Who is your customer? 😕🧮 EBH

New look, new feel, still trying to get you to think strategically about your recruiting.

How did Quartz’s newsroom get serious about bringing in better hires?

It turns out there's a whole wide world of talented people who don't live in New York. Opening our jobs to them immediately increased the quality of our application pools; we had more and better candidates.

Now replace “who don’t live in New York” with “who aren’t white dudes” or “who aren’t disabled” or “who don’t fit the part” and you’ll see the reason why diversity matters to businesses: They get better candidates, who become better hires.

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Wendy Dodd literally JUST sent this to me (Hi, Wendy!). It’s a story in a series about people who work at the US Forest Service. Read it. Here are my notes:

• Strong stories of success start with conflict or hardship. Don’t gloss over that.

• You don’t have to pay the most to get the best.

• Visuals matter. It isn’t about being gorgeous. It’s about being interesting.

• This must have been a tough (hours) story to write. What would a self-told story looked like? Or sounded like? Especially as you’ll want to tell more of them.

• Whether I want to work for the Forest Service (I don’t - for me, the outdoors is the place where I wait for my bus), I know what these jobs are like. And that’s a far sight better than your job postings and BS career sites.

🧮 The enduring power of a 2x2 matrix in business (and life). »

🧮 You have a LOT going on. Maybe carve out an '“untouchable” day. »

🧮 In pharma, there’s a way the smaller company can out-hire the bigger, richer one. »

🧮 How the pros think through a brand launch. »

🧮 Want people to take your branding more seriously? Consider building a visual style guide. »

🧮 A six-step employee engagement plan template. »

🧮 Been looking for a marketing book recommendation? Here are five great ones. »

🧮 AI to help you turn engagement surveys into useful info? »

🧮 AI to turn reviews and research into sentiment analysis? »

🧮 Employer Brand Breakdown: 600-employee Flex Technology Group. »

If you’re interested in getting an employer brand faster, reply with the word, “fast.”

The Law of Customers

Corporate branding has a lot of impacts, everything from helping to increase interest in investment to increasing interest in their products. But who is corporate branding’s first customer? The company itself. That means focusing less on individual teams or products and focusing on making the company look attractive.

Consumer branding has a lot of impacts, everything from increasing the stock price to generating interest in working there. But consumer branding’s first customer is the consumer. Their focus is first, second and always on generating new customers and keeping the customers they have,

So before I reveal the obvious third part of that idea, I feel the need to wade into the question of “where should employer branding live?”

Last time I checked, 55-60% of EB functions live in TA with 30-35% live in Marketing, and the rest in Comms.

There are some really good arguments for each. You can make a solid case that it requires a “marketing brain” to do good employer branding, that marketing tools are more useful to the EB owner. I get that. But I also buy the idea living in TA means a closer relationship with recruiters and candidates, that ideas are more likely accepted if they come in the form that TA is used to. And there’s a strong argument that employer branding is a kind of communication to and about employees, so it should live in comms (I will mentally put some asterisks next to comms based on personal experience, but I know my experience wasn’t the norm).

Those arguments focus on function. For my money, because employer brand is such a big job with a million ways to do it well (see: Law of Options), what matters is the person in the role. If it’s someone with marketing skills, they will do the most good in TA. It’s the fastest way to level up on recruiting thinking to ensure good work gets adopted. If they are a recruiter, they need to live in marketing to get a crash course in how marketing thinks and moves.

But in the end, what matters most is who the customer is.

In employer branding, while there are so many knock-on effects for the work being done, the first customer is always the candidate or future employee. 

Sure, strong employer branding can increase morale. It can increase advocacy. It can create stronger connections between recruiters and their hiring managers. (See my free ebook on the proof that EB works, straight from the EB managers’ mouths.)

But all that takes a back seat to one simple idea: Are you helping people understand who you are, what you offer, and how you’re different so that they can make an informed decision about applying and accepting a role there? 

All the good you’re going to do for the company starts with that simple idea.

For companies who think they can’t afford employer branding strategy (too small, unsexy industry, no consumer presence), let’s talk. In fifteen minutes, I can help you see if employer branding can help you hire faster and better. If it can save you money and get the attention of leadership. And the best part is that there’s no risk: I primarily get paid on results.

Also:

• Early bird pricing for EB workshop ends August 29th. This is the only class I’m holding until next year.

• Employer branding resources

• Video on-demand courses

• Breakdown videos and so much more on my YouTube channel

***This Newsletter Contains No ChatGPT***

-James Ellis [LinkedIn] [Website]

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