I'm on record as saying that candidate experience is an often-misunderstood (and over-valued) concept, that (much like EB itself) it isn't something you buy or implement, but is a reflection of who you are and how you operate. Great candidate experience should show off your values and the real experience of working there, not just be obsessed with some vague notion of "white glove service." So I love it when other publications talk about CX from the same experience.

Good visual identity is about more than engaging colors and pretty creative. It needs to enhance your message and brand. That means getting beyond colors and fonts you like or are fashionable. Instead, think about the visuals as a way to invite people to learn more bout your employer brand.

I loved this article in Fistful of Talent about seeing one's job of EB owner as more than just being the EB cheerleader. Too often, we embrace cheerleading simply because aren't given the power or control to make change. But our jobs aren't about control, they are about influence, and how much do cheerleaders really influence things? Instead, be a brand champion.

But there is a dark side to being committed to being data-driven. What happens when you collect enough data on your employees to spot non-productive staff automatically? And if the data can spot them... what happens when automation fires them? Sound crazy? It's happening right now. This isn't a "this is bad!" post, but these are the changes that are happening that directly impact how people perceive your employer brand.

I'm going to call it right now. 2020 is the year recruiting and hiring get real about data. Between all the data sitting in your HRIS systems, the AI that can pull it out and deliver some measure of insights, the availability of low-cost external perception research, workforce planning et al, HR and recruiting will spend the year learning how to collect, manage and make decisions with data. What pushed me over the edge is Talent Culture talking about bringing in the last foot-dragging elements of HR into a data-driven mentality: recruiting.

This week's big read is Boston Consulting Group's article on how the changing world of work is a confluence of changing tech, changing talent needs, and the value of purpose in the next decade. It's very mega-trendy, but there are great notes. For example, how will you understand and communicate your EB internally as teams get smaller and more virtual? Does your EB change for someone working from home? How do you change your strategy of turning them into advocates?

If you employer brand function owns the recruitment marketing function, here's a great article on how to better manage your ad spend.

While candidate experience is impacted by every aspect of recruiting, the number one recruiting focus for 2020 will be employer branding. In fact, 81% of all global companies we surveyed...

LinkedIn says 2020 is the year recruiting completely changes. New skills, new tools, new approaches to recruiting. So... you mean like employer branding?

I'm helping a friend walk her employer brand project through leadership, so I'm super sensitive to how hard is it to get leadership buy-in. Then I see this article on how to get leadership to buy into consumer branding, and I realize we aren't quite the proverbial red-headed step-child we often think we are. Even marketing has to work hard to get buy-in, so why not steal some good ideas from them?

I really wish we could all get away from talking about "culture" as if there's some platonic ideal of culture we should all be shooting for. What I like is not what you like and that's completely fine. And while there are some good points here about fostering a stronger and more obvious culture, don't get sucked into the position that there's only one measure of quality culture.

I'm already on record (what record??!?!) for the power of embracing constraints. When you have no resources or money or time, that's when you are forced to get really creative in solving your problems (even employer branding ones). So here's the HBR talking how innovation doesn't occur despite constraints, but because of them. Sure, if you want to play "follow the leader" and "best practice bingo," you'll pay a premium to do it the way everyone else does. So embrace those constraints (or even apply some arbitrary ones) to innovate better.

When I talk about how to build an employer brand in a company with diverse microcultures, I usually reference a company's legal team and sales teams as the most disparate groups. One is driven by taking risks and the other is driven by negating them. But the trick is, I really don't know much about how corporate legal teams work, do you? Which is why I'm pointing to this article entitled "Does your legal team spark joy?" To me, it was an interesting perspective that even the dry and boring legal team can have and develop their culture. As they support the business, you can be supporting them by telling a more interesting and intimate story about them.

I know I'm in the minority when I say that I don't know that "day in the life" videos are not how I would want to learn about a company (my quibble: they can be as staged and fake as any other marketing device, and frankly, what your office looks like and what meetings look like don't tell me much). But they are obviously a part of many company's employer brands, so if you're going to build them, maybe build them well. William Tincup says the secret to a good video is a focus on hypertransparency and radical candor.

In EMEA and APAC, where tenures are longer and people change companies less, there's a deeper investment in university recruiting to establish and develop one's employer brand. In the states, however, university recruiting often has to beg for crumbs at the table. So if you're going to build a campus recruiting team, do it right. (I'm not saying the secret is to set KPis and tout successes, but it kind of is.)

The intersection between employer brand and influencers is a strange one. You're supposed to create influencers and advocates internally, right? But while consumer marketing fell in lover with professional influencers a few years ago, the tide seems to be changing. Interestingly, it seems like they are changing from "buy an influencer" to "build internal brand communities." Huh. That seems familiar, somehow...

Just as great conversationalists get invited to parties, great content is a welcome guest in an email inbox or a social media feed. And, because content marketing is so critical for B2B companies, being a great guest who gets invited back is just what you want to be.

The top 8 recruitment marketing trends for 2020 (oh look, employer brand as the core of all messages is #1).

There's absolutely nothing wrong with investing in tech, but you can't use it to replace your brand mindset. But how will robots change branding? Well, if your brand is tech-driven, it will definitely flip over the apple cart. But if your brand is idea-driven, it's a very different story.

The bitter and cynical black-hearted part of me really loved this article on brands and emotional dishonesty. All those brands projecting sunny dispositions and unrelenting positivity, are they really getting what they want? Are they applying a short-lived salve to soothe people's pains without actually changing anything? And in the world of employer brand, where there's no such thing as "short-term fixes," what would happen if brands embraced emotional honesty?

Is your employer brand charismatic? This article is really focused on how to build one's own charisma, but the notes sound like I'd want to see in a strong employer brand. Example: "use of metaphors to simplify messages, stir emotions, invoke symbolic meanings, and aid recall" and "The articulation of moral convictions and shared sentiments to demonstrate alignment with the followers." Sounds like a great brand to me.

Not enough attention has been paid to "predictive analytics"when it comes to employer branding. Predictive analytics is the mechanics that suggests what movie you should watch next or what products you might also be interested in. Maybe not in a "you might also be interested in this job" way, but what about predicting what information and content a candidate needs to see next to make a decision on the company. By way of example, here are 7 emerging ways to use predictive analytics.

It's no secret that changing your gender ratios starts by making sure there are women in the pipeline. But how do you make that happen? It may not be enough to say the language in your job postings is "balanced." Instead, consider changing the "requirements" section to "We anticipate using skills like these to be successful" to encourage more women to apply.

The magic in storytelling for branding is that stories feel real, natural, and allow the listener to project themselves into them, providing a more impactful experience than just having tag lines shouted at you. So here are 9 ways to integrate digital storytelling into your branding based on what some of the best employers are doing.

If you've got the time (and the outrage), here is the big article on the internal comms and culture of Away. Why is this worth your time? It is an amazing example of how tools and processes (Slack! Value-driven culture!) that were launched to help us change work, can still be used to badger, belittle and abuse staff (someone in a forum called it "weaponizing values" and I can't get that out of my head). There's are a million quotes I could use, but I suggest you watch to see how "open communication" can be used to instill fear, how "embracing values" can be corrupted to build a cult of personality.

Most people still see the interview process as the means by which the company learns about the applicants, but the questions a company asks tell the candidate loads. Here's a list of 40 great interview questions you consider adding to your company's list.

I am fully aware of my bias towards content marketing, but I think EB pros can learn a lot from them. So here are top thought leaders in the content space giving their predictions for 2020. Things to note: Trust as a social process, deeper investment in video AND AUDIO (you mean like podcasts?), leveraging data into the content planning process, and email newsletter making a comeback.

Some days you just need to get into the weeds to help a hiring manager or recruiter "get" how employer branding can help. Big ideas and concepts just won't fly, and will likely push them away from what you're trying to say. Instead, here's a guide that I see as kind of a bridge to employer brand thinking. Using a DiSC framework (which I generally dig anyway), you can show someone how a "one size fits all" approach to messaging won't work. Once they see how tailoring their messaging to some basic personas can make an improvement, you've opened their eyes and they will be more likely to hear how they can tailor the message further to integrate the brand. How to put the perfect job ad in front of a candidate

I've been in a lot of meetings and rooms where someone asks, "why don't we do what XYZ is doing?" I wonder if that's a function of all corporate recruiting being functionally the same that they don't recognize that branding should actually be different. But that's a tangent we can investigate later. Here's an article that talks about why brands that imitate are going to get in deep trouble.

Very few of us come from a classic "brand management" background, so articles like this on the state of brand management are a nice peek into how their worlds are changing, too. (Turns out, we're all making it up as we go along.)