The Law of Desire ❤️🫀 EBH
Tell me what you want, what you really, really want
In this week’s episode of The Brand Plan, Marcus and I reveal our killer questions that help you avoid pitfalls and traps while you work. TheBrandPlan.show or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Law #1: The Law of Strategy (video)
Law #2: The Law of Focus
Law #3: The Law of Perception
Law #4: The Law of Ownership
Law #5: The Law of Impact
Law #6 : The Law of Desire
Employer Blanding Is Fatal
Let’s play a game. I’ll make up a company (FakeCorp) and spend $10,000 posting fake job postings to job boards.
Now, there is no company of this name, so you won’t be surprised to learn that there’s no career site, LinkedIn channel, Glassdoor reviews, videos on YouTube, or anything at all beyond the job post (that quite clearly says, “sponsored” next to it).
So with all that in mind, I have a question: Do you expect to get a quality applicant out of this?
$10,000 isn’t a small amount of money. For many companies, it is their complete annual recruiting ad budget. For that kind of spend (according to vendors), you should expect good candidates to apply.
But is that what you expect will happen?
Me neither.
I would expect that what you’ll get a pile of resumes of people who mostly didn’t even read the fake job posting. They will be people who don’t come close to meeting the most basic qualifications. (I’m not talking “if it offers six requirements and you only meet five, apply anyway” way of thinking, but more in an “in any rational world, if I hired this person for this role, I'd get fired and then sued for negligence” way.)
You might get dozens or even hundreds of applications, but will any of them be worth the bytes their resumes are stored on?
Nope.
This little thought experiment is here to prove something simple: for all the work you do and the money you spend, you can’t choose quality candidates to apply until they’ve chosen you first. This requires having a reason to choose you.
But we generally offer rather paltry reasons to choose you. Benefits? They look like everyone else’s. A DEI statement? Meaningless without examples that define the shape of your commitment. “Good Place to Work” badge on the career site? Anyone can pay for those.
Most candidate experiences between “awareness” and “application” look exactly the same. Even when companies are legitimately different somehow, they do a horrible job communicating that differentiated value.
Consequently, we live in the world of employer blanding. But that doesn’t have to be a fatal diagnosis.
Instead of thinking about how to attract people, you should be thinking about how to create the desire for what you have to offer.
It seems weird to see the word “desire” in relation to recruiting, and that in itself is strange. Don’t you want people to want to work at your company? Don’t you want them to want what you have to offer? Don’t you want them to want what you offer so much, that they ignore recruiters from other companies? Isn’t that what your hiring managers, your HRBPs, and your leaders want?
So let’s embrace the word “desire” because it rather accurately describes the core of employer branding and recruiting success.
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I’m giving away some free consulting! Reply to this email and we’ll set up a sessions where I’ll answer any three questions you have for free. The only catch? We’ll record it and it might turn into something! I’ve already got two people signed up, so hit reply if you’re interested.
***This Newsletter Contains No ChatGPT***
-James Ellis [LinkedIn] [Website]
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