The least risky option 🌂☔
People don't always want the best option
You don’t need a video to hire well.
Building one video to try and tell your employer brand strategy isn’t going to cut it. At best, it is a starting point. Because you don’t need a video, you need a video strategy. To attract the talent you want, you need to communicate what it’s really like to work at your company from multiple teams, and multiple levels. That’s how you create relevance. That means you need a way to generate lots of personable and engaging videos of real people at your company. A platform that makes that easy to build and easy to manage. Sounds like Vouch.
[Sponsored]
I want you to try something.
Walk up to a stranger in a busy public place and make them an offer: you’ll give them a $100 bill and they’ll give you a $1 bill.
Show them the bill.
Let them hold the bill in their hands.
It’s a slam dunk. They’ll get $99 for nothing.
But that’s not what will happen.
You’ll have a lot of people calmly backing away from you, maintaining eye contact, but very clearly suspicious of this amazing deal.
To recruiters, this probably sounds incredibly familiar. Here you are, with an opportunity to give someone where they will make more money, have better hours, maybe come in fewer days a week, maybe with extra vacation and some extra stock.
A real slam dunk, right?
And any recruiter will tell you that 80-95% of people they reach out to with that kind of deal will reject it.
And on the face of it, that seems insane.
Why would anyone walk away from free money or the chance at an amazing (more lucrative, more satisfying) new job?
Because that’s not how people make choices. People don’t always seek to maximize their options.
Let’s try this. Which would you rather have: a $1 bill that you can see and hold in your hand or a $10 bill that I tell you is under this opaque bowl? You’d pick the sure thing 99 times out of 100, right? You’d pick the safer option.
This time, if the options were a $1 bill you could hold or a $1,000 bill under a bowl you can’t see, the fact that the
It turns out that increasing the reward doesn’t change anyone’s mind. It will likely convince the other person that this is all a scam.
Take a different approach. You’re in a foreign country and you’re hungry. Someone said that there’s an amazing place for lunch down the block. Best gyros you’ll ever eat, they said. And next to it is a McDonald’s. You might be surprised how many people choose McDonald’s.
Why? Because if you’re traveling, the worst thing you can do is get food poisoning. And choosing a restaurant when you have to immediately get back in the car isn’t about picking the most delicious option, but in picking the place least likely to put you in the bathroom for long stretches.
In recruiting, we know we have a great company to talk about. Or a great job on offer. We might wonder why people aren’t lined up to hear about it.
It’s because we’re talking about the wrong things. Rather than talk about the perks and the potential salary and the amazing co-workers, focus on creating a safe choice.
Maybe it’s leadership’s track record for success. Maybe it’s that the last three product releases were award-winning. Maybe the person who was in this job last got promoted (and would you like to talk to them directly)?
Instead of focusing on the features, TA teams (and I include employer branders in this list as well) should be focused first on creating credibility with the candidates.
You can’t show the candidate that this job is a great choice until you prove to them that it is a safe choice.
🎆 10 Questions To Ask in Your Employer Brand Manager Interview »
✨ How to present to your CEO (speed and prep work are key) »
🎆 The importance of thinking about emotions when conveying the brand »
🎇 They do highly technical work, but they don’t have college degrees. Meet the “new collar” workers coming to your office now »
🎆 Building the perfect hiring experience for candidates (one that serves recruiters, hiring managers and even candidates) »
✨ 5 key trends in AI and data science (we’re all going to end up data scientists when this is all over, aren’t we?) »
🎇 How to align what you say with what you do (this is about personal alignment, but let’s get real: this should also be true of your brand) »
🧠🔌 AI Idea of the Week: What you need to anticipate in ChatGPT’s second year » (and other expectations in AI for 2024 »)
🏛️ All 2,200+ articles from this newsletter are in a searchable archive. Go get ‘em!
I think we’ve all become very used to thinking about and describing employer brand in terms of “makes job posts better!” and “gives candidates a reason to choose!”
And while that’s all true, in a very real sense, employer branding is a kind of recruiter enablement, giving them the differentiated value they need to start out in a crowded talent market, ensuring that there are abundant proof points on the career site, social media and review sites, connecting the work of multiple teams to deliver a coherent and credible message.
Without a brand to tie people, messages and strategies, recruiters are effectively out on their own, trying to bring talent back to the company. And that’s a tough way to work.
I launched two courses on Udemy this week
Employer Brand for Recruiters ($19.99)
Employer Branding for Small Business ($24.99)
At the moment, it looks like Udemy is offering either course for $12.99 so check them out!
NEW: Employer Brand Buyer’s Guide »
105 free (or almost free) ways to activate your brand »
Employer Brand Breakdown series »
Biotech Recruiting limited run email course »
Proof employer brand works »
Biotech Recruiting Chat series »
Employer Brand minute series »
The Brand Plan podcast »
The Talent Cast podcast »
On-demand video courses »
***This Newsletter Contains No ChatGPT***
-James Ellis [LinkedIn] [Website]
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