The state of employer branding and its importance in the recruitment process in 2024 with James Ellis

[00:00:00] We've made it so unbelievably complicated that you we don't hire an agency you hire a guru who comes off from a mountain top and reads or tea leaves and the entrails of the duck that they killed in front of you. Hopefully it was a virgin duck. I don't know how this works. Yeah, I

[00:00:30] think that is the state of employer branding. It's gotten so sneaky to tail it's gotten so how do we make this more complicated to make it more expensive? It's gotten so messy now.

[00:00:42] All right, I want to talk to you for a moment about retaining and developing your workforce is hard recruiting is hard retaining top employees is hard. Then you've got onboarding payroll benefits time in labor management. You need to take care of your workforce and you can only do this successfully if you commit to transforming your employee experience.

[00:01:03] This is where I saw comes in they empower you to be successful. We've seen it with a number of companies that we've worked with and this is why we partner with them here at work define we trust them and you should to check them out at I solved hcm.com.

[00:01:20] This is way of taking up Ryan Larry you are listening to the you should know podcast and we're going to be getting into the state of employer branding with James James Ellis and James is not opinionated. And so it's coming kind of a kind of vanilla show. So hopefully you stay away for tough to get this guy to talk. Yeah, yeah, some guests we have talk a lot others. Yeah, it's like pulling fucking teeth.

[00:01:50] And I'm kind of feeling now this is going to be it up. It's going to be you wrote down a bunch of questions right so James, would you do us a favor and introduce yourself tell us a little bit about yourself. Sure.

[00:02:03] I am James Ellis. I all I do is employer brand people like well what do you do for fun? I do employer brand. I have a nine year old and I do employer brand end of list we're done. It's thanks for playing. It's the whole cake.

[00:02:14] I write about it. I talk about it. I build it. I watch it. I educate about it. I excite people about it. Hopefully I entertain people about it sometimes and you know, it's what to me. It's the lever that's going to make all of TA better right. I have this feeling that no one actually likes hiring. No one actually likes the model by which we hire that the candidates the hiring managers recruiters the bosses. Nobody actually likes what we're doing every single day. And we go let's keep going. Let's keep trying this thing. You're like.

[00:02:42] And so to me you know, I've got. Yeah. It's delicious. I smell steak. What are you doing? I think that's I'm delicious. I think employer brand is the lever that kind of pulls us out of the rut. I'm not going to say employer brand solves all things. It is not magic. Very pixie dust. It is not the thing you sprinkle on your toast to make it magically delicious. It does however.

[00:03:01] Change a lot of the math and a lot of the thinking allow you to say, what if there is some other way? Maybe God I hope so please Jesus let that be a thing. Oh my God. Why?

[00:03:12] And that's why I do it. I care about it because I've been in jobs that I loved and jobs that I loved and from the outside they look exactly the same same job posting same career site, same recruiting language, same hiring manager questions, same interview process, the exact flip and same.

[00:03:29] Now that said, I also don't believe that there's any such thing as a bad employer brand. I think that if you're Goldman Sachs and you want to work your entry level people 100 hour work weeks. That's great. So long. So crystal clear about that.

[00:03:41] And apparently if you do that and offer them a pile of cash at the end of the rainbow, the wine forms to the left. There's no problem tiring people. That's fine. Don't tell me it's a bad employer brand because it's clear. If that's transparent.

[00:03:55] Yeah, it's all about clarity. And that's the thing I look and we can get into a whole rant about recruiters who I adore and everybody thinks I hate which I don't get about that.

[00:04:03] It's recruiters lack credibility not because they're bad people not because they're trying to live because the industry there in has forced them to say a whole bunch of horseshit to get the job done to put the button to seat because that's what they're measured on.

[00:04:17] And they just okay, that if that's what the job is, I will do. Do that job and that's not really what the job needs to be. And that's why employer branding is going to change some of that math. So my name is James Ellis. Thanks for having me up.

[00:04:28] Thanks for playing everybody. Drop by God use your line. Cross my walks off stage. We're done. Hey, great podcast.

[00:04:35] I gotta go. Re-shade my head.

[00:04:39] I'll take you want me to take first one of you. I was just going to say, do you use the razor or do you use a like skull shaver type thing? Oh no, it's straight. It's not straight razor. God. I'm not a player.

[00:04:53] I say.

[00:04:55] I, yeah, normal razor. But I just recently got the pit bull shaver skull shaver.

[00:05:05] I don't know if I like this. Yeah, it's I feel it. I feel the little little.

[00:05:10] What was the employer brand on that? Like what brought you?

[00:05:15] What brought you in?

[00:05:18] That's just that's just good advertising. Trust me, I get those ads on Instagram all the damn times like they have a camera or these can see on my pictures and there's a

[00:05:25] that dude.

[00:05:28] Yeah, yeah, that's it. I appreciate that.

[00:05:32] First question out of, of, of the date for me is auditing an employer brand. You've done this a thousand times where you look at something people want that independent objective viewpoint on their brand and of course you're going to have to tell them at some point that their babies ugly.

[00:05:49] Okay, time out time out time out time out time out time out time out time out.

[00:05:52] I don't look. I don't know where I look. I was in a job and I'm not going to name names this time because you.

[00:05:57] I am a teddy bear. I am a cuddly gummy bear.

[00:06:04] Jim Kramer of employer branching.

[00:06:07] What I thought.

[00:06:11] I swear to God that the back of the way.

[00:06:14] Throw stuff.

[00:06:15] Oh god, he's going to give his bad advice and we're all going to go fucking broke.

[00:06:18] Yeah, any button. Give me a big, a big S button. Maybe that's what I've been lacking this whole time.

[00:06:23] There's this feeling that employer branding is about telling the boss their baby is ugly and I, I don't know where this came from because that's not actually what's happening.

[00:06:31] I've had a boss say hey, that you're doing great work on employer branding. We're going to go present your work to the CEO.

[00:06:38] So what we're going to do is we're going to hire a consultant to read it out because I don't want you to be associated with the person who's an office CEO.

[00:06:44] I'm not planning on pissing off the CEO.

[00:06:47] My job is not to say the baby is ugly.

[00:06:50] My job is to say piano lessons.

[00:06:55] Okay, look, I don't have to say your baby's ugly. I just have to say that is not it's it's finest hour. That is not the strongest.

[00:07:02] I would say.

[00:07:03] Fucking classes.

[00:07:05] You know, you know,

[00:07:06] there's nothing less than lessons, whatever the hell it is, there is a place where every company is strong and offer something of interest.

[00:07:14] There is a link for every pot saying there is a good brand or a brand or a bad brand is total bullshit.

[00:07:20] And that is how bad consultants try and get work. They make you feel bad so they can squeeze the juice out of the lemon and that juice is money out of your pocket to say I'm going to make it look better.

[00:07:30] I don't want to make an employer brand look good. I want it to be clear so that the person who's been waiting their entire flip in life to go, yeah, I want that to see it and say if you've been all my life, I want some of that and not

[00:07:44] well shit. It's just yet another job.

[00:07:46] It's a yet another job posting. They made it so easy to apply. I can do with my elbow boom. I did it next.

[00:07:51] And it's like that is not how it works.

[00:07:54] I don't want to reject the premise of the question. It's not about baby ugly. It's about clarity and strength of message, not good or bad.

[00:08:04] To just point out a clear theory on you talking about it.

[00:08:08] Oh no, dude, I love that.

[00:08:10] Dude, I love that.

[00:08:12] I can't make you Canadian. How dare you?

[00:08:16] They're nice.

[00:08:18] Not that one. He did use a lesson or two.

[00:08:20] Most most are. So the words authentic and genuine. Are you at this point? Is it a drinking game or a player more on the authentic one? I haven't heard genuine nearly as much.

[00:08:33] Right.

[00:08:34] I think in terms of the intensity.

[00:08:37] The authenticity is an absolute buzzword. And if you've hit bingo by now, congratulations drink up.

[00:08:42] Yeah, but it's about credibility. It's about showing what you care about and that's the thing is that I think.

[00:08:49] You know places that do a lot of research. They say, oh, like every year, Pantone says the color of the year is sharp.

[00:08:57] Truth.

[00:08:58] Cool. That is not useful information. But for a day, it just fills my flip and feed everywhere I go.

[00:09:04] Okay, whatever. I feel like there are companies who I will not name again. And I used to work for one of them who say, okay, this year the watchword is work life balance.

[00:09:14] The watch watch word is opportunity and everybody goes like baby, you or your lemmings, okay, we're all talking about opportunity that will go to opportunity and we'll talk about opportunity.

[00:09:23] Do you actually offer any special opportunity? No, but everybody wants opportunities. So that's where going to give them. It's like no.

[00:09:29] Who are you as a company? What do you offer your candidates? What do you offer your employees? What do you offer people just because right now it's all about sushi and not sweaters.

[00:09:39] It doesn't mean the gap selling sushi anytime soon. They don't go wandered around just because the fashion is what the fashion is.

[00:09:44] They know what they're about, man. So be what you're about.

[00:09:48] I am mentally exhausted already.

[00:09:50] And sure this is my head. I am 24 seven. That's why I shave it to let them out just get out.

[00:09:57] So we're going to go ahead. I know we're going to get into the state of employer branding. We are already.

[00:10:04] Some point before we get there, how does an employer know they've got a problem? Oh, that's a good. How do you show up on their doorstep?

[00:10:13] I would love to be able to show up on my doorstep on their doorstep saying more about you look like everybody else. That would be to me the perfect situation that if I cover up the logo on their career site and I go,

[00:10:26] whose company is that? And I love to do it with pharma companies because literally you can take the tops 10 pharma companies cover out the logo and like,

[00:10:32] I get that you all like the color blue and get that you are really big on saving lives and innovation.

[00:10:38] I also get the fact that there's nothing else you're talking about. So here's a problem and that usually kind of gets the ball kind of going, but really what they come up to me about is,

[00:10:48] hey, we don't know what to talk about. We don't know what to say. We don't know what's out there. We sound like everybody else. We have a brand awareness problem.

[00:10:56] We can't get people to apply. The funnel is running dry. We're spending more and more and more money running ads that by the way look like everybody else's ads,

[00:11:03] G, I wonder why that's a problem. And we can't make things happen. And so I'm, I do hear most of our clients come in and say, look,

[00:11:10] the challenge is we don't know what to say to get people to show up. And the truth is it's not because they don't know their lines. It's because they haven't done the work internally to say what are we about?

[00:11:20] And that's really where the good employer brand starts. What are you all about? There's a line somewhere I read in a caravan where it comes from, but if you choose to go north,

[00:11:29] you're choosing to not go south. If you choose to be all about opportunity, you cannot also be about support.

[00:11:36] If you choose to be about one thing that means there is inherently a negative to that. What is the opposite of that and companies are so terrified of saying anything bad,

[00:11:48] saying anything that might be negative, that they say everything positive and they end up throwing in the kitchen sink about every possible nice thing they could say.

[00:11:56] And that's where he gets on the job it goes this isn't what I don't know.

[00:12:00] Yeah, because the reality of it is what are you really offering people? What is your company there to do? What is the purpose? What is the dent? It's trying to kick in the universe. What are you there for? How do you help employees find their way?

[00:12:15] Let's boil it down to the brass tax. Can it? It's only care about three things. What is the mission and purpose of that company? What is the experience of working that company? And what do we get when we get there? That's it.

[00:12:28] Everything else is just philosophy. And the truth is you don't have to be different at every one of them, but you do have to be different at at least one of them. So if you're the world wildlife Federation, you don't have to worry about the experience. You don't have to worry about the reward because the missions, the thing people show up for the mission.

[00:12:44] We're good. That's all all you're talking about. Goldman Sachs, not about the mission. It's about the reward. Pinterest it's all about the experience. They treat their people really, really well. Some people the experience is not about support. Some people that experience is about what they learn and about who they engage with and the status they gain out of that.

[00:13:01] The reward could be professional development. It could be career ladder. There's so many things you can offer, but you can boil it down to those three things. What's our mission? What's the experience? What's the reward? What's the reward we get there?

[00:13:12] And if companies can start to boil their thinking into simple terms like that, get away from EVP pillars which you know are they're great if you're Disney or AT&T. But if you're every other company that doesn't have four billion people working for it, keep it simple.

[00:13:29] What's what's the goal? What is the experience? What if the reward so something that whips my ass.

[00:13:36] Is the whole bring your whole self to work. Yeah. Okay, so first of all, you don't you know what the whole you don't want the whole William.

[00:13:47] Too much darkness is there. You're only getting about 60% of my saltiness. Let's just say that if that scares you, you're welcome. Yeah. Exactly. So how does that translate to employer brand?

[00:14:00] Because I've seen the same thing about the not wanting to put things negative like CEO went through some type of scandal, etc.

[00:14:09] Like we're not going to talk about it. Like it didn't happen. But in a simple Google search. Yeah. It's going to kind of come up. Sure. It shows up every third one story of you that anybody who's supposed to do more.

[00:14:20] If we just avoided it, then maybe it didn't happen. Am I? Yeah, that's why you don't know about it. Yeah, own the story. But again, you're the professional here. So well, let's not call names here.

[00:14:36] Yeah, exactly. You're right. That's unlikely. The thing is that companies exist to make money. I don't know why I feel you need to explain that. But a lot of people seem to think that that's not true.

[00:14:52] And so the companies, especially when they're trying to put those fig leaves on to cover up the fact that there exist purely to make money. They throw on these shirts that say, oh, we care about our people. No, you care about your people in so far as it allows you to make money. Hey, we care about the environment in so far as it avoids having to have horrible lawsuits where people realize, hey, you're destroying the environment cost money.

[00:15:13] Everything is about money. And I think that offense, it's offentistic authenticity, bring your whole self to work is this self. It's the self help book of the week. The businesses read that they said, oh, oh, where can you say chicken? No, not the chicken soup one the other one where you're bringing your whole self to work, where you can talk about. It's okay to be gay at work, which of course when businesses say bring your whole self to work. That's really what they're all there said. It's okay. We that you're brown or black or whatever.

[00:15:41] Whatever particular flavor variety you are, it's okay. Shut the hell up, but it's okay that that is. Hold on hold on. We'll throw any area or the year. Yeah, yeah, that's fine. That's checking the box. We're good.

[00:15:53] Thank you for work to work. Yes. And that's the thing is that when you when you have these conflicting ideas that literally violate the purpose of a business, you get this insane friction that we're living in now

[00:16:06] to say, what is the purpose purpose of this business? We're trying to achieve this thing. How we doing it? Why are we doing it? What's the word? That's really why it boils down to that and authenticity just is thrown, thrown sand in the gear works because it's not helping. It doesn't drive any of those things.

[00:16:23] All right. We could ask a million question here. But yeah, we will. The topic which will still ask questions that we're going to cut you down.

[00:16:32] Are you going back to the topic? The state of employer, brand, 20s, boy, talk to him play off. We talking practice.

[00:16:41] That's the best never gets never gets old. Sorry. We'll never get all they'll never get old and he just kept going on. Yeah, just kept going.

[00:16:50] The comedians, one of the comedians did the bit of Alan Iverson, but he did it in Morgan Freeman's voice. Oh, now practice talking about practice.

[00:17:04] I mean genius like level is like, oh my god. When you think about it, it is just probably like I get the Michael Jordan's of the world and all and Iverson even said like if I practice, if I took care of my body better.

[00:17:19] Yeah, I would have been that much better. But I was already great. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I changed the game. I didn't care about doing that right anyway.

[00:17:29] State of employer branding in 2024 kick us off here. Where are we at? What comes the mind when you hear that it really is about. We've made it so unbelievably complicated that you we don't hire an agency. You hire a guru who comes off from a mountain top and reinserti leaves

[00:17:47] and the entrails of the duck that they killed in front of you. Hopefully it was a virgin duck. I don't know how this works. Yeah, I checked. In Commandments. And then what they end up with is the same crap as every other company but it's rest up really nicely and you go, yeah, here's $80,000. Do more of that.

[00:18:06] That is the state of employer branding. It's gotten so sneaky to tail, it's gotten so how do we make this more complicated to make it more expensive? It's gotten so messy. Now if you understand how employer brand works that is it's a means of

[00:18:24] it's a force multiplier of recruiting it makes recruiters lies just that much easier. I did not say easy. I said easy or I'm not an idiot today. So it's just about like let's just say rule of thumb, it makes a recruiting job 10% easier. That means if you've got 10 recruiters and the choices do I hire an employer brand or a higher

[00:18:43] another recruiter, it's a pretty fair choice. What the outcome is relatively equal if you have 20 recruiters, you absolutely invest in player brand but if you've got four, it makes no sense. So you hire more recruiting and so you end up just kind of reinforcing this idea of this, you know, it's a brute force model.

[00:19:01] You can't find more people beat them up with spam messages, focus focus focus beat them up and just put the butts and seats. Employer brand is there to say it's not about more it's about better. It's about saying do not spam everybody build a relationship with the five people you want to talk to give them a reason to talk to you give them a reason to listen to you give them a reason to engage and they generally will they will listen to interesting conversations they will listen to our interesting arguments.

[00:19:29] And ultimately that's what your business wants, but none of the pieces are arranged such that it's driving that so ultimately what we say is spend a lot of money on employer brand slap it on a recruiter let's not even train them on what the hell it is or how to use it half the time.

[00:19:43] You hand it to marketing and say build some content the recruiter goes that's cool. How does this change my world? No, not even a little bit. Okay, that sucks and they go off and keep doing it and they wonder why we keep doing it. It makes no sense.

[00:19:55] The number of conversations I've had with leadership who say employer brand is a scam employer brand is bullshit employer brand is is a lie because they had a buddy who was a CHRO or a CPO or a CMO and this other company and they bought it and they spent $80,000 on it didn't do anything.

[00:20:11] It's testament to how bad our industry has gotten about this stuff now I'm not saying saying everybody's bad but really good agencies and really good people doing the work.

[00:20:22] The problem is there's such a strong demand for employer brand that either you either hire the agency for insane amount of money or you promote your social media kid and say well you're doing such great work on the Twitter go ahead and do the same thing on LinkedIn and we're going to call that employer brand makes pretty pictures make the make the sexy words happen make it all look good.

[00:20:42] Yeah, exactly. Hey, here's your canvac account go nuts kid have fun.

[00:20:49] Well, it looks like every other page how weird and employer brand is not about pretty employer brand is about different define I'm a harpan on this.

[00:20:58] I think I said different so many times the drinking game has killed people it's the number of times it but that's what it's about.

[00:21:04] It's about how do you show your different and the state of employer brand is it's time to turn the boat around and say enough with the craziness enough with a really expensive EBPs that sound like everyone like everybody else's EBPs

[00:21:17] enough with tag lines that say nothing let's talk about what does a candidate need to know to make it is saying.

[00:21:25] Here you correctly you're saying different but you're also saying realistic to the company.

[00:21:30] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:21:31] It's those two things so it's not just different you'd be different but if you're still far away from the actual employees.

[00:21:38] Yeah, I mean look if you want to put a chicken out fit on and stand outside the street that's different but it's not useful.

[00:21:44] Okay, it's not unless the job is we're going to sell car washes and tax rebates and you can stand on that but that's not about you.

[00:21:51] That's just about being different for the sake of being different and honestly just doing that would be nice because it beats every kind of hey we're hiring post I've seen in dozens of times every day on my LinkedIn feed which is just why bother.

[00:22:02] It'd be better but truly the way to go is clear about what you offer clear about what you offer candidate they care about talk about that.

[00:22:12] I would love to see someone do this in a LinkedIn profile picture we're not hiring.

[00:22:17] Yeah, like do the do the opposite just go obviously yeah we're not hiring.

[00:22:22] You can't get a job here.

[00:22:24] That would be amazing and that would be like I can immediately see a campaign that says we're not hiring we're finding quality people like that is such an easy way to do it.

[00:22:31] That is such an easy kind of like that so every once in a while I get board an airport and I'll say hey I got two hours to kill.

[00:22:37] I'm an airport God help me and I asked people to post on my LinkedIn comments send me show me the job you're trying to hire for and I will write your social media post for you just to avoid for more we're hiring posts because that's what they were going to write anyway right.

[00:22:53] And it's so much fun to kind of say look there's so many ways to attack this I've done everything from a project manager for construction site to a bar manager and an f one style bar coming out Boston to I mean it's all over the map and the truth is there's so many interesting ways to talk about work because work is fundamentally interesting.

[00:23:15] We have boiled it down to such horse crap that I don't know why we're bothering anymore which is the we're hiring the join us the great opportunity bullshit does not work and yet we can tell you to generate generate it in bulk.

[00:23:27] Do you do you think there's a do you think these companies are trying to be different and I'll use the air quotes here they're trying to get from because the pressure from external marketing firms or agencies that they're using says you need to be the next super bowl commercial.

[00:23:44] You need to be that unique in your presentation of who you are I don't think that's really what's happening so look they're being unique at all.

[00:23:52] Yeah exactly.

[00:23:53] No, I don't think there but I think it's a march to sameness.

[00:23:56] Yeah do you think the race to the bottom is the pressure from these firms who really have no clue.

[00:24:02] No, I think the pressure is financial that because recruiting hasn't figured out how to point to the pile of money they are generating or saving a business because again

[00:24:10] that business are about making money not about make it friends they get cost centered squeezed even though they are absolutely the generator of every single penny that business has earned.

[00:24:21] They don't know how to talk about it in those terms so consequently,

[00:24:25] they are used to finding cheaper and cheaper tools and cheaper and cheaper systems and cheaper and cheaper people and cheaper and cheaper and that is the race to the bottom.

[00:24:33] Yeah, there are incredibly incredibly smart recruiters who think in employer brand I mean I always joke that really good employer brand is using just the natural extension of whatever good recruiter would do if they had four and a half seconds to stop and thank for a second right it's not rocket scientists to say hey what do people want how do I offer to them so they're really interested in it.

[00:24:53] It's not complicated but we're so hey here's 47 wrecks you're expected to put 100 applications in each requisition otherwise it's a failed wreck but we're measuring on your numbers of funnel size we're measuring on your numbers of speed like it's nuts and the truth is if we just say what's this company offering how is it different the people you'd want to hire will show up instead of the applications you wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole if you knew what they actually were.

[00:25:22] Alright, I got three questions you can take them anyway on a phone. All right, one is you talk to a lot of practitioners that are employment branding specialists do they feel that it's a winnable game one question two if you were building an employer branding tech stack from the ground up and money wasn't a problem what would you build three what's your take on generative AI and employer branding.

[00:25:50] Those are really interesting and diverse questions so it's the next 30 minutes of conversation we're going to 30 now.

[00:25:57] You know I'm taking them right.

[00:26:01] It's good.

[00:26:02] All right, so I think practitioners don't think in terms of is this a winnable fight they think of it in terms of a calling I think the people who have a

[00:26:10] really good job.

[00:26:11] They're so insane to take these jobs and this is why they're insane.

[00:26:15] This is why we're absolutely anybody who's a good employer brand is an absolute lunatic and this is why what is an employer brand it is the

[00:26:23] summation of every thing a company does to its people okay, so that's everything a company does but the employer brander is responsible for shaping and

[00:26:35] presenting that but has exactly zero authority over it.

[00:26:39] What?

[00:26:40] Who takes that job what insane person says I want all the responsibility and none of the authority to make any of those changes happen.

[00:26:47] Yeah, sign me up.

[00:26:48] Take the meal you have no tanks are guns.

[00:26:50] Yeah, here's your three toothpicks and a poker chip there my guy or go nuts.

[00:26:57] That is the state of it so the people who show up are true believers they see that this is an open space where marketing hasn't nailed down all

[00:27:04] the rules yet that there's a lot of opportunity to try new things.

[00:27:08] There's a lot of opportunity to kind of talk about the story of the company in a very interesting way and it can have real value can doesn't always and I think

[00:27:18] that's why we're so excited about it.

[00:27:19] We've we're in this weird spot where we found this little bubble of in love interestingness that most businesses have no clue what it is and that's a pro and a con.

[00:27:28] And so we're just trying to figure out what is employer brand really and how to make it work.

[00:27:32] So most people would love more money and would love more research but we don't expect it.

[00:27:37] So we're just kind of like let's just do the best possible work we can and hope that history kind of you know values us down the road.

[00:27:45] I don't remember the second question so I'm going to jump to generative AI.

[00:27:49] I love AI because it's not generative.

[00:27:53] Part is almost secondary. I think everybody looks at what chat GPT does and says it's going to write my job posting and I am more than happy to say that is the dumbest idea I have ever heard have you have you read anything that thing is written.

[00:28:06] I'm sorry it's like a vaguely smart 10th year old okay it barely understands what's going on it's making shut up left right in center.

[00:28:13] It's not a good idea and I get that you hate writing job posting so much that the idea of letting a slightly smart 10 year old do it.

[00:28:21] Actually kind of a win in your head I get where you're coming from it's also a horrible idea and if you haven't talked to cat Kevin about that cat is the master at all things thinking of job posting and they have plenty of things to say what I see a I as the real value of generative AI is not that it writes content.

[00:28:40] It sees from a static perspective right let's say I'm going to do an audit on a company and I'm going to you five of its competitors I'm just me and some days I'm a little salty I don't know if you noticed it or not.

[00:28:53] And I have bad expectations or bad feelings and as a human being those things color and bias what I'm seeing if I have high expectations for a company and they fail I hate that company I hate that brand if I have low expectations and they overcome them I really like that brand way more than I should.

[00:29:09] That's a natural human thing if I can ask an AI to look at content in a framework that makes sense and review that content and consider that content it is a static point it's not having a good day or bad day it's not James yesterday or James tomorrow it's not even a James not a boy or girl it's not anything it's just a static point and it can have a far more objective opinion on what's being presented to the world digest it in a way for me to say very quickly okay I understand.

[00:29:38] I understand that these four companies are all talking about X and Y so we should talk about C. So I'm still going to own the strategy but their information it can pull out to give me a lay of the land and screw five straddle five competitors let's do 50 is not much harder and it gives you a really tight map to say okay and let's be fair in a talent market we usually not talking about five competitors were talking about 50 if not 5,000 this is a much better way to say this is what everybody's talking about so if we want to win these are the steps to take I think it's great.

[00:30:07] I think it's incredibly valuable for that so I'll just put that out there. I don't remember the second question.

[00:30:13] Well Ryan's probably going to come we'll give back to you.

[00:30:16] Oh what was it was the gen I was a set gen I was a set oh I know what the question was it was about your tech stack if you're a brand new.

[00:30:24] That's a tough one because if you could build it for scratch and money wasn't a problem what would you build?

[00:30:31] I want to hear this one is this is a really hard question look so I'm I guess I'm technically sold to solar praner so I'm used to using solar praner tech stack tools.

[00:30:40] So convert kit, otter, I think what I'm using circle sometimes podium for class there's so many there's just been last years has been an absolute tsunami of very simple communication content marketing and content management tools to help a one person business.

[00:30:59] Do you stuff that five years ago took a big team right you just need it and I think if you boil down employer branding and how it helps recruiting.

[00:31:08] It's about defining the message and telling the message improving the message Riverside is another great we're using Riverside right now to record this another great tools to collect content I've been using that for two years two years love it so to me it's not about what's the most expensive tech stack what I love to use housebox maybe never actually used it heard great things but to me it's about

[00:31:27] what are you trying to achieve and that is really kind of funny because employer branding over the last two years has spent so much time trying to list the litany of positive outcomes it makes on a business we help retention we help marketing we help investment relations we help this it makes it slices it dices it's a Julian's prize and make sure teeth wider it's fantastic you won't even polishes that leather it's fantastic.

[00:31:50] It does everything and consequently we sound like crazy people don't know the value of what we're trying to do and I think when your company thought about we need to employ a brand they had a problem they were trying to solve did it solve the problem and I would build an entire tech stack around that is the problem to solve because until you do that you're just the magic fairy pixie dust you're just the stuff you sprinkle on to make things magically somehow better even though that never works and you get crushed if you're focused on the

[00:32:20] solving a business problem you can win and that and I would build a tech stack around the business problem not about not around employer brand walk us through the difference between employer branding and employee branding for those that are listening that may not nice yeah it's a good really kind of get the idea there and I maybe one of them I feel like that split in a hair that doesn't need to be split look an employer brand is what someone here let's get in some very simple terms employer brand is not something I own

[00:32:50] it's an idea that exists in other people's heads when you think of Nike you think of a certain thing when you think of Adidas you think of a certain thing when you think of

[00:32:58] hook up you think of a certain thing and what I think of and you think of and you think of and you think of is different and we're all correct so that's a brand employer brand any kind of brand

[00:33:08] my job as an employer brand is to influence that by creating some structure and some architecture like a lever to kind of shift things in the direction direction I want you to think

[00:33:19] that means I have carte blanche and all the things the company says or does or you know touches to say those are potential levers and one of those levers is the employee themselves

[00:33:30] I want them to say not nice things about the company but to talk about the things that make that company different from their perspective

[00:33:38] look I don't know jack about data science I don't know jack about biochemistry I don't know jack about being a nurse I don't know jack about being a

[00:33:44] electrician but I want my employer brand my idea my concept of what that employer brand is to be translated through

[00:33:51] their experience through their education through their thinking to talk to audiences much like themselves who I cannot reach because I am not them

[00:34:02] I want to use them for ad I'm a big fan of advocacy over ads every single time and I think if we're talking about the difference you

[00:34:08] employer brand and employee brand that is where the difference is and I say why are we drawing these lines between them

[00:34:14] the truth is it's a mean means by which we help prove the story we're trying to tell the market

[00:34:21] how do you explain recruitment marketing and employer branding to executives

[00:34:26] in the same way you explain marketing and branding from the other side of the fence

[00:34:31] okay there are two big ideas marketing is the act of getting someone who's already interested in you or in

[00:34:37] market I guess is the technical term for it like they're looking for a toilet

[00:34:41] guess what they're ready to listen to your toilet ad yeah I said toilet I said a twice in fact here we are

[00:34:47] but up until the moment that you need a toilet when the last time you thought about a toilet other than thank

[00:34:53] God it's there you don't you don't know what the difference between cooler and a toe toe and

[00:34:58] a whatever the brand I don't care I don't know that's branding branding says how do I insert or even

[00:35:05] incept which is really the fun stuff an idea an emotion even if I can that connects to the brand

[00:35:12] that is so subconscious you don't even realize it's there there until the moment you need a toilet

[00:35:17] in which case I am top of mind so recruitment marketing talks to the let's call it 5% of market

[00:35:24] of the market who is actively sitting on indeed or linked in or God help us different

[00:35:28] recruiter to look for jobs to do the thing they're ready to look for a job recruiters know how

[00:35:33] to find them those people have raised their hands recruiters every recruiter from every company

[00:35:37] said there they are I'm going to get them and that's why they have to spend so much money because

[00:35:40] they are targets they've painted targets on their back and recruiters are ready to go my job is to

[00:35:45] speak to the 95% of the audience who is not looking for a job right now so that when they do look for a

[00:35:51] job oh I want to work with the company of course I do because they offer me extra wires because

[00:35:55] they're known for this thing I have inserted these ideas so that when they're ready to take action

[00:36:01] they're there that's really the definition of the difference between the two

[00:36:10] I stumped the panel yeah I think it I like I like what I'm hearing this you know it's

[00:36:19] so I'm interested to get your take then where do we go from here right so I hear what you're saying

[00:36:26] right I I followed your stuff right I've heard what you said I hear what you're saying but where do we

[00:36:32] go where do we go now and how does an employer know one I've got a problem

[00:36:38] but two how was I how when they go through this exercise how do they know they've done well

[00:36:44] is it just because people like them now and how do they know no no no no no no no no argument of ROI on

[00:36:51] maybe yeah and ROI is it tough except it is and it isn't so if you think about ROI is do I make

[00:36:58] everybody like me look what's the what's the ROI of people just liking you I mean what's the

[00:37:04] ROI of having a friend what you never know who supports you yeah exactly it's it's it's it's

[00:37:08] infrequent I'm sure there's value but how do you measure that you don't however it's it's invaluable

[00:37:13] we all know that right so really the value and how you measure eb which is the quite was part

[00:37:18] of the question not the full question I get I think of the value of eb is how does it create change

[00:37:23] right now if you're a company and you're doing the brute force of reproach recruiting you're putting

[00:37:27] butts in the seats you're spending the money on ads you spend the money on every job board you can

[00:37:31] find you've got all those LinkedIn seats you've got your doing all the stuff supposed to do God

[00:37:35] help your tech stack you're spending all this money and if you looked and stood for a second

[00:37:40] looked at the timeline you go we are spending more and more to get less and less that is a problem

[00:37:45] that is a squeezing too much the lemon the more you squeeze that lemon the harder it is to get each

[00:37:49] you know next drop it's utility you know utility theory right basic macro economics at some point

[00:37:55] you say doing the same thing which by the way is doing the same thing every other company does

[00:38:01] is not working we have to make a change and that's where talent strategy shows it's delightful head

[00:38:07] it says how do I maximize the resources I have to achieve more do I arrange them in a different order

[00:38:15] do I spend in a different way do I structure my team in a different way do I tell different stories

[00:38:20] strategy is simply how do I achieve more with what I have and when a company hits that moment where

[00:38:25] they go if I look in that direction I see we're spending more to get less and I know that that line

[00:38:30] doesn't change directions in the future I'm screwed I have to change something that becomes the

[00:38:34] inflection point which you say we need to think strategy and player brand is a big part of that

[00:38:38] strategy is about what do you come to market with how do you tell that story so to me the

[00:38:44] that way you value employer brand is do you make that inflection point do you spend the same

[00:38:48] and get more do you spend less and get more if a recruiter you know if a team of recruiters

[00:38:55] spend x amount of money and x number of add dollars to hire a certain thing an employer

[00:39:00] brander makes each add more effective you can calculate that save if an employer brander lets you

[00:39:05] tell better stories and you don't have to go to agencies as often you can calculate that save all

[00:39:09] day long here here's my here's my favorite what is your offer rejection rate and you all have one

[00:39:15] and if you're at your head of HR should know an off top their head and it should keep them up at night

[00:39:20] if you tell a good employer brand story such that it is the add someone clicked on oh you offer

[00:39:27] support a supportive environment I love that click on add click apply show up to the interview

[00:39:32] the interview questions show that support the career site shows that support the glass door

[00:39:36] of you show that support during the interview the candid ask questions about what are the benefits

[00:39:42] packages and you see that support okay now guess what you believe something about this company and

[00:39:47] let's be fair as a candidate there's almost no information that is completely credible

[00:39:53] short of the dollar figure and title and start date on the offer letter those are the only concrete

[00:39:58] pieces of information you've gotten everything is conjecture and bullshit and opinion and spin

[00:40:02] and sell got it if you've been told support support support support or innovation innovation

[00:40:08] invasion or opportunity opportunity whatever that is yes and you get to that offer letter stage and

[00:40:12] they say look we know something about you we know you are here for support because that's the ad

[00:40:18] you clicked on and we know that is what you've been looking for and we hope by now you've seen how

[00:40:23] much we care about support and that's why we're thrilled to make you this offer you have just

[00:40:28] reframed the entire conversation from what's the dollar figure to what do you want to do with your

[00:40:33] life and your offer acceptance rate will go up now take the number of offers not rejected times

[00:40:40] it by eight thousand dollars which is the average cost per hire show me the money their baby show me

[00:40:45] the money no one ever thinks about that number but that is real savings for a business

[00:40:50] that's how you think about the impact it makes where does it make an inflection along the timeline

[00:40:55] of what you're doing now two questions you're take on the state of career sites

[00:41:04] a b the concept of an employer brand should equally attract and repel yes okay so the answer to

[00:41:13] is absolutely not even a question okay I just keep it simple there is a lid for every pot which means

[00:41:19] there's plenty of lids that don't fit you and that's fine exactly exactly the real question

[00:41:26] their career sites are interesting because career sites are this ten pull of information

[00:41:30] it's the place where companies spend the most amount of amount of money the most amount of time

[00:41:35] they're crap and this is why they're crap I presume you gentlemen have been in the process

[00:41:40] of actually redoing a career site you've seen the sausage get made and you know that you bring

[00:41:45] in the head of marketing and so somebody from marketing who got suckered in this conversation

[00:41:48] you got some different comps you got somebody from legal you got a couple of recruiters you got

[00:41:51] a recruitment mother you got some refutee you got to you got to to to to to to to and it's a whole

[00:41:55] big conversation and no one has any power to say yes to anything but everybody has the power to say

[00:42:03] no there's something and so what you do is you see this long line of people who say I don't like that

[00:42:09] I don't like that I don't like that and it becomes this massive compromise of a compromise of a compromise

[00:42:14] now if you're the owner of this project and the head of recruitment marketer who's expected to use

[00:42:20] this site to do most of your lifting you're like oh no this sucks and you know you don't release

[00:42:27] this site you push it out the door and hope that no one notices you you won't even escape it's

[00:42:33] don't change I know every single crazy thing is on this we're gonna launch it for

[00:42:40] the money at 12 o'clock at night God help us all yeah it's like pretend this is looking the other way

[00:42:45] and when you do that yeah when you do that you go I never ever ever ever ever ever when

[00:42:52] until then again god I wonder why it's been eight years since you've touched your career site

[00:42:57] god I wonder now to me it's interesting because a career site is is structural it is what everybody

[00:43:03] could agree on it's the fundamental principles displayed as born as boringly as possible compare

[00:43:09] that to your social which has exactly one lawyer and 126 year old social media kid in charge of it

[00:43:16] they have almost no oversight so long as they're not saying hail Satan or bobbaboo or whatever

[00:43:21] they're not allowed to say they can say whatever they want and they do because they're expected

[00:43:24] to fill the space and they're like I don't fucking know what to say so I'm gonna say it's

[00:43:27] what the hell and so you've got these two contrasting spaces this very conservative very boring

[00:43:33] hasn't changed in a while structured site and this beating heartbeat of what people are thinking

[00:43:38] about now now together they provide a very interesting communication experience but the truth is

[00:43:46] the best career sites are the ones that see those career sites as living breathing things who do not

[00:43:50] say who are willing to say I will accept every compromise to get this out the door knowing full well

[00:43:56] the second the door closes and it is out all those people leave the room and you can do whatever

[00:44:01] the heck you want and so those people build great career sites and that's why that's why great career

[00:44:07] site text next for the ones that allow it you the the manager of the owner of that site to make

[00:44:12] changes easily quickly as much as build as much content as you want because that's where the real value

[00:44:18] happens got a great CMS on the back end of the day so they can just make pages make landing pages make

[00:44:24] blogs make videos build it up connect the dots tag it left right in center all good stuff but a

[00:44:29] lot of the big name career site platforms are very are associated with agencies and the way

[00:44:34] agencies make money is they say I love to make that change it will be $200 an hour and by the way

[00:44:40] we brought three people in the room so it's 600 bucks an hour just for the intake call thanks for

[00:44:44] playing I wonder how they make so much money I'm sorry did I say that out loud I apologize we're

[00:44:49] not recording are we I got one more Ryan what do you got I want I wanted to dig if we have time

[00:44:57] digging at all hey let's go nuts dig into career sites what makes uh what makes a good career site

[00:45:03] and I and I'll say this I I can see us getting to a point of a career site literally is just a page

[00:45:13] right like we don't need to go super crazy and the other example where you were explaining you have

[00:45:18] one social media person and a lawyer yeah that's your career page that's what it is today but when

[00:45:26] does that actually happen when there's a company going and say yeah my question was similar

[00:45:31] going but I was gonna ask do you foresee a place where it's personalized to the job says job secret

[00:45:38] to the candidate like they go into it looking at one job and all of a sudden they have an incomplete

[00:45:45] different experience than everyone else so it's similar to Ryan's yeah I ultimately in the best

[00:45:50] employer brand is not the best concept it's the best expression of that concept and the way

[00:45:56] you measure that best expression is do I understand it do I believe it can I foresee myself in it if

[00:46:03] you can hit those three checkboxes you've got a great communication structure now in order to get

[00:46:09] a message I don't think you could write a message that both a data scientist and a nurse can

[00:46:13] both go agaiya I love it right I don't think you'd be done I think there has to be some level

[00:46:17] personalization I think however when you say that people start to cover their wallet because

[00:46:21] that sounds really flip it expensive oh yeah but it doesn't have to be so I'm a big believer that

[00:46:27] you should be building content not to fill space but create these very individualized doors

[00:46:33] into the brand when I was a group on forever ago we built all these people pages and I want to

[00:46:38] say how fast can we make there's 600 6,000 people to company how do how fast can we make 6,000

[00:46:43] profiles because the guy in Spain who's the sales manager I want his story I want the Australian

[00:46:52] support team member I want her story and I want the executive in Chicago I want their story

[00:46:59] and because of that I know I can find more people who are Spanish sales leaders and I can find

[00:47:04] more Australian support people and I can find more executives because they go that sounds like me

[00:47:09] that looks like me that feels like how I approach the world I want to learn more it's the

[00:47:14] doorway into this broader brand and once they kind of see that as the frame and say okay that's how

[00:47:19] I should see it they can look at other people's content and kind of see it as proof rather than

[00:47:24] explanatory so there's ways of doing it without having to drive you know a truck full of cash

[00:47:30] to somebody's house and say please build me this crazy site we did it with WordPress and I spent 500

[00:47:37] bucks mostly on stickers just to thank people for doing it and to keep the ball rolling I could

[00:47:42] I happily show the receipts but that's how people absorb the information it's how they find it

[00:47:47] how they engage with it should it be personalized yes but do you need to build a personalization

[00:47:52] structure no and I suspect the way I AI is rolling we're about to see about a year from now a

[00:47:59] point where even an idiot like me can kind of say a build code that does this this this this and it

[00:48:07] builds it for me and I install on a WordPress sure web flow maybe platform that hosts that code

[00:48:15] and host that site and even an idiot like me can build something a little more directly personal

[00:48:20] I don't I think this massive code shift is about to happen and I don't think we're quite realizing it

[00:48:27] that's that that's part of it James this is amazing you never disappoint

[00:48:35] well when are we going to start recording I was going to get excited oh shit we never

[00:48:38] used to appreciate yeah this is the warm up look at the green room everybody that's a podcast

[00:48:45] I wanted to start a podcast called why are you in what do you do an employer brand and

[00:48:49] what was the trauma that led you to this job like that was the name of the podcast like that

[00:48:53] was the thing I wanted to do because I knew I could get anybody to show up to that 100%

[00:48:58] let's do it James thank you so much if you're listening subscribe like i'd like us

[00:49:02] everywhere say hello when you see us out we'll see you next time