The Power of a Big Goal 🏅🏆
It's its own reward!
A quick question.
What's the value of increasing your outreach conversion by 10%? 🧲
Or having 20% more of your offers accepted? 🤝
Or lowering your RPO/agency spend by 15%? 💰
Or building a predictable pipeline of talent? 🚰
I bet that’s worth a whole lot more than $1,500 a month.
Learn about how you can bring all the value of a strong employer brand to your team by thinking of it as a service.
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The high jump is a strange sport: jump over the highest bar you can.
Up until the 20th century, all jumpers did a scissor kick, throwing one leg over first. For forty years, this technique never allowed anyone to jump higher than 1.94m.
Then at the turn of the century, the Eastern Cut-off technique was born, which took the scissor method and added a flattened back to the approach. That lead to forty years of development, allowing people to cross the 2m threshold.
For those of you who know sports (or, in all honestly, read books that talk about innovation), you might know that the Fosbury Flop technique where it looks like you’re going backwards over the bar. Invented by Dick Fosbury, he used it to win the 1998 olympics in Mexico City. But he didn’t set a world record with it. Most people know that this technique changed the sport, but what they may not know is that the technique didn’t start setting records until 5 years later Dwight Stones used it to set three world records across three years.
Why tell you this story?
Because it is exceedingly common for people to see a new process and copy it, optimize it, and expect only minor or incremental improvements over time.
Look at recruiting. Who said the modern ATS was the greatest way to recruit and hire (no really, I want names, because that person needs to help accountable)? That sending as many cold InMails to strangers was how you sourced. That the application>screen>interview>panel>offer model of hiring was some platonic ideal.
When we accept the constraints we’re given, if we play follow the leader and just do what vendors and blogs tell us to do, we will never see more than minor improvements.
But the Fosbury Flop shows that a change might seem like a potential step down at first, but until we try radical new ideas, until we’re willing to reject incremental improvements, that’s all we’ll ever get.
And the trouble with incremental improvements isn’t that they are small, it’s that EVERYONE is ALREADY MAKING THEM. That means TA leaders are effectively running to stand still.
The way to change could be to take a clean sheet of paper and reinvent from scratch. But we’re surrounded by “the normal way to do things” that it’s hard to really stretch. A fish who’s spent its whole life in water not only can’t conceive of what “air” is, it would be hard-pressed to notice how a lifetime in water has shaped it.
Instead, let’s take a different approach to change.
Let’s set an insane goal for ourselves and our team. Something that’s a 2x or a 10x of what we can see today.
What’s an insane goal?
To set your team up to do zero outreach in 2025.
To attract and engage Nobel-caliber talent.
To attract the people who never look at job boards or apply for jobs.
To do the kind of recruiting that the CEO sees. Or celebrates. Or takes part in.
We live in a world where “incremental lift” is the safest approach, but that has it’s own limitations baked in. We might never have crossed the 2m mark in high jump unless a few brave few were willing to look like fools for an instant before discovery glory.
There is safety is exploiting and optimizing what exists. Real change comes when you are willing to explore and experiment:
Imagine a team, a process and a company where the goal is to achieve the most fun and exciting recruiting in the world. Imagine how radical a change this would be, not just for you, but in your ability to be creative and achieve out-sized results.
Oh! I announced this on LinkedIn, but never told you! If you’re an employer brand specialist who wants to level up (better outcomes, promotions, new job, etc), I’m starting Employer Brand Group Therapy. $250 for 5 weeks of live-via-zoom conversations, we’ll talk about anything you want to talk about, from how to get seen by leadership, how to show your value to more people, to building stronger resumes. The group is limited to 10 people starting in early March, so if you’re interested, just reply to this email.
🏆 Can you write a “layoff email” that doesn’t absolutely SUCK? It turns out that yes. Yes, you can »
🏅 For all the “we’re a fun place to work” videos, I introduce evidence that what most people really want is to do hard work that means something »
🏆 The strongest brands provide value to their customers. I’m going to say that in a different way to make sure you heard it: Strong brands don’t make claims or extract value from their customers, they actually give their users value. So I wonder: what value is your employer brand giving to candidates and employees? »
🏅 The goal of a brand is to influence future action. Here’s some academic evidence that brands can do exactly that (in case someone’s asking about ROI) »
🏆 A strategy isn’t a specific document or deck. Sometimes, it’s a story you tell. More interestingly, sometimes, the act of telling a story creates its own strategy »
🏅 On one hand, we have Tik Tok’s DEI policies (updated just five months ago). On the other, we have this executive saying that women were required to “remain quiet and humble at all times.” I’m not saying who’s right here, but I am saying DEI policies are no match for the culture you build »
🏆 Yes, you really should be using your employees to amplify your brand voice »
🏅 I hate calling it a trick or a hack, but all negotiation is built on getting the other side to committing to something. This is especially true when it comes to salary negotiation »
🏆 Here are seven proven strategies to reduce turnover. Missing: actually caring about your employee’s outcomes. I wonder if anyone’s tried to prove that one… »
🏅 Ten communication strategies to better engage candidates. Here’s one they missed, even though I see a LOT of recruiters doing it: Spot using the default messaging language! »
🏛️ All 2,300+ articles from this newsletter are in a searchable archive. Go get ‘em!
Most employer brands (and recruiting) doesn’t actually speak to what candidates really want. No wonder candidates aren’t lining up to apply.
Let me bottom line this whole conversation:
Talented and in-demand people have deeper motivations than “I want a job.”
Candidate experiences remain 100% geared around what the company likes to say rather than what the candidate is desperate to learn.
Hiring managers NEED to have a personal brand to attract great people
People often join companies to transform or prove themselves.
Yes, it’s a nice long conversation. But it’s worth it. And don’t miss the next episode (dropping tomorrow) with Rory Sutherland, who talks about… I don’;t even know how to encapsulate it. But you won’t want to miss it! Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or over at The Definition of Insanity show.
All my resources (and they are legion) are now being stashed in one spot: EmployerBrand.ing. It includes the brand new “ChatGPT Prompts for Employer Branders” ebook and the first episode of The Definition of Insanity.
***This Newsletter Contains No ChatGPT***
-James Ellis [LinkedIn] [Website]
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