Because employer branding as a function is so incredibly complex, it seems like the people who do it each have their own "process" for development. Some people are copy-writers, some people approach it more visually. Some people leverage their tech stack. And others work the internal politics side to develop something that will have immediate buy-in. Those are all possible ways to do it. But what if you had something stronger, something that yo could build creative on top of, something that was tech agnostic, or could shut down petty squabbles internally quickly? Because such a thing might exist? What is your employer brand built on?

I loved this article on how "combinatorics" (that term had to have been invented by an MBA with a math background) can help find tune your value proposition. If you ignore the jargon, there's a heck of pitch here: because you don't really understand what your talent prospects want (because you haven't tightened your focus enough), you can't differentiate.

And if you'd like to understand how data can underpin a stronger, more resilient employer brand, I wrote something up to try and put it all together and create a string business case for data investment, even when everything seems "up in the air."

Metrics, anyone? EB Rock star Shaunda Zilich writes up a nice piece on EB metrics. I was going to quibble with it until I realized that the best part of the article is unstated: Metrics are gibberish until you decide what your strategy is first. You can measure oodles of things and easily get batted around like a leaf on the wind unless you have clearly defined what you are trying to do and deciding the metrics on that. Once I saw that, I realized how great the article was.