⚡ Employer Brand Headlines: The "I Don’t Mind At All" Edition (#123)

James Ellis

Dec 13, 2021

My mission: move the conversation around employer brand forward.

Employer Brand Headlines, brought to you by James Ellis

In this issue

Feels like starting over
Running your own PR
Rethinking job postings (for real!)

The big idea

It sure seems like everyone in EB has gotten a new role in the last six months (and I am no exception). Leaving aside how strange it is to play musical chairs (and see who got jobs I interviewed for), this means that there a lot of people effectively starting over.

Sure, you bring your skills and experiences along, but so much of what we do is about understanding and connecting to the local landscape, the terroir of the company we are working for. You became a kind of Workday expert, but the new gig is on Greenhouse. You need to build a CRM from scratch instead of adopting one (and how does one choose?). You have new recruiters and leadership. You have new values to communicate. If you switch industries, learning the competitive field and terminology is a job in itself.

In such a circumstance, there will almost certainly be a moment where you wonder, “do I even know what I’m doing?”

In the face of such much newness, as you stumble on the learning curve, you may face a little self-doubt.

I tend to look at every day I don’t deliver something of meaning value as a day wasted, so you can imagine how much self doubt I run into as I try and ramp up.

And while I’m going through my competitive analysis and reading old decks and documents, I have to remind myself that this process isn’t is part of the process. More than that, this process helps me see the company with eyes unburdened with knowledge. I can see opportunities that everyone else seems to have neglected (or chosen to ignore because of an old leader or an old circumstance).

It starts by remembering that while you “own” a brand, you are really there to facilitate other people’s understanding of the brand. You’re there to orchestrate rather than solo. Your value is that you can see the brand more like a candidate can see it.

So as you jump into something new, remember that you won’t get far trying to blaze in astride a white stead or some such. The pain and frustration that comes from starting at zero isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. It forces you to see the company as it is rather than how others want you to see it.

So slow down a beat and see what’s in front of you. Starting from scratch will only happen once in this job, so take advantage of it.

Headlines!

Employer Brand Awards That Matter

My current thinking on employer awards is simple: 90% of them are game-able or buyable and most of your top talent know that. That said, winning one of these suggests that you put a little consideration into trying to win the award for being a good employer. Every award beyond the first has limited marginal value. But that’s my 2 cents.

bluivygroup.com • Share

Want to Stop the Great Resignation? Start Building Inclusive Workplaces

No shit.

knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu • Share

How Hunter Got 100+ Mentions in 3 Months With Cold Outreach

I’m starting to spend time thinking about how to include PR in my brand work. Having spent the last year watching actual PR people ply their craft (turns out it is a lot more than just spamming the bejesus out of podcasters and writers), I know it isn’t something I can “just do.” So this article was a nice reminder that there are advantages I have as a non-PR pro.

blog.hubspot.com • Share

9 Tips to Improve Your Careers Page and Attract Talent

A lot of usual suspects here (video! social! better job postings!). And having just finished a job search, every company with more than ~1k people is already doing most (if not all) of these. My question is: what comes next?

talentculture.com • Share

How Midsize Firms Can Attract — and Retain — Talent Right Now

I’m kinda stunned (in a good way) that HBR nailed the first step in developing a talent strategy: Define the actual problem! Most articles just jump to “99 hacks to tricking people into hitting the apply button” thinking.

hbr.org • Share

It’s Time to Rethink Job Descriptions for the Digital Era

Nice thinking, but not revolutionary. (Right now, my go-to in “wow, I love that job posting” is Whereby. They do a LOT of things right.)

hbr.org • Share

Developing Strategy for New Customer Expectations

I’m not wheeling out that old “candidates are customers” chestnut (they aren’t), there are a LOT of lingering biases used in consumer seep into our thinking and limit our work. Turns out, those biases are falling apart.

sloanreview.mit.edu • Share

100m Articles Analyzed: What You Need To Write The Best Headlines

In case you missed this from Hung Lee’s Brainfood, the key reason to read this is NOT to change your methods to “best practices” (i.e. what to do when you don’t have a strategy), but to spark other ways of thinking about your headlines, subject lines, and outreach messages that need to connect, engage and drive action (all in the space of 20 words).

buzzsumo.com • Share

Is Email Marketing Inbound or Outbound? 10 Examples & Top Differences

An interesting way to think about your email strategy.

blog.hubspot.com • Share

How to Convince Yourself to Do Hard Things

Hastag “this is really for me, but maybe you need to hear it, too.”

hbr.org • Share

Inside the fortune cookie

“We don’t remember days, we remember moments.” -Caesar Pavese

Thanks, everyone!

There are now more than 1,200 links in the link archive. Enjoy!

Finally, if you have a question, just reply to this email and it comes directly to me.