Think bigger. No. BIGGER. 🗼🗽🏟️ EBH
Talent Acquisition Matters. So let's start acting like it.
Have you watched The Bear?
You need to watch The Bear.
In the way that Mad Men was telling the story of people struggling with not getting what they wanted (some called it the story of the American Dream), The Bear is the story of work.
Who are we at work? Who are we without work? Where does purpose fit? What happens when purpose becomes toxic? How do we work together? How to we manage our own egos when working as a team? How do we see our own work?
Yeah. You need to watch The Bear (and not because it is an absolute love letter to Chicago, though not not because of that).
Every second counts.
🗼 If we are living in an “economy of suffering,” how do we get people excited to join us? »
🗼 Poetry has a really nice evolutionary model of TA. »
🗼 It’s some real next-level irony where McKinsey suggests that some people in every organization are destroying value, but here we are. »
🗼 Anarchist Brand Modeling (you know I live for stuff like this). »
🗼 How one sports team changed it’s culture in a meaningful way. »
🗼 Your brand is a signal. »
🗼 Stop listing your values. Show how you live them, instead. »
🧠🔌 AI Idea of the Week: There is a danger of AI allowing even the smartest of us to “fall asleep at the wheel” and let the machine make more and more decisions for us.
If you’re interested in getting a review of your employer brand,
reply with the word, “audit.”
Think bigger. No, bigger.
Allow me to quote Chad Sowash on the Employer Bland podcast this week:
No product or service is ideated or developed without talent. Nothing is sold. Nothing is serviced. Wallet share is not increased and a company does not exist without the talent we put in the seats. HR and TA are the beating heart and the engine of every organization. We are not a damn cost center.
You know what? Read that again.
And while we’re here, read it one more time.
The entire episode is fantastic because Chad lays out the core challenge of talent acquisition: We’re all running around meeting other people’s expectations and objectives without stopping to develop a true talent strategy or vision of what “hiring great people” looks and acts like at our company.
I’ll add on to Chad’s statement:
We’re not a damn cost center just because you haven’t bothered to measure our impact. I triple-dog-dare you to try and make any money without the people TA provides. The better our work, the stronger and more innovative the company. The company that hires well has an outsized advantage in the market and is best positioned to win, regardless of industry. Giving your TA function the short shrift is the fastest path to long-term business stagnation, decline, and ultimately bankruptcy.
Your call.
Day in and day out, we get treated like functionaries in a room full of decision-makers.
And. That. Ends. Now.
We need to put down our shared addiction to various “we’re helping!” messages and signals and remember that you and I are MF’n professionals. We have expertise that grows our companies. We make companies more (or less) productive.
What we need to do is develop and embrace strategy that connects TA directly and obviously to our company’s bottom line.
So I am calling it right now. The phrase all of us should adopt for 2024 is simple:
THINK. BIGGER.
Our job isn’t to tighten TTF. We change people’s minds.
Our job isn’t pretty pictures. We create desire among business-changing talent.
Our job isn’t filling in the gaps of our career site. We own and leverage the human face of the entire company.
You have three months before the end of the year. So what are you going to do between now and then to change your perspective, to remind yourself that your work has a far deeper meaning, to get others to see employer brand as the strategic lever that changes TA?
Your time starts… now.
People have been asking me what services I offer, so I suspect this would be a good time to list things out:
Employer brand teacher. Bring your recruiters, HRBPs, marketers, comms people together to learn employer branding by having them all build your company’s brand. Imagine a brand your HR, Marketing, and TA teams already agreed on because they built it together.
Brand builder. Actually, I don’t (just) build employer brands. I elevate recruiter and solve TA problems using employer branding. Projects are based on the size of the problem.
EB coach. Sometimes we all need a little advice or outside perspective to keep our work impactful.
EB speaker. Get your company excited by employer branding by letting me talk to them.
Let me know how I can help you!
Otherwise: have some free stuff:
Biotech Recruiting Newsletter. Five weeks of techniques and templates to hire the unicorns your company needs. »
Employer Brand Resources. From 100+ cheap ways to activate your employer brand, to help get your CMO and TA lead to understanding EB’s power, and lots more. »
Videos. My YouTube channel has dozens of “Employer Brand Minute” videos, as well as my growing collection of Employer Brand Breakdown videos and Biotech Recruiting Chats. »
Podcasts. The Talent Cast is 220+ episodes of mostly me talking. If you’d like something with a bit more balance, check out The Brand Plan, wherever you get your podcasts.
***This Newsletter Contains No ChatGPT***
-James Ellis [LinkedIn] [Website]
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