examples illustrate workplace investment priorities; they do not measure recruiting returns. A smaller company can apply the same intention at its own scale: make the experience of arriving and meeting feel worthy of the people you want to attract.

The online interview is a visit to your company

A remote candidate may encounter your organization through a careers page, an invitation, and a series of video conversations. Those are opportunities to make the company feel recognizable and considered. Think of them as the digital entrance to the team.

Our application of the workplace research is straightforward: carry the care you put into your physical surroundings into the interview experience. The studies above do not test branded interview rooms or establish a hiring conversion rate. They give recruiting teams a reason to take the environment seriously when shaping first impressions.

• Make the invitation feel personal. Use your company identity, name the people the candidate will meet, and explain the purpose of the conversation.
• Choose a room that reflects the team. Bring the same visual character from your careers page into the meeting. Keep attention on the people and their conversation.
• Show the workplace honestly. If the role involves an office, share actual photographs or a tour. Present a designed digital venue as a digital venue.
• Follow through on the welcome. Prepare the interviewers, make joining easy, and give candidates clear next steps. The experience should support what you say about your culture.

Give candidates a place to imagine belonging

Faceport brings branded invitations and designed meeting environments into online conversations. For recruiting teams, that creates a way to welcome candidates into a recognizable company setting, whether the team occupies a headquarters, a small studio, or many home offices. The conversation still has to earn their interest. The setting should help you introduce the company with care.

Explore Faceport digital headquarters, or read how the same attention to presentation applies to sales conversations.