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TA is not a hobby, so don't let leadership treat it like one
I disagree with much of the employer brand industry.
❌ It doesn’t have to take months to build an effective employer brand.
❌ Smaller companies can take more advantage of their brand than massive ones.
❌ A brand only starts with recruiting, but grows the entire company.
❌ If you are hiring, there’s no valid reason to wait to start the brand project. None.
❌ Brands aren’t stone tablets. They are directions and are adjusted as you succeed.
❌ CEO’s don’t have to be involved. Or care.
❌ Brands that doesn’t show measurable value aren’t really brands. They are wishes.
Employer brand is actionable, strategic, and immediate. Don’t believe me?
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TA Leaders: When was the last time someone in leadership, when faced with a business critical opening, turned to you and said, “I want your team to get us a game-changing hire here”?
Not, “Find us the best hire you can.”
Not, “Use every available resource.”
Not even, “Well, just do your best.”
Because that first statement assumes that you are a true professional. An expert at finding, attracting and engaging amazing talent.
The next three assume you’re… competent.
This isn’t about making you feel bad. Being competent is good. I know a lot of competent recruiters. We need more.
But what we see as competence, leadership sees as rote.
The same process for building a job postings.
The same steps for sourcing.
The same images for social posts.
The same job boards.
The same outreach messages.
The same the same the same.
Recruiting processes generally work pretty well. That’s why they become standard operating procedure. We learn them from more seasoned recruiters and embed them into our own way of doing things, and over time they become how we recruit.
And we get trapped in a cul-de-sac of our own making.
Worse, leadership thinks that this is the best we can do.
We build machinery to recruit as many good-quality candidates as we can as efficiently as we can. That machinery eliminates a lot of the custom thinking and creativity that could go into our work, because we are generally not judged on our best hire, but on “the numbers.” Did we engage a lot of people? Did we generate a lot of applications? Did we screen a lot of candidates? Did we close candidates and did we do it in a timely matter?
We have been asked to become McDonald’s.
Not that we can’t be gourmet, but that we’re judged on how quickly we can satisfy the greatest number of demands. We may not hire the very very best, but we can hire lots of people with a minimum of bad experiences.
And so, when leadership is looking to hire a business critical role, they don’t look to us, because they think “McDonald’s recruiting” is the best we can do.
They want something creative from a two-star restaurant, and they think you can only make a burger from a frozen meat puck.
When they want amazing recruiting, they think we can’t handle it. So they look beyond us.
Because we’ve never held ourselves accountable to quality hires. We only allow ourselves to be accountable to quantity of hires or volume of effort. We’ve built our processes around tech that is hard to change or evolve, and then push back on any request that deviates from the change.
But you and I know you can hire better.
Waaay better.
The path to being seen as “the expert” rather than the “competent cog” is to demand accountability from leadership. In a perfect world, what do they want? What are the metrics that most concern them? Speed? Quality? Cost? Don’t assume you all agree (spoiler: you absolutely don’t), so get them to spell those expectations out clearly.
Then report back on how well you’re meeting them. Not 27-slide presentations, but a three paragraph email: What we agreed on, how well we’ve met expectations, and what we’ll be doing next to meet expectations.
When you meet expectations, ask what their leveled-up expectations are now? Hiring with zero agency spend? Nobel-caliber hires? Cutting time to fill by a third?
Those are serious expectations, but simply getting leadership to see them as possible puts you in a stronger position, something far closer to “the table.”
And isn’t that where you said you wanted to be?
👁️ What’s the cost of being dull with our marketing? Measurable, actually »
👁️ The future of marketing is people? Hmm… how could that be helpful to us… »
👁️ Even the marketing team has problems building relationships with the business! »
👁️ I’m nominating the term “botshit” for word of the year right now. We’re being flooded with this garbage, and your automated messages from your ATS are only making things worse »
👁️ Six ways to bring strategy into your work every day »
👁️ White collar work is just meetings now »
👁️ Strategies for future-proofing your career »
👁️ We waste way too much time on “personas” »
👁️ I didn’t know I needed this article on the differences between EB and PR »
👁️ Frame your employee and candidate communications less in terms of how much free time they have, but on how much control of their time they get »
👁️ This is phenomenal advice on how to write better copy »
👁️ The difference between writing to and about customers »
🏛️ All 2,500+ (more than five years worth!) articles from this newsletter are in a searchable archive. Go get ‘em!
Problem: Hiring managers see you as “black box”
Business requirements go in, candidates come out.
Solution: Be transparent. When you start your “intake meeting’ (no really: change it to “talent strategy meeting.” Trust me), don’t walk in with a clean sheet of paper or a blank questionnaire. Walk in with a to-do list that has dates and responsibilities listed. Show them the steps you need to take and the things they are responsible for.
The value here is multifold. First, they can see more of the process. Second, you can negotiate over the steps of the process as equals: You won’t spend ad money promoting the job unless they agree to share a 30 second video about the role on LinkedIn, etc. Third, if they have needs outside the usual expectations, they can help you redesign the process with them in the room, making you look less like an order-taker and more like a consultants.
Be more informed as you think about building your brand:
Start: Compare 25 employer brand building companies side-by-side. It’s how you make a better decision about who will help you best in your EB journey. It’s free! »
Then: Three case studies that prove how an employer brand can be built in just three weeks. A 250-person manufacturer, a 300-person construction company, and an 800-person video game company. Just hit reply and we’ll set up a time to walk you through the case studies and answer questions.
The ‘artistic image’ is not intended to represent the thing itself,
but, rather, the reality of the force the thing contains.
-James Baldwin
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***This Newsletter Contains No ChatGPT***