AI for employer branding?

And no, I don't mean trying to write your job postings for you

Is your recruiting video glossy enough?

Who convinced us that making recruiting videos so slick and polished that they look like stock art than real people was the way to attract real talent? What builds trust and creates action is video content that feels deeply human and organic, like you’re getting the inside scoop about a company rather than a brochure. So if you’re ready to let your amazing people tell your company’s story in a cost-effective way, check out Vouchfor.com.

This came up in two different conversations last week: how should EB think about AI in the coming year.

First, let me say clearly, that as good as ChatGPT is, it doesn’t hold a candle to legitimately good writing. It can summarize and describe, but in the end, it is our job to notice what makes this company different. (To paraphrase Alex M H Smith: strategy isn’t built on what you know, it’s built on what you notice.)

And don’t get me started on AI images. Sure, they make it look like you’re working in a scifi painting, but what exactly are you telling candidates about you?

But rather than using AI to manufacture some new reality, we can use AI to be the agent revealing our company to the world in ways we’re not allowed to.

What do I mean? Well, let’s say you’re a Slack company. Everyone subscribes to their team or project channels, a bunch of official corp comms channels, and probably a few “fun” channels (pictures of pets, what people are doing during the week the office shuts down), a Wordle channel, a coffee channel, you know what I mean).

What’s amazing about Slack is that everyone is on it, from the inbound sales kid you just hired to the CEO. And it collects historical threads and conversations. You wouldn’t give someone outside the organization access to it, obviously. Your legal and comms teams would probably quit on the spot in a very messy and public fashion.

However! The material within your Slack channels is all the proof you need to turn “we’re collaborative!” from a claim into something objectively true. It has everything you need to make it clear that “we support each other” it far far more than a recruiting talking point.

So what if we used a (internally-controlled completely owned) bot to “read” all our Slack conversations and summarize what it found? The bot becomes the agent that takes internal never-to-be-shared-with-outsider information and converts it into something that proves all our brand claims.

Imagine a link next to every pillar listed on our career page that says, “and we can prove it” that, when clicked, gives a reviewed-for-revealing-material-information description of what people are really talking about.

Maybe it could look something like:

Next to the Collaboration pillar: “Over the last 12 months, a large percentage of accounts in the Product channel have discussed ways in which they can more more effectively with development and marketing teams. Most-talked about suggestions include holding weekly open office hours where the three teams can engage in an informal basis to strength team bonds and better understand each others’ perspective. The first ones were held in March and have continued.”

OR
Next to the We Like Working Together pillar: ”While everyone is subscribed to a number of all-company channels, most staff interact in very informal ways on non-productive channels. The top channels include Pet Pictures (where photos of cats seem to get more response that photos of dogs), Coffee Chat (where the different methods of brewing coffee at work and setups are discussed), Music Faves (where last month more than a hundred people shared their year-end most-played playlists), and Morning Yoga (where people make suggestions for the next day’s morning yoga program that takes place in the atrium.”

Imagine how much better informed candidates would be.

Imagine how much more they would trust the information coming from recruiters.

The bot is 100% impartial and can only collect and share what it finds, making it an incredibly trustworthy source of information.

And it can collect this information from places no candidate would be allowed to see.

Thinking of AI as an agent that can collect and summarize information on behalf of the candidate (and I can see a case for allowing it to do so in real-time in specific circumstances, or even to review corporate emails accounts) is an example of how AI can support our employer brands without resorting to bad writing (and worse thinking).

🧮 Oh lord, that WebMD video. Did no one try to take these people aside and tell them that they were coming off as irredeemable assholes? That for every employee who they got to show up in the office, they are spooking thousands of people who they would want to be their next employee? If the job of a CEO is to lead, this reads like a 4-year-old’s tantrum (poorly-produced and with a soundtrack that sounds like it’s violating some IP laws one at that). In a more just world, the board would have convened the next day and cleaned house. »

🧮 A strong brand means ignoring the average user in service of the perfect one. That idea nestles in perfectly with how we should target great talent »

🧮 The only good part of Merriam-Webster naming “authenticity” the word of the year is that maybe more people will bother looking at what the word means »

🧮 I assume you’ve been watching The Bear. Because it isn’t about restaurants. It isn’t about food. It’s about what it takes to achieve greatness, and maybe that classically obsessive style isn’t the only way to make greatness happen. »

🧮 Surprise! Workplace well-being initiatives do nothing to enhance employee well-being! Feel free to reply with your “shocked” face »

🧮 10 things HR/TA leaders can do to enhance their business acumen (and for the record, 99% of all HR/TA leaders could GREATLY improve their success by abiding by these. And no, you are not in the 1%, so go read them) »

🧮 Yes. Strategy is “future competitive advantage.” (I wish I understood why more TA leaders didn’t want this) »

🧮 10 trends in employer brands. It’s a good list, but it feels hollow. If you embraced every single one of these trends, but didn’t build from a point of meaningful differentiation, they don’t matter. None of the trends will help set you apart and make you the only choice for a particular audience. It just reinforces that your company is like every other company, only it is better at communicating that fact to the world.

🏛️ All 2,200+ articles from this newsletter are in a searchable archive. Go get ‘em!

“Wholeness does not mean perfection:
it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life.”
- Parker J Palmer

You can watch the full trailer here.

Or you can get a sense of what my new podcast project (The Definition of Insanity) will be like in less than a minute by watching this chat with Rory Sutherland:

The Definition of Insanity might be the ultimate change-making project. Subscribe wherever you get podcasts, you watch the videos by subscribing to YouTube.

Why your leadership will be thrilled that you invested in employer branding (even though your company isn’t massive): More effective recruiters and recruiting tactics lower hiring costs and attract a better grade of talent.

Why you should be thrilled to invest in employer branding: Because your leadership will see you as more strategic and creative.

All for roughly the same cost as a LinkedIn recruiter seat. Email me and I’ll show you how affordable (and impactful) an employer brand can be at your company.

Podcasts, videos, courses, articles, ebooks, buyer’s guide and pretty much anything you could need to learn about employer branding (or teach your boss about employer branding) can now be found at EmployerBrand.ing. Cool name, right???

***This Newsletter Contains No ChatGPT***

-James Ellis [LinkedIn] [Website]

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