The mission: Create a million employer brand thinkers (like you!)

Employer Brand Headlines is written by James Ellis. »» Yes, you should say hello! ««

First…

If you are a senior recruiter at a smaller business with less than 1,000 employees (or know someone who is), and you want some help building your employer brand without having to break the bank, I am offering my very first 6-week cohort class starting September 20th. Curious to learn more? Read this! Interested in being part of the very first class? Just reply to this email!

The Big Idea

Folks, I’m writing this the evening before I step on a plane to go to Mexico. It’s my first real vacation since covid hit (literally, as we came back from Mexico two weeks before the US went on lock down), and I can’t tell you how much I am looking forward to it, but also terrified of bringing my daughter and wife on an airplane for three and a half hours in an age where almost no one wears a mask.

That said, the US is having a holiday weekend and Europe seems to be back from its annual summer break. This is the perfect time to remind you that as much of your success will come from not doing things, in fact from stopping doing things, than some great campaign.

More to the point, it is really really hard to think of that next great idea, when 110% of your time is spent supporting and managing the stuff you’re already doing.

Did your best ideas come in the middle of re-writing that job posting for the fiftieth time or in grinding out the next ten images for Instagram? Or did they come to you in the shower, at the gym listening to a new podcast, or on a plane when there wasn’t anything good on the movie list? You have to give yourself space to invent the new, otherwise you’re going to burn yourself out maintaining the old.

So what are you going to stop doing? Pick something. Give it to someone else (give it to someone junior and tell them to reinvent it from a new perspective). Tell your boss it isn’t working. Just stop it.

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Headlines

For all the content we put out about our company and our culture, the truth is, 99.997% of companies are all but opaque in understanding, describing and revealing who they are as an actual employer. Imagine choosing to marry someone based purely on their Instagram account, where nothing but perfectly manicured images told you only what they wanted you to see, not anything actually real.

You can’t describe a culture based on what you all agree on. That’s like saying, “work for us, we love breathing!” You describe a culture by talking about your edge cases. I’m not interested in hearing that most scientists in your org have 2.3 kids and work 9 hour days. I’m interested in the one who has a bluegrass band, not because I’m a bluegrass fan, but because I want to know that the people who work there have lives. I don’t want to know that you care about work life balance, but I want to know that you gave someone an extra week off without asking after they obsessed over some problem and cracked things wide open. This doesn’t mean I expect an extra week, but it tells me how you treat people who push themselves.

The edge cases also show what you allow and how much "outside work” life you value. This doesn’t mean showing off the Chief People Officer’s dog so much as it is talking about how an executive assistant has been to 200 Yankee games (while living in Denver). Avoid the norms and embrace the edges.

Seth Godin tells a story in a podcast interview about giving a lecture in a major financial institution to their MBA interns. These are the cream of the crop from great schools around the world. He says, “good news! you’re all able to run a major new initiative with great funding and amazing scope. take out a piece of paper and write down two people in this room you want on the project.” Of course, it’s a lesson, but perhaps not one you’d expect. These “kids” who have learned to do what they were told to get the grade and get the internship were not in a place where that wasn’t useful. What was useful? Being the kind of person that others ask to join their projects. To be someone someone else put on their list. I bring this up because of this story that it isn’t talent or drive that creates success. Sometimes its just being someone people think “fit” with the team/culture.

The 'hidden talent' that determines success (“Cultural Quotient”)

Also:

Quick Programming Note

I’m teaming up with Clinch for an 8-part webinar series, where I talk to employer brand and talent acquisition pros about what’s new in tech hiring. The first one is next week with Equinix’s Jessica Rose. Register here!

Inside the fortune cookie

"You can’t improve on what went before unless you question it.” - Dave Trott

Thank you!

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Cheers and thanks!

-James Ellis (LinkedIn)

Thanks for reading. I bet you know some people who would really value this kind of thing.

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Where the subject line came from:

R.E.M. - Can’t Get There From Here

Well before its epic “Losing My Religion” or even its rocking “Orange Crush,” R.E.M. was an enigmatic collage radio band who didn’t like being in music videos or even putting lyrics on their album sleeves. But for five albums before Green propelled them into the spotlight, they put out a string of really good pop songs with a southern flair and genre-defining guitar work. Probably the most goofy of them is this track, where I’m pretty sure Michael Stipe is channeling a playing a pissed of Elvis impersonator. Don’t let the silly video and “oh look! we found a blue screen!” style fool you. This is a really good song.

If you are enjoying the music, congratulations, you’re old! Just for you, I made a Spotify playlist of all the subject line 80’s songs I’ve referenced over the last year and a half. You don’t even need hairspray to enjoy it:

Just stop. ⚗️ EBH#161: Can’t get there from…