It’s time to move past “What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?”The real value of emotional commitment is that it gives you (and everyone else) permission to re-write the "rules." You know those things you've always done because that's just the way it's always been done? Set that on fire and re-invent, not because it's what your boss says to do, or because that's what the magazines say is "cool," but because you actually care about outcomes. Example? Reinvent your hiring process. Now, HBR isn't exactly coming up with cold fusion here, but when the they are willing to say that the way we interview flat-out isn't working, you know it's time to reinvent. But don't reinvent around a fad. Thing about what you and your company really care about in an employee (and what you reward) and build round that. Writing, games, role-play, improv exercises, whatever it takes to tap into your (and their) emotional commitment.

This one made me smile and groan at the same time. As hiring is so tight in the Bay Area, employees at top companies are selling referrals and references to their employers. That is, for $50, you can get someone at Google or Facebook to recommend you for a job at Google or Facebook. Because those companies get some many resumes/applications, they mostly only look at those with internal referrals, and thus a third-party black market sprung up. (Further proof that William Gibson was right when he wrote "the street finds its own uses for things.)

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).

Brands are things humans build feelings around. Are you thinking about what emotions you want to encourage and when?

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

What’s wrong with corporate job interviews? Pretty much everything. Interviews are the second most used and “flawed” tool in HR (right after performance appraisals). They are used and relied on around the world for hiring, transfers, promotions, and for selecting leaders. After studying and researching interviews for over 40 years, I find it laughable when…For all the work you do in establishing and instilling/imbuing your brand throughout all the various touch points of the candidate’s brand experience (bigger than the “candidate experience”), there’s one place where it tends to fall apart: the interview. The interview is like talking 6 months of potential brand interactions and compressing them into an intense 1-3 hour live session (virtual or not). Worse than that, they are always happening and they are always out of your control. Let’s be clear a bad 30 minute interview is the difference between a positive or negative experience, between a 1 star and 5 star review, and between a yes and a no. So here’s a list of the 50 biggest issues with interviews. Ignore the fact that it is a 8-year-old article: it will let you blueprint ways in which to influence better brand experience into this crucial experience.

My feeling on over-indexing on candidate experience are well known (your CX should reflect your brand and work reality, not just “white glove”), but there are still great online ways to engage talent online outside of tests and (god help us all) the ATS. Here are some examples from the consumer world we could all steal ideas from.