Over at TalentCulture, there was a nice interview about how important data is going to become to all of HR (yes, it was sponsored by SAS, who deal exclusively data, but the interview was solid). I was struck by the idea that rather than focus on "here's how data will help you!" kind of conversation, it was really about how once everyone is trained and versed in seeing and thinking with data, the solution doesn't change, the whole question changes.

While we're here, McKinsey dropped a whole lot of data on how Covid is changing... well... everything.

And in further tales of "everything is changing, so you better change too!" all the data and research you may have built your insights and strategies on are now... well, history. HBR has two pieces about the power of data, focusing on how you need to look at new post-Covid data because anything older is based on outmoded ways of looking at the world, and that you need a strong methodology with which to see the insights in the data. And one more, just to round things out.

I'll admit that I started reading this article on how data can help make remote teams work better to see what kind of data they were looking at, but it's really a different article. The premise is that if you give your staff more of the data/context/info on how leadership makes its decisions, other staff will likely make similar decisions, Further, with that info, they can do better work with less oversight, thus supporting a more remote work space. Why should I care? Because this is a great way to show a candidate what you mean by "we give people lots of opportunity" or "we empower our staff," both of which are functionally meaningless. But talking about how much data and info you share internally to support this claims makes those brand claims infantely more believable, credible and clear.

What do job seekers care about in a pandemic? Based on multiple company's TA chatbots, it turns out that 47% of people asked what the company's response to COVID was, roughly double the number of people asking about hiring. This suggests that prospects are twice as interested in understanding who the company as they are in learning about a job. Second take: If a huge percentage of your traffic comes in via job posts (job-focused), maybe preemptively tell them about your COVID response up front?

There's always a contingent looking "ahead" at cool marketing tactics. For them, I ask: are you thinking about interactive marketing yet? Be they games, AR/VR, even "choose your own adventure"-type story-telling, getting people to make choices within your marketing makes your messages more engaging and memorable. Okay, I scared you with the AR/VR thing, sorry. But quizzes count (sorta). And what if instead of "a day in the life" video, you let people choose what the employee was going to do? Get coffee or prep for the meeting? Research a client via Google or other channel? Make a series of options that people can choose and see the impact those choices make in their day. Maybe double down and work with your instruction-design people (assuming you have one of those) to show how each choice suggests that the candidate is or isn't a likely fit with your brand (without being ham-fisted about it).

Interesting LinkedIn Stats. My fave? Pinterest is FAR MORE trusted than Facebook. I bring this up because FB is about to be a VERY problematic place to run ads, I believe.

What kind of "live" videos work for people? Here are some ideas from the consumer side.

Adding pictures of staff wearing masks increases applications as much as 46%. Huh. It;'s almost like SHOWING how well you protect your staff encourages people to join. Weird.

How the creative director of Spotify uses data. This is a great video, but I suggest you watch to see ways Spotify could have used data in the aggregate to tell a big boring story. But instead, it found unique slices of the data to say something interesting, about themselves, about their listeners and about the world.

I love it when I headline to an article just knocks me sideways and I go, "Duh! Why didn't I think of that?!?!?!" Ted Bauer asks the simple (yet profound) question: Why don't we treat interviews as real data? There's so much we could learn about our company, ouir recruiters, our hiring managers and our entire experience, but we don''t because we treat the interview as some sort of gamut both we and the candidate must survive (as if we didn't flat-out invest the system).

Some nice pre- and post-lockdown (unsegmented) data points on how employees and candidates attitudes have changed. Biggest takeaway: remote is no longer a nice-to-have (so... maybe you need to have a chat with leadership and HR about making this whole WFH thing a real thing).

PathMotion took a look at all the bot-driven conversations on its platforms to see what candidates wanted to know more about. This isn't what candidates said they wanted, it's what they asked for, so if you don't know what to add to your career site and social channels, this is a solid starting point for a content map. I will caution and say that Universum's data (day job alert!) agrees with a lot of these conclusions, they aren't equally true across the board for all audiences. Just keep that in mind.

Universum’s Employer Branding NOW 2020 survey, now in its fifth year, shows best-in-class talent leaders are quickly adapting to the new-normal of Covid-19. STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN, July 2, 2020 – Universum’s much-anticipated Employer Branding NOW 2020 study, conducted during the pandemic’s surge months in early 2020, shows the World’s Most Attractive Employers do not expect a hiring …

Sally Bolig (hi Sally!) took recent LinkedIn data and did a better job of pulling out the insights than LinkedIn did. Of note: Companies are posting more in 2020 than before, posts about Covid seem to be plateauing as a messaging focus, and more companies are using LI to post about hiring. (This is good stuff if you want to convince marketing to let you have a seat at the LI table). Also note how quickly we all went from “don’t talk about race and politics on your corporate site” to “well, we have to say something about BLM…” in a matter of a few weeks.

Let’s talk metrics! No wait come back! If you are thinking about metrics, there are any number of ways to approach them, and none of them are “right.” I did a few presentations where I came up with three ways of thinking about metrics all on my own, and there are many others. But to start, connecting your metrics to the funnel is a smart go-to.

We are awash in information and data. You’d think it would be easy to take some of that and turn it into brand pillars, strategies and messaging, but in reality it seems like there’s too much information. Don’t shut it out: here are strategies on how to turn info into insight.

I know I’m bringing up Google a lot today, but I was interested in all this data they had around what messages work for video games. Like applying for jobs, video games aren’t simply transactional: they assume that the user will be spending a lot of their time on them, so the pitch isn’t necessarily what you’d think. For example, video game ads that focus on features and direct calls to action didn’t work when depth of control and motion tended to drive engagement.

From digital ad spend overtaking traditional and the growth of mobile to the most resilient advertising channels during the Covid-19 pandemic, here are 13 stats that show how advertising is changing in 2020 and beyond.Here are some stats which (once you get beyond the obvious), show you how much the ad market has changed in the last 6 months. For example, mobile isn’t big, it’s bigger than anything else (so you need a mobile strategy, and relying on “programmatic” isn’t enough). Google’s ad revenue went down for the first time… ever. Podcasting keeps growing. E-sports is a real thing. And expect that digital will dominate out-of-home ads.

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.

So, if you entitle your article ’7 Ways HR Can Build a Fairer, Data-Informed Culture,’ you are really asking for hurt. You know how I know? Because I have a brother and growing up, we each had a vastly difference sense of what 'fair’ meant. I have to imagine in your average 1,000-person company, you’ll be seeing dozens if not hundreds of definitions of same. It’s a tarpit, one which the article seems to acknowledge before skipping past it.

Internal surveys are useful, but deeply flawed. They only show the perception of those who self-select into the survey. They rarely ask good questions (where everyone answering them are actually answering the same question in their minds). And most staff don’t reveal what they really think for fear of retribution. But they are useful if you know how to design and administer them.

Second, culture isn’t static. In fact, it often isn’t evident until something unexpected happens. According to analysis of 1.4MM Glassdoor scores, culture weighed heavily on whether ratings went up or down during the first months of COVID. Companies that dictated culture fared worse than companies who were transparent and allowed their culture to inform communication styles and subject. If a company understands that a culture is a function of what staff say it is, they respond better than when its rigid.

How will data, its role in advertising and marketing, and the relationship that businesses have with it evolve in 2021?