♟️ Employer Brand Headlines #139: The "Would I Lie To You?" Edition ♟️
Meet the three people in employer branding today
Together, we can push the conversation around employer brand forward.
Employer Brand Headlines, is brought to you by James Ellis.
In this issue…
The three people doing employer branding
Making values work
Leveraging consumer identity
A strategy thing
The big idea
This might make you uncomfortable, but meet the three people who are doing employer branding:
One: The person who is trying very hard not to get fired. They spend their time asking what they should be doing. They show up to forums and ask questions that have been asked twenty times before. They look at their job description for a sense of what projects they should focus on. You see them in meetings with TA asking how they can help recruiters, only to be told to proofread job postings with a million bullets (and they aren’t to remove any bullets). They are in meetings with comms to see if they can get their annual request to post Glassdoor reviews posted to the all-hands Slack group. They show up to marketing meetings wide-eyed at all the cool tools and technical jargon being talked about and wonder why they can’t get that kind of budget.
Some times they are specialists running from project to project, task to task, working under the assumption that if they sprint hard enough, they will get to stick around (maybe even get promoted), never realizing that they don’t understand why that project or task matters, how to measure the impact, or how to explain it to someone who isn’t their boss.
And generally (and very very sadly), their work is fairly unremarkable. It doesn’t say anything new or interesting, because new or interesting might require a tough conversation with comms or legal, or just a HiPPO who doesn’t like that word, photo, or color. They have no strong point of view, only common wisdom. They existing only to tell other people’s stories, not realizing that without a POV, they aren’t saying anything worth reading (let alone sharing).
I suspect a LOT of us were this person once. Maybe not as an EB pro, but this is how people generally start.
Two: The person looking for their next job. They spend their time answering the first group’s questions on forums. They show up to conferences with presentations they pressure tested at five other conferences, with the same jokes. They quote stats that are seven years old like they they happened last week. They know who just got a new gig and where, as well as what the market pays.
They don’t share much work, but they comment on a lot of other people’s work, tossing out best practice bon-mots without ever asking about the intention, strategy or audience for the work.
Some of these people are in-house, and some are consultants, but it doesn’t matter. They are the ones sharing the same EB articles to EB people because they know people will like their posts.
Their best work comes from helping companies who were bad at employer branding get “okay” at employer branding, carrying the banner of “this is how you’re supposed to do it.” To be fair, there’s a pretty big market for that kind of work.
(And yes, I used to be this person. Some times, I still am.)
Three: The person doing great employer brand work. This person knows the way it’s “supposed to be done” and knows when to ignore that advice. They get invited to comms and marketing meetings to talk about how employer branding helps sell products and increase internal engagement. They are often presenting alternate ideas and viewpoints to recruiting teams, even if not everyone agrees with them.
They don’t seek consensus in what should be done, but build consensus for the final deliverable. They know their work will not appeal to everyone (and kinda love that it doesn’t, because that means it is properly targeted), and those avoid volumetric metrics around traffic, clicks or applies, focusing on asking metrics specific questions that inform the next strategy.
They don’t shy away from a friendly/civil/constructive/professional argument, knowing that if they win, they get a new ally, but if they “lose,” they learned something that made them better.
I want to be this person more of the time.
And I want you to want to be this person more of the time, too.
We’ll talk about how to move from one and two into three next week.
Yep, we’re still podcasting about a book.
The revised and annotated audio version of Talent Chooses You (in Terror-vision!) continues with episode 11, where we ask the completely not insane question, “what if you recruited candidates before you actually needed to hire them?”
Headlines!
It’s Time to Take a Fresh Look at Your Company’s Values
Values are much on my mind this week (Hi, Brooke and Katherine!) so this article jumped out at me. A few notes: 1: do NOT get hung up on value architecture, the “mission leads to vision leads to values” thinking. The truth is, there’s no right way to do this. 2: Values don’t only exist at the leadership level. They need to be something that any “front-line” employee can talk about and explain in their own words. 3: They can’t be embedded into a company, they must exist already. The goal of stating values is to encourage their growth. [HBR]
It’s a Jungle Out There: Mapping a Talent Strategy for the Era of Worker Empowerment
How many words does it take to say, “stop treating people like dirt?” You’d be surprised. Extra points for getting “talent strategy” in the title without actually talking about talent strategy in the article. 🙄 [Recruiter.com]
Aligning Brands With Consumer Identity
Consumer marketing loves talking about “consumer identity” and there are many lessons to be taken, especially since our “consumers” are candidates (and at one point us!). This might be one of those places where we can have a stringer connection to the audiences we serve. (see this related post) [Brand Strategy Insider]
Making ESG a strategic asset
There are a lot of parallels between EB and ESG (environmental, social, governance): They are both often seen as “nice to have” touchy-feely stuff that has little strategic value beyond managing PR and perception. The key takeaway is that we need to stop getting so wrapped up in “cool tactics” and “it’s good for candidates,” and talk more about how our work has real value to the business itself [strategy+business]
How to Have More Successful Conversations
“Across different conversation partners, across different points in time, our goals are going to change. And the strategy for having a good conversation in one context can be very different for another.” [Wharton]
It's a Strategy Thing
You know I love strategy, but the secret is that there is NO real answer to what a strategy is or what a good one looks like. So I love hearing how other people think about strategy, and I thought this episode was a great description of product strategy, with lots of easy connections to thinking about your brand [At the Table podcast]
Inside the fortune cookie
“When do I see a photograph, when a reflection?” - Philip K. Dick
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-James Ellis (LinkedIn | Twitter | Podcast | Articles)
Where the subject line came from:
Would I Lie To You? - Eurythmics
There’s something magical that happens when art students and artists decide to play rock and roll. From The Beatles to Talking Heads, it’s like there’s enough room on the canvas for the artistically-minded to push boundaries (even when it feels like they are going “old school” like on this track). Yes, they came to fame as synth-programmers with too much hairspray and props, but Annie has an unparalleled voice and Dave is a production genius (his wikipedia page is nuts). I fear they get labeled as synth-pop also-rans, because they were perpetually reinventing themselves, with a back catalog that is nothing short of amazing.
If you are enjoying the music, congratulations, you’re old. I made a Spotify playlist of all the subject line songs I’ve used over the last year and a half:
