Lessons from 1,000 EB posts 🔬 (EBH#175: Message of Love)
And yes, job postings are still hot garbage. Have we learned nothing?!?!?!
Mission: Create a million employer brand thinkers (like you!)
Employer Brand Headlines is written by James Ellis, Employer Brand Nerd.
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First…
Signups for both the EVP Masterclass workshop (where HRBPs, recruiters and TA leaders build their own actionable employer brand with confidence) and the Employer Brand Mastermind (where a few people get together to do deep brainstorming with me to activate their brands) are underway. Seating for each class is limited, so get your spot today!
The Big Idea
This last week, as I was building employer brand activation reports that some of you asked for (want one? request one!), I realized that in one week, I had looked at and evaluated 1,000 pieces of employer brand content against a common framework.
Did I learn anything from this rather weird endeavor? Oh you bet I did.
One: When it comes to social content, companies are still focusing on “ticking boxes”
Everyone knows they should be talking about the importance of diversity and inclusion. Everyone knows that they should talk about how much they support their teams. Everyone knows how much candidates want to hear about professional development and empowerment.
So companies post about all those things, just without saying anything of value.
A post about DEI might be that the company invited a well-known speaker to address the company about the importance of the subject, but not talking about the substance of the meeting, what people learned, how people might change, policy ideas that came from the talk, or, well… anything. I found MANY posts like this, where I went looking around for the link to the video or blog post that offered more information than “this person spoke” and came up empty.
And it’s not just DEI. It’s every single subject of consequence. Companies are willing to talk loudly, but that doesn’t mean they are saying anything.
This means that the company must be willing to say something, stand for something, do something has the chance to make a mark. Because otherwise LinkedIn is mostly Potemkin Village employer brand content.
Two: Ephemera Is King
The Happy Thanksgiving post that is really just some clip art and some “from our family to yours” copy. The “we’re watching the world cup” post. The “we hired a new VP of something-or-other” post. The “we got invited to speak at an event you’re not invited to” post. The “we’re putting up holiday decorations” post. The “we care about #WorldSomethingDay” post. The “this person just celebrated their 7th work anniversary” post.
And everyone’s favorite, the “we’re hiring” post.
None of it means anything to a candidate. None of it says what working there is like. None of it speaks to the actual culture or working style. And there is so much of it! It’s just all greeting cards and slogans, looking like something that might be a “peek behind the curtain” but isn’t really a peak behind anything.
Three: Job Announcements Are Still Hot Garbage
Look, we use these channels to hire. I get that. The best employer brand in the world that doesn’t attract the right talent and create action isn’t really a good brand at all.
But who convinced us that posting a “we’re hiring/join us” post must be completely vacuous?! That they can’t support the brand or deliver a more meaningful message while their driving action at the same time?!
Got a open role? Start by talking about how that role supports the company goals, or how the unique culture means that you’re looking for a specific kind of person for the role. Illustrate the brand promise by talking about what the new hire will get in this job. THEN link to the job.
It’s not that hard, so why are 40-50% of all job posts nothing more than an announcement of open roles, maybe with a Canva-based image (that only says “we’re hiring”) and a link to the job (or worse, the career site where the candidate will be asked to fend for themselves)?
Four: Here is something that’s really nothing. Click here to read something potentially interesting about it.
Picture it. You’ve got an amazing profile of one of your staff. Or maybe a team volunteered and did something local-news-coverage-worthy. Or there was an initiative where you sent 30 staff away to learn about something amazing and they just finished it.
These stories are employer brand gold. They can illustrate what your company cares about, how it invests in its people, provide role models of what amazing employees are like (and wouldn’t you want to work alongside them?).
But here is what gets posted on LinkedIn:
Anna Bouvier isn’t your typical developer. Click here to learn about her struggles as a coder.
OR
Charlie Denningham loves goats. Click here to discover his story.
ORErica Francisco’s journey as a trans nurse isn’t unusual. Click here to find out why they chose to work here.
So first off, if you get the gift of someone’s attention and they are looking at your posts on your page or on their feed, why aren’t you taking advantage of that gift? Why are you treating the social post as a gatekeeper to the actual content?
If you have something to share, something to offer, something to say, and even if the fates decree that you have to keep it a click away, why aren’t using the post to say something that will encourage some to click. These posts feel click bait when they don’t have to. You’re not getting paid by the click. If you can instill the brand promise in someone without them clicking, why wouldn’t you do that?
Because I hate to tell you, but only 5% of the people who see that post are going to click. That means you’re throwing away the opportunity to inform 95% of the people who’s eyeballs you got for a moment. They will walk away without learning anything at all about you and that feels criminal to me.
Five: Video does not magically make things better
I was stunned by the number of posts that came with videos that… said nothing. They were pre-meme-era gifs where a “happy halloween” headline bounced into view… and that was it.
Video on LinkedIn isn’t autoplay. The viewer has to click something to make the video play. Which means the video can’t be there for decoration. It must convey meaning. Otherwise, the reader/viewer feels like you just wasted their time (because you did).
And even when the video was more than a gif, making someone watch for fifteen seconds while you ran pre-roll and your logo and a title card that told me what the video was about to tell me.
And video that are so glossy that they look like they were recorded on a soundstage? Yeah, don’t. Your employer brand video isn’t here to impress with its production quality. It’s only goal is to say something of meaning to the prospect and candidate.
So say something of meaning, whether you’re using video or not.
Next week, I’ll share the rest of this list.
Strategy Idea
Do Not Fight The Last War. As of this moment, companies seem to be bending over backwards to show how much they care about their people. This is a clear reaction to Covid/lockdown/WFH/burnout. There will come a time (and I suspect it’s coming sooner rather than later), where harping on your benefits and how much you care won’t be as effective (in a way, talking about it 2-3 years ago was radical because no one else was talking about it). The same with channels. Twitter was a core channel five years ago, but who’s left on Twitter having the kind of conversation that would engage a recruiter? Don’t get caught in the trap of preparing for and fighting the previous war. Just because you were good at it doesn’t mean you shuldn’t always be perpetually trying and testing new ideas.
The Employer Brand Minute
This week on the Employer Brand Minute: how to talk about your work culture in a way that matters, showing up, and what it takes to be a professional employer brander. Watch them all here.
Headlines
Here’s some truth: your employer brand doesn’t need to be magical. It doesn’t have to feel like a genius insight.
Why? Because brand success is as much (if not more) and perpetual messaging and surrounding people with your messaging as it is about what makes your company a beautiful perfect snowflake.
The EVP gets all the spotlight, but brands win or lose on how well you can make your brand message ubiquitous. For spend your efforts finding ways to get that message across.
Also:
"I don't have talent, so I just get up earlier." – Henry Rollins
Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help you:
EVP Masterclass Hands-on Workshop: Develop your own Employer Brand/EVP with confidence alongside other recruiting leaders in my next guided cohort.
EB Mastermind Group: Develop better, more creative and more effective activation strategies by brainstorming with others.
Coaching and support: Email me and we’ll set up time to talk 1:1 about how I can help you or your company take advantage of your employer brand.
Cheers and thanks!
-James Ellis (LinkedIn)
Resources:
Search all 1,700+ links historically referenced in the article archive.
Download 105 free (or almost free) ways to activate your employer brand.
Read Talent Chooses You for free from this open source Google Doc.
Here’s the 2022 version of The Employer Brand Manifesto.
220+ episodes of The Talent Cast podcast.
Where the subject line came from:
The Pretenders - Message of Love
My theory is that at the time, there was no better student of rock and roll than Chrissie Hynde (there are stories that she started the band just to meet The Kinks’ Ray Davies, with whom she eventually had a long relationship and a child). From the first note of their first album, there isn’t bad move taken. The first album is a jaw-dropper, from the mid-tempo groove Brass in Pocket to the ‘60’s R&B of Stop Your Sobbing, into the punkier Tattooed Love Boys and (my person fave) the angular The Wait.
The second album feels like an extension of the first, as Christie (and secret weapon drummer Martin Chambers). It doesn’t feel as much like someone planting a flag like the first album, but a band smirking to itself because they know how much more they had to say. And this track is the anthem.
Enjoy!
If you are enjoying the music, congratulations, you have great taste in music and/or 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:
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