Who are you? 🫀 EBH

I really wanna know!

I assume you’ve seen this trend on LinkedIn over the past two years.

“ex-Googler, ex-MSFT”

“EX: Facebook, Postmates, Uber”

“| Ex-Amazon”

“x-Netflix”

It’s getting pretty common. LinkedIn Recruiter search (grain of salt exemption applied) brings back 110,000+ results from a search for “ex-facebook.”

There, right after their names and “titles” (or headlines if they are doing it right), is this tag showing that they once worked for some “way cool” company. (and some less cool companies. I mean… “ex Yelp?” Okay, whatever.)

In the same way that HR pros collect certifications and extend the alphabet soup after their name, people who worked at these FAANG (and FAANG-adjacent) companies want you to know their pedigree. Regardless of where they are now, be it a startup no one’s ever heard of or a company no one thinks is cool, the picture of themselves is wrapped up in this previous job.

I’m leaving aside the question of whether this idea is smart (connecting the old company’s brand recognition to your own) or sad (like the 30-year-old still wearing their high school varsity jacket because they played football there), to focus on something more important.

Identity.

The conversation around identity is bigger than recent trends in Linkedin profile usage. It involves thinking about how important our jobs are in developing our identity and how we can use it to make our brands more attractive.

Since this is a big idea, I’m spreading this thought across the next three newsletters. See you tomorrow!

+++++

Want some stickers? You have to join the Employer Branding for Small Business waiting list to get your shot.

Beyond stickers' unassailable value, I need your help getting recruiters, TA leaders, HRBPs, marketers and comms pros at small and mid-sized businesses to hear about the book. The more people read about how to use employer branding to attract and hire great talent, the more “expected” employer brand becomes at every company. The more leadership understands its power(and stops putting EB pros in a corner, so to speak).

So if you know someone at a business who needs help hiring but thinks the only answer is to drop $50,000 for a bunch of tech, make sure they know about this book.

Thanks!

-James

***This Newsletter Contains No ChatGPT***

###