The Three-Dimensional Brand 🌎🌍🌏

Building more than a flat employer brand

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Take a look at this drawing:

It may take a moment to realize that what you’re looking at is just a flat piece of paper. It’s a tromp l'oeil: a drawing or painting designed to fool the eye. It’s particular magic is that it makes nothing feel like… something.

Here’s what’s interesting about this drawing:

Without the shadows, this is a drawing of random blue squiggles.

With the shadows, the random blue squiggles suddenly become something. It feels like a three dimensional scene of a piece of paper being crumpled up.

The shadows create meaning. They create depth, turning something completely flat into something that looks and feels credible and real.

Employer brands are often like that: Flat. A series of pleasant sounding words and pictures about how lovely your company is. And since there are a limit to the number of pleasant words in the english language, those words get used over and over, making so many employer brands seem like uninspired Xerox’s of other companies. That’s classic employer blanding.

An employer brand isn’t useful or valuable until it feels real.

So how do you make it feel more real? By drawing in the shadows.

“The shadows” in this case being the things that aren’t 100% positive about your company.

Think of a mountain. The sun shines down on it. The mountain is all the stuff that’s great about your company. Yay! But because there’s a mountain there, the sun also casts a shadow. The shadow is all the less-than-pleasant realities about working at our company.

Most companies bend over backwards to hide their shadow. Theirs is a company of nothing but sunshine and puppies, an unending series of green lights.

Except I live in the real world and know no such company exists.

You know it, too.

When you erase the shadows, you end up with something fake looking. A cartoon.

But when you draw the shadows in, when you acknowledge the realities, you create something far far far more credible.

Remember, the shadows exist BECAUSE of the mountain. Thus, the shadows prove the mountain exists.

So if you offer innovation, the shadow might be how fast/chaotic things move.

If you offer empowerment, the shadow is a lack of central control.

If you offer performance, the shadow is a cutthroat culture.

If you offer support, the shadow might be a lack of agility.

These shadows already exist. Go look at your Glassdoor ratings. That’s often what people are complaining about. But that doesn’t mean your company is doing something wrong. It is proof of what your brand is offering.

That’s what it takes to build a three dimensional employer brand.

💔 Gen Z broke the marketing funnel »

🌐 The case for transparency: Can you really empower people if can’t see the bigger picture? Can you align people to a mission is they can’t see how things are going? Offering stability without transparency is selling an empty paper bag. »

💀 “Gamifying Employee Engagement” makes me itch. Yes, it’s a “fun game” to squeeze value out of people, but where does that game lead? »

🌐 Hone your leadership language »

🙄 Cannot roll eyes enough… 🙄🙄🙄 For all the chatter about “what matters is the outputs and outcomes,” it turns out that managers actually value AI-enabled work as being less valuable. »

🌐 I’m so used to seeing this as an employer brand convo, but it turns out even corporate branding doesn’t have a clear home »

🌐 Richard Mosley pops up in MIT Sloan to remind businesses that employer brand exists (and can bring value if you do it right) »

🌐 Uncertainty leads to businesses spending less money on ads and focusing on business transformation projects »

🌐 I’m glad to see conversation about how AI isn’t just going to “get rid of this job” or “alter this function,” but how it will completely rewrite the entire talent ecosystem »

🧠🔌 Author as cyborg and centaur »

🏛️ All 2,300+ articles from this newsletter are in a searchable archive. Go get ‘em!

All vendors are evil, right? Well, hold on a second. Vendors have a unique vantage point: they talk to lots of different companies and can see trends happening in real time. The trick is that you need to talk to someone who isn’t looking at you like a lemon to be squeezed, but as a possible partner in success.

And for my money, the two people who embody that idea are Adam Gordon of Poetry and Shane Gray. Shane’s had a storied career on both sides of the “vendor” line and brings amazing perspective and insight to this week’s episode. You’ll get a lot of out this one, I promise!

All episodes can be found wherever you get your podcasts.

How long does it take to build an employer brand? 3 months? 6?

What if I told you that you are THREE WEEKS away from am employer brand that makes each of your recruiters more effective?

Don’t believe me? Let me send you a case study of a project I just wrapped up. Just reply to this email and I’ll send it over.

Still here: EmployerBrand.ing

***This Newsletter Contains No ChatGPT***

-James Ellis [LinkedIn] [Website]

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