⚡ Employer Brand Headlines: The "No Myth" Edition (#116)
My mission: move the conversation around employer brand forward.
Employer Brand Headlines, brought to you by James Ellis
In this issue
What’s the experience, Kenneth?
This is no “no brand”
Personal user manuals
A good talent newsletter?
The big idea
Last week, I described the “typical” candidate experience as a kind of pandering, a way to beg the candidate to “like” the company rather than as a means to intentionally incite and stoke an emotion within the candidate.
I’m not the first to complain that CX, when it is even considered at all, is thin enough to considered all but see-through. It’s a series of form emails and automated “Hello [firstname]” correspondence to create the theater of CX but without any heart or soul. It is facts and details about how to log into the interview, but not any reason why. It is a link to the interviewer’s LinkedIn profile but no mention of why they might be interested in talking to you.
And we call this an “experience.”
There are two major issues here, and they are related.
The first is that despite recruiters and sources being some of the most process-adverse people I’ve ever met, they love to force candidates into processes. That resume better have the information they expect to see (career stops with dates, education, skills, power words, etc) or it will float to the bottom of the pile. Application processes seem to be getting longer as we ask candidates filtering questions before we deign to look at the application. Applications are asking candidates what their salary expectations are without ever offering any sense of what the pay bands are.
Candidates are barbarians at the gate and it is only through the love of rigorous process can recruiters keep the hordes at bay.
That idea is directly connected to the second idea: despite the numbers and data around how many people are quitting and how hard it is to hire talent, companies still pretend they are in charge and can dictate terms. CX becomes the paint on the staged sets to make it look like companies care.
What does an experience feel like (please note the word “feel!”)? You tell me. What do you want a candidate to feel in the process? Do you want them to anticipate a meaningful conversation? Do you want them to feel like someone’s looking out for them? Do you want them to feel like they might belong? Or that a great opportunity awaits them? Do you want them scared or excited? Nervous or appreciative? This isn’t a trick or a rhetorical question. What do you want them to feel?
Now list ten things you might do (if money and time were no concern) to create that feeling. What would you say? What would you show? What would you share? What would you ask?
(For a master course on what it means to create an experience, take a look at Ann Hadley’s post about her experience going to a restaurant in Oslo. “It was like mental ASMR. Triggered by an email.”)
With the right context, with the right timing and the right intention, a single email can make the candidate spend a minute or two daydreaming about what they can look forward to in the interview, or in the job. You can create a little more desire instead of a form letter. You can build emotional connections instead of just ticking a box.
So what do you want your experience to feel like?
Headlines!
If You Don’t Tell Your Story, Someone Else Will
There’s no such thing as “no brand.”
Amid The Great Resignation, Perks And Pay Are No Longer Enough
So you’re saying being treated as cogs in a machine they can’t control doesn’t feel good? You don’t say…
www.thebrandberries.com • Share
How User Manuals Foster Team Development
I’m a fan of the idea of “user manuals” to help teams work together. I’m a bigger fan of making them public, helping candidates understand what they might be walking into.
Are You Trying to Retain the Right Employees?
Talent within an organization is a system. Each action has intended and unintended consequences.
37 Tasks Every Marketer Should Automate
If “automation” isn’t on your to-do list for 2022, you will almost certainly be losing ground. This also includes reporting.
Finally, a good Talent Marketing newsletter
I’m not going to say this is the best way to do a talent newsletter, but it definitely is the RIGHT way to THINK about your talent newsletter.
The New Way to Measure Recruitment Marketing
“New” may not be the exact right word, but there are a lot of good ideas to steal here.
rallyrecruitmentmarketing.com • Share
Innovation theatre doesn’t just kill startups. It kills innovation managers, too
Via Hung Lee, there’s so much “oh god, I know that pain!” in this article for any employer brander…
Improve Workplace Culture with a Powerful Strategy: Bystander Training
A lot of interesting ideas here that can be applied to EB (since EB is everyone’s job, you know).
What does the future of personalization look like?
The most powerful means of connection is making information and communication feel more personalized. Treat people like individuals, not like a persona.
Inside the fortune cookie
“'But which is the stone that supports the bridge?‘ Kublai Khan asks.
'The bridge is not supported by one stone or another,’ Marco answers, ‘but by the line of the arch that they form.'”
-Italo Calvino
Thanks, everyone!
There are now more than 1,100 links in the link archive. Enjoy!
Reminder: The more people at your org who read my books, the better your job will get! employerbrandbook.com (They’re free!!!)
Finally, if you have a question, just reply to this email and it comes directly to me.
Cheers and thanks!
-James Ellis (LinkedIn | Twitter | Podcast | Articles)
Where the subject line came from:
Michael Penn - No Myth
By James Ellis, Employer Brand Nerd
In a sea of content, how do you stay up to date on employer branding news? How do you know what's worth reading and what's just a waste of time?
So glad you asked! Here's a weekly digest of the best content to make you smarter about employer branding, curated by James Ellis.
In order to unsubscribe, click here.
If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe here.
Powered by Revue
James Ellis, 421 W Melrose, Chicago, IL 60657