⚡ Employer Brand Headlines: The "Mothers Talk" Edition (#122)
My mission: move the conversation around employer brand forward.
Employer Brand Headlines, brought to you by James Ellis
In this issue
What’s wrong with metrics?
Standing out
Get niched
What do employees want now?
The big idea
What do employer branders talk about when they get together?
Where should EB live?
What platform(s) do you use?
What do you measure?
And honestly, the measurement question is probably top of mind because it is also topic of discussion with our bosses.
On some level, the question of measurement is natural as our roles don’t have a natural profit function. Doing our job well supports the company, but there’s no pile of money we can point to that says, “I made or saved all this cash!” to justify our existence (let alone a raise).
Is it useful that you are increasing candidate quality? Yep. Is it good that more people are visiting your website? Maybe? Is it positive that we have more followers? I guess. But is that all metrics are good for?
All the standard metrics a marketer might use are all based on “more” and we don’t deal in more. What is the optimal number of applicants per role? How many pages should a candidate see before applying? How many leads/pipeline applications should we have?Trick questions! There is no right answer to any of those questions.
The other issue is that all too often, once set into place, we learn to game the metrics. We do things to increase our numbers of followers without wondering if they are the kinds of followers we want. Making the charts go up becomes its own goal, whether or not it drives the business.
There is another way to leverage metrics. Rather than focus on successes, what if you used your metrics to find failure points?
If we assume that employer branding has an inherently positive impact on the business’s ability to attract, hire and retain talent, (here’s the only argument you need to make: would you rather compete against a company with a strong employer brand or no employer brand) what’s the value in increasing click rates by .2% compared to the value of discovering that one of your outreach emails is 20% less effective at engaging a prospect? What’s the value of 100 more engagements on LinkedIn compared to learning that no one is watching your day-in-the-life videos? You can days and weeks polishing one video and hardly see an increase in use or conversion. Better metrics will tell you that that time would be better spent extending to a new channel or making different social stingers for that video,
Rather than focus on using metrics to make yourself look good, you should use the, to figure out where to spend your time.
Headlines!
How to Stand Out to Steal the Best Talent
You HAVE to be different. Otherwise you’re playing “follow the leader” which is a game ONLY the leader wins…
The Value in Niching Down Your Brand
How can you properly differentiate without losing talent opportunities? Don’t go big. Go small. Really small.
How to Build a Successful Brand Ambassador Program
I very much appreciate the setup in this article: There are two influencers: they external celebrities you pay and the internal staff (who you also pay, I assume).
www.brandingbusiness.com • Share
Saying you have a purpose, and living that purpose collectively every day are two VERY different things.
www.strategy-business.com • Share
Should Employers Rethink What They’re Offering Workers?
Who wins the “great resignation?” The companies who build an employee-first company…
knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu • Share
How Nonprofits Can Encourage Donors to Give More
You know how in coffee shops you see two tip cans listed “dogs” and “cats?” Creating a choice (even one so thin as dogs v cats) creates more tips. But when we offer a job, there is no choice. What if you offered a simple choice at the offer: Do you want your bonus in cash or in stock? Do you want a mac or PC? Would that increase your offer acceptance rate? (I bet it would.)
Do you have a masterplan in place when it comes to your internal comms?
Rolling out a new project? Build your IC plan NOW.
Breaking up Is Hard to Do in Employer Branding
When a company breaks up (or is broken up), the best strategy for employer brand is to be as active in the process. You can even leverage the story of the break AS your brand (as an intermediate solution).
Developing Your Employer Brand Through Viral Video Content
Might be helpful in kick-starting your video plans.
I can assure you: time spent seeing what happens with an imperfect product in the wild is FAR better than time spent perfecting the product before anyone sees it.
The Role Of Social Media In Recruitment
Is social media the best way to communicate culture and reputation for recruiting?
www.thebrandberries.com • Share
Inside the fortune cookie
“A great many people think that they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” -William James
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.
Don’t forget: the Talent Chooses You audio book starts streaming in January as season two of The Talent Cast.
Cheers and thanks!
-James Ellis (LinkedIn | Twitter | Podcast | Articles)
Where the subject line came from:
Tears for Fears - Mothers Talk (HQ)
By James Ellis, Employer Brand Nerd
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