Let's catch up!

🥫🍟 < Me trying to invent a ketchup emoji

Hey!

A lot of things are changing behind the scenes which will change the content you’ll be seeing soon. Rather than switch it up on you, I wanted to just tell you what’s going on.

1: The Book!!!! Becoming Choosable is done as a draft. I have asked a bunch of people I know to take a look at it, but if you’d like to be one of ten pre-readers, just reply to this email. My goal is to completely change everything you think you know about employer branding. (Scheduled launch date: Jan 5, 2026 on Amazon.)

2: The Canvas!!! One of the big ideas in the book is the “Choosability Canvas.” It’s a model you work through and fill in to ensure your employer branding (or recruitment messaging) is strategic and useful. While the book has three actual case studies, my plan is to make a video every week where I apply the Choosability Canvas to a company so you can see how it works. So The Next Step will soon be renamed to “Choosable” or some other semi-clever title I haven’t figured out yet.

3: Keynotes!! I am currently booking keynotes in 2026 for “Becoming Choosable.” If you want your organization to see what it takes to become more choosable as an employer (and the way it grows the company), reply to this email and let’s book some dates. (If you want to bring me into your industry/member group, I’ve earmarked 4 keynotes sessions for these groups at no cost. I’d love it if you’d connect me with whomever books your events.)

4: Quizzes! Want to see how “modern” your current recruiting practices are? Take this 2-minute quiz. Want to see if your employer brand is actually being useful (or just being pretty) take this 2-minute quiz! They’re all free!

5: Video: Catch up with some amazing independent practitioners! Mike Peditto talks about why Virality is a Curse, Anna Morgan talks about Connecting IRL, Rhona Pierce fixes Content Crimes, Brian Fink Gets Perplexed, and Rocki Howard wants you to Build Like a Human!

6: Mitch!!!! Mitch Sullivan has made his “Job Posting/Job Ad Grader” free! Paste in a job and you’ll instantly see how well it will do in attracting the people your hiring manager is waiting for.

7: 20 Minutes to Change Your Work?

Free fast session with my friends at Hire Value coming Tuesday Nov 18th. Register here!

Wow, that was a LOT!!!!

If you’d like to talk about employer branding at your company, I still make time to do that too!

Thanks for reading!

-James Ellis [ website | Linkedin ]

Just because: Fun photo AI made for me: