Over at Branding Mag, there's an interesting conversation about how to create a sense of brand without a visual identity. The idea being that the experience itself is the brand. Can the experience of working somewhere be a clear brand? It's an interesting thought.

This article over at RecruitingDaily hit on one of the reasons why focusing discussions on candidate experience always feels like a lot more promise than outcomes. They argument is that when most people talk candidate experience, they are thinking about "macro events," the big set pieces that occur in every (if not all) interview/hiring process. But when you over-index on macro experiences, you miss the power of the macro experiences and their ability to create an emotional connection with candidates.

If you are being forced to re-think your candidate experience (because you can't just have them show up to the office at the moment), here are some suggestions on leveraging human-centered design to re-invent the entire experience.

I love talking about rejection letters (sorry... disposition messaging ...rolls eyes...) because they are deeply impactful messaging opportunities we tend to phone in. Which is why I loved this article about how Intel re-designed its rejection experience (and it is an "experience," is it not?).

We have to face it: all "employee experience" conversations HAVE to start with a conversation around "are we doing enough to make our people feel safe?" That's why I thought this article was better than most of the "we need to make people feel valued and appreciated" conversations you get here (Maslow was right with that hierarchy stuff).

Here’s some good thinking on how to think as deeply around your employee experience as one might for their consumer experience.