Employer Brand Headlines Newsletter

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.)

If it's time to switch your focus from Milliennials to Gen Z, here's a solid guide on how to reach, connect with and engage them.

One company's story in trying to solve their retention problem. For them, the solution to keeping people from leaving was to embrace reality and support those leaving. Also, this kind of tactic has massive implications on your employer brand.

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 love weird lists like these: 52 random things I learned this year. My favorite? The Korean police force is using clones of dogs for bomb sniffing. I mean... what?!

If you know me at all, you know I love metaphors. Lovelovelove them!!! So when I see an article by Bud Caddell (my favorite organizational management thinker) with his 8 favorite metaphors for organizations, I eat that up like it's dessert.

Speaking of diversity, here's an article breaking down what women in STEM really want in their next job (and if you clearly offer these things to them, they are more inclined to apply and accept your offers.

Yet another case study of an organization deciding to get serious about their diversity issues and actually moving the needle. How?! Start with data, but then also (and here's the magic part) have the will to make changes based on the data. Crazy, right?

It's a little "let's all hold hands!" for my taste, but this article talks about how you build a sense of team spirit when your team is remote and you only get together once or twice a year. But the points raised remind us that the macro trend of remote work is increasing (and unlikely to change), so you need to re-think what your culture and brand might be when your people don't sit next to each other all day.

I think it's a mistake to say "employer branding is dead" because you're moving to a "one brand" strategy, but it's hard to resist lines like, "Delivering your brand is as much about what you don’t do and say as it is about what you do say and do."

Maybe I'm biased, but I love case studies and articles that show perfectionism actually limits the power of your brand. So embrace your flaws to maximize your brand's influence.

How can you start to spark a stronger brand culture (that you will eventually learn to tap into and take advantage of)? Here are some tips from the brand side.

Though it is written for a CEO, there's a lot of valuable advice in this article about internal comms. There's two ways to read it: get lots of advice on how to run your own employer brand internal comms. But also, you can read it to better understand how your leadership team has to see the world, which helps you can align to their needs and keep influencing them.

This week's long read comes to us courtesy of Tracey Parsons: How to personalize your content journey to increase conversions. One of the big takeaways is that there are a LOT more ways to establish context and triggers than "applied" or "set up interview." And if you can define more context, you can define more personal messaging.

The dirty little secret to successful employer branding is the ability to "sell" the concept and idea up the chain. Without any buy-in, you will be isolated on an island for a long time ("a three hour tour..."). But if you can get leadership excited for the work, your path forward will always be clearer. So here's Phil Strazzulla whiteboarding how to build a strong business case for your TA and EB initiative.

To me, figuring out what employer brand video to make is the litmus test of how strong your brand is. If you don't know what to do, if you're grasping for the latest trend in whatever, you're brand doesn't have a clear sense of itself and thus isn't very strong. But here's an ebook to help you solve this kind of problem: An EVP-driven video strategy.

Why should you think more like an anthropologist? Well, no brand can survive without feeling, sensing, and talking to their people. The anthropologist understands the development of humans in societies or cultures, which is what happens when people come together. That sounds like the sort of thing every employer brand pro should aspire to be.

Myself, I don't get too wrapped up in scripting the brand experience, mostly because I don't know how much you can really script the brand experience. But if you need to get a handle on the idea, here's a nice write-up on how to script your own.

"We have put together this curated collection of the best, most insightful articles of 2019, that focus on mastering branding as a strategic business tool."

As a bonus, here are predictions for social media for the coming year. What’s next for Facebook, TikTok, Slack, and more

Lots of great data points on Vox's wrap up of 2019 tech trends. The most interesting one is how tech talent is continuing to cluster around a handful of cities. This blows my mind. We all know how expensive it is to hire in the obvious cities, so you'd assume companies would look beyond those cities for talent (and a steep discount), but that's not happening. Might be a good chart to show the hiring manager who asks why it's so hard to hire in Boston, SF and Seattle

The assumption is that culture creates the brand, and I think that's true to an extent. Your brand is the intentional and judicious selection of traits and ideas that highlight your culture. But can you go the other way? That is, can you use the brand to change the culture? Great article on the chicken/egg situation and some great ideas on how you can make an impact on the culture.

I think I've mentioned that the concept of "belonging" is far more powerful than "joining" (think about that when you write your 47th "join us!" social media job post...), but the HBR goes deeper, defining the value of having people feel like they belong to the company. (Note the juxtaposition with the white paper above where isolation and loneliness are going to be a real problem).

We're reached peak-recruiting. As anyone with any real skill and a LinkedIn profile will attest, we've entered a world where recruiters can spam and annoy anyone with very little effort. It's time to pivot and reinvent your recruiting away from spamming and messaging and move towards building relationships. It's time to reinvent your recruiting.

Finally, if you're looking for a list of great brand articles to help you think bigger and bolder when you get the year kicked off right, here's a great one.