Bonus! Talent Chooses You (in 15 minutes)

[00:00:22] I did some rough back of the napkin math and I figured out that if you listen to every episode and all the chapters I read

[00:00:29] You and I have spent about 15 to 17 hours together and that is a lot of time

[00:00:35] And yet here I am again the book having been completed

[00:00:38] I read my final thoughts last week and for some reason I'm here again. Am I a sucker for punishment? Nope

[00:00:44] I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to take the entirety of my book and

[00:00:50] Distill it into 15 minutes think I can do it. I don't know either. Let's find out when we get right back

[00:00:58] Hey everybody James Ellis

[00:01:04] Welcome to the talent cast it is the last episode of season two

[00:01:08] The entire season has been sponsored by recruitment marketing comm but this episode is a little different

[00:01:14] This episode is not me reading the book

[00:01:17] This episode is me trying to retell this book in a cliff notes kind of fashion

[00:01:22] How do I distill the entirety of the almost 300 pages?

[00:01:26] I don't even know how many pages it is actually almost

[00:01:30] 17 hours of me talking into something you can get out in 15 minutes

[00:01:34] This is the episode that if you want to share an episode and talk about what employer branding is and how it's different

[00:01:41] And how it's useful and how to dive into it. This is the episode. I want you to share

[00:01:46] It's designed for exactly that the question is

[00:01:50] Can I do it in 15 minutes? We're gonna find out in a second before we jump into that

[00:01:54] I want to make a quick announcement

[00:01:56] I've decided to really embrace my mission of creating a million employer brand thinkers and by the way

[00:02:02] Thank you for being one of them and start my own company

[00:02:05] I'm going off on my own and I'm going to try and help

[00:02:09] Anybody any recruiter any HR practitioner business partner?

[00:02:12] Anybody in TA anybody in marketing who wants to get better at employer branding get better an employer branding

[00:02:19] Go to employer brand labs or employer brand labs calm and take a look at what we're doing

[00:02:23] I've got a video on demand class that I think by the time you hear this should be ready from anybody

[00:02:29] That is it's a class all designed to help a recruiter

[00:02:32] Use employer brand right you're there and you want to help your recruiters get better

[00:02:37] But it's not always clear to them how you help them

[00:02:40] So this is a class that any recruiter can take very quickly and say I get how to use and leverage

[00:02:45] Employee brand to be better at what I do. There's more classes coming. There's cohort classes to help you develop your own EVP

[00:02:53] The thing that I think makes what I'm doing so exciting for me is that I'm focusing on smaller businesses

[00:03:01] I'm focusing on businesses between 250 and 750 people not small business like four different people or if mom and pop

[00:03:08] Sort of situation but businesses there may be in startup mode maybe in a growing mode

[00:03:12] Whatever it is. They're too small to justify buying or hiring a full-time employer brander, but they still need employer brand help

[00:03:20] So that's what I'm trying to do is serve that audience

[00:03:23] So hopefully you can give a chance to take a look at it if you don't I totally understand

[00:03:27] Hopefully this whole book and audio book has been useful

[00:03:30] So thanks everybody for listening and let's set the clock for 15 minutes and see how things go. Are you ready?

[00:03:38] Here we go

[00:03:39] So we start off with this idea that the context around talent acquisition has changed

[00:03:44] Not just in the last five years, but in the last 40 50 years

[00:03:48] It used to be that having a job was all

[00:03:50] The bait you needed to get someone to apply you could post a tiny little job notice in a newspaper

[00:03:56] You could hang a shingle outside your business that said help wanted people would show up

[00:04:00] That shifted as talent became more specialized that required more training as it required more education as

[00:04:07] People moved around they moved towards the suburbs

[00:04:10] They moved away from cities a lot of shifts around in a

[00:04:14] Macro trend kind of situation and it shifted to put the

[00:04:19] Responsibility of hiring in the recruiters hands

[00:04:22] So it wasn't just because they had a job

[00:04:24] They had a bait and people showed up now as a situation where they had a job and that gave them the power

[00:04:30] But it wasn't enough power to attract talent by itself

[00:04:33] So they leaned on recruiters to say go find me some talent now

[00:04:38] They could find that talent sometimes in the ATS of people who have applied

[00:04:42] Sometimes they found that talent on LinkedIn or at an event or just building their network

[00:04:48] They went and hunted the talent. They needed well

[00:04:52] What happens is is about to happen here is roughly the same as what happened to human beings thousands of years ago

[00:04:58] We were living on the ebbs and flows in the feast or famine model of hunting that some days

[00:05:03] You had more food than you knew what to do with some days

[00:05:06] You had less food than you needed and it was hard to kind of live

[00:05:09] It was a feast or famine kind of model the same model applies to talent

[00:05:13] Some days you had more applicants and more talented applicants than you needed

[00:05:18] You only need the one person to fill a role having to

[00:05:22] Doesn't actually help you having too much food in this case without refrigeration or way to store it

[00:05:27] Doesn't help you it just creates rot

[00:05:30] So what happened was is we said the hunting is useful

[00:05:35] But it would be useful if we also had the secondary model of

[00:05:39] consistent

[00:05:40] Predictable food creation called farming now farming has its own problems

[00:05:44] You have to plant the seeds before you're actually ready to eat. There's a long timeline

[00:05:49] There's a whole lot of lead time that comes between the moment you plant the food the seed and the moment you can turn

[00:05:56] into food

[00:05:57] Talents the same way if you want to attract a lot of people who are the best at what they do

[00:06:02] Posting a job on LinkedIn or a job board isn't gonna get it done. Why because that's not where they live

[00:06:08] They do not look for jobs jobs find them

[00:06:11] So what you have to do is to get on their radar

[00:06:15] Before they look for a job you have to plant the seed before you're hungry that takes time

[00:06:21] Now when you're planting a seed

[00:06:23] You can't just say we're in a great place to work that doesn't work

[00:06:26] Can we just admit that can we just for a second admit that that is an incomplete sentence at best?

[00:06:33] When you're looking to talk to talent the thing they want from you is a why

[00:06:39] Why should I talk to you? Why should I consider this company?

[00:06:42] Why should I consider working at this company? Why this role? Why now? There's a lot of whys

[00:06:48] Behind what they're choosing to do now for the longest time recruiters didn't have to give much why they were hunters

[00:06:55] They just grabbed you and dragged you because they have the job and they had the power as

[00:06:59] That has shifted the power of the Y has expanded

[00:07:03] Now this this Y isn't arbitrary. It is the connection

[00:07:10] Between what your company is all about what it rewards its policies its culture what it offers what the work is like

[00:07:17] All of that stuff if the company's mission the company's value all of it

[00:07:22] How does it tie to the individual and specifically how does it tie to the humans?

[00:07:29] Motivation their desire for status their desire for consistency their desire for opportunity

[00:07:34] What is the thing that they care about that you offer and that Y is a very thin

[00:07:41] But very obvious connection between the two ideas

[00:07:44] It connects what you as a company care about and what they is a candidate and as a human being care about

[00:07:51] It's a connector

[00:07:53] That's the why and that is the core the beating heart of what employer brand is all about

[00:07:57] It's not about going and grabbing talent. It's about

[00:08:01] Seeding that Y in front of the right audiences so that when the recruiter is ready

[00:08:08] The candidates primed

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[00:08:54] So the brand this idea of the why comes from every aspect of the business

[00:09:05] You can't just say it's just recruiting you can't say it's just marketing because it's not it is every level of the company

[00:09:13] Every time a CEO or a COO does something great or does something bad it impacts people's perception of the brand

[00:09:21] It impacts what people think that business is all about when the company offers really a bad customer service

[00:09:28] That doesn't just impact the consumer and their desire to buy the product again

[00:09:33] It impacts them as a candidate because they suddenly think wait if I work there am I now

[00:09:39] Associated with this horrible customer service and do I want that maybe I don't

[00:09:43] The brand is

[00:09:46] Something that happens at every level every choice the company makes impacts that brand

[00:09:51] What's also interesting is a candidate absorbs that sense of the brand over a long

[00:09:57] Journey now are three major stages of that journey before they're looking for a job as they're looking for a job

[00:10:03] And as they're interviewing for the job what happens is the farther along that journey

[00:10:09] They get the more focused they get at absorbing information

[00:10:12] So if they're not actively looking and you're putting out little pieces of information

[00:10:16] They may or may not be paying attention. Maybe it's only

[00:10:21] Subconscious what they're absorbing maybe they have a sense that they like or don't like that brand

[00:10:25] But they can't always put a finger on why but as they decide to consider this brand

[00:10:30] They become much more focused

[00:10:32] They're much more likely to research you and read about you and ask questions

[00:10:36] And as they get to the interview stage, they're literally standing in your company looking around doing a full 360 asking themselves

[00:10:43] Can I picture myself in this company?

[00:10:46] If they can

[00:10:49] You've got a really good shot at them saying yes to the offer if they can't

[00:10:55] you don't

[00:10:56] Now you can

[00:10:58] intentionally influence this perception of what it's like to work there by planning what story

[00:11:04] Via what channel?

[00:11:06] Connects to that candidate at every stage of the journey the funnel on the journey is not some sort of arbitrary concept

[00:11:12] It tells you what the candidate cares about

[00:11:16] What they're looking at how much they're absorbing at any given stage and you plan your content story telling narrative strategy

[00:11:23] Accordingly the story they need at the top of the funnel in the journey is something interesting

[00:11:28] Something that sparks their attention something eye catching or mind catching something that grabs them because why should they care?

[00:11:35] They've got plenty of stuff to do. How are you more interesting than a photo on Instagram of their friends, baby or a cat

[00:11:43] That is the level of the bar. What's your focus focusing? They're not gonna read your white paper

[00:11:47] They're not gonna watch your 10-minute video unless it's produced professionally unless it's really interesting

[00:11:54] Farther down the funnel, they're more focused and more willing to invest in time in that information

[00:11:59] That means not only does the kind of information or the scope of information change

[00:12:03] But the kind of information changes telling somebody that you offer

[00:12:08] Great PTO before they're a candidate isn't useful telling them in the interview stage or right before very useful

[00:12:15] The stories you tell aren't just we don't care about stories because there's some sort of business trend

[00:12:20] Which they seem to be it's because the stories that we tell

[00:12:24] Allow a candidate to look at you and say I see myself in this space

[00:12:29] It creates the space to allow a candidate to reject themselves in that

[00:12:33] That's what makes them decide to say yes or makes them say no

[00:12:38] now a brand

[00:12:39] When you distill it is two levels first. It's the

[00:12:43] You know the Steve the the Jeff Bezos a brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room

[00:12:48] And there that's a valid way of approaching it

[00:12:51] But another way of thinking about a brand especially for us most valuable for us is that it focuses thinking and action

[00:12:59] You have a million stories you could tell you have a million pieces of information you could share there are

[00:13:08] Hundreds of positive things you could tell of candidates, but they don't aren't willing to invest that time with you

[00:13:15] So what do you tell them?

[00:13:16] Well, you tell them the thing that one they care about

[00:13:21] To is true and three is differentiating is unique about you why well

[00:13:28] If you tell them something and they don't care about it that that's pretty odd self self-explanatory

[00:13:34] Right if you tell them something and they say oh that's interesting and they Google it and they find that it's not true

[00:13:40] You're a liar and you're done

[00:13:43] If you tell them something and it's a story that they can hear about any company anywhere

[00:13:50] Why would they apply for you? Why not apply for any company anywhere?

[00:13:54] So any good brand has to kind of live in those three spaces that the intersection of is it true

[00:14:02] Is it connecting to that person is it motivated is connected to what they care about and is it unique?

[00:14:07] When you distill that idea

[00:14:10] Call an EVP call it a brand position. I don't care

[00:14:14] Everything you do is now filtered through that and it turns all the light in your room into a laser

[00:14:21] It focuses all the stories all the the collateral all the information the stories about your policies

[00:14:28] Your testimonials your quotes your videos your glass door reviews positive and negatives your job postings your career site

[00:14:34] All of it it focus all that through a couple of simple ideas that are again what they should care about

[00:14:42] Are true and are unique and when you do that you create a self-validating space

[00:14:50] As you tell these stories and they go looking to see if those stories are true

[00:14:55] They find that they're true because that's what you've been building the stories about

[00:15:00] You spent the last six months making videos and making

[00:15:04] Testimonial quotes and making job postings telling a single or a couple of very core ideas

[00:15:10] When you connect with a candidate and they start to look at it and they see that idea

[00:15:14] Everywhere they turn they say this must be true. This is crystal clear

[00:15:19] I get it and at that point they make the decision of I want to be here or I don't want to be here

[00:15:26] I want that thing or I don't

[00:15:28] so that level of brand thinking means in

[00:15:32] the ecosystem we work

[00:15:35] Our job is not to control things because we can't we cannot control the CEO

[00:15:40] We cannot control the product selection. We cannot control customer service, however

[00:15:45] Because they impact what our world is like and because it's important that we care about that stuff

[00:15:52] We need to influence everyone about what we do

[00:15:56] You have no authority almost ever to tell people what to do

[00:16:01] But you can educate them and influence them so that they understand how their choices

[00:16:06] Impact not only you but the company's ability to attract and hire talent

[00:16:12] All of this means that you as the employer brander on whatever level that is

[00:16:18] Need to shift your perspective not from they told me to do a thing. I did a thing

[00:16:24] Not I need them to change that so they have to make them change

[00:16:29] The job is to help every single employee every single hiring manager

[00:16:34] Understand the core ideas of what this company is all about

[00:16:37] To show them the proof of the work and why it works and how it works and how they have a role in

[00:16:44] Supporting this it means not getting the glory because you don't own the brand

[00:16:48] You simply orchestrate the brand. They are the ones playing the violins and oboes

[00:16:53] It's about shifting what you do away from task and deliverable and more into outcome

[00:17:02] Using influence that is what employer brand is day to day

[00:17:06] And it's a function of how businesses think about talent because ultimately when you can help a business

[00:17:13] Change their thinking about hiring you're literally helping a business change their thinking about business

[00:17:19] Because it does become about creating farmers

[00:17:23] Influencing others businesses don't succeed because they demand that customers buy a product

[00:17:29] Businesses succeed because they create a product so attractive to the right audience that the audience is compelled

[00:17:36] To buy it that is what you're doing

[00:17:39] Your place is to help the business shift how it sees itself shift how it pays attention to things

[00:17:46] Shift how it attracts its customers its investors and its candidates

[00:17:52] This does not happen solely on you

[00:17:55] But you have to admit and have to accept that part of this does fall on you

[00:18:00] You have a part to play here

[00:18:04] That's what employer branding is in the big scheme of things

[00:18:07] It's not about attracting candidates because they under they care about what the logo says or they like the video

[00:18:13] Or it's a great well-written job posting

[00:18:16] You're compelling people to show up because they care about what your company cares about

[00:18:21] They can join something where their motivations and needs are met because that's what the company is trying to do and

[00:18:28] Creating focus for the entire business to grow

[00:18:32] that

[00:18:33] In a nutshell his employer brand

[00:18:36] And that in a nutshell is talent chooses you and I think I did it in 14 minutes

[00:18:40] Wow, I didn't think I could do it. I was a little concerned

[00:18:44] Thanks again for listening if you have any questions if you want to reach out to me

[00:18:48] I'm on LinkedIn all the time just to find me James Ellis

[00:18:52] Employer brand obviously or go to employer brand labs take a look at that and connect with that connect with me that way

[00:18:58] Also, you can always subscribe to my newsletter. Yeah, I'm kind of everywhere. All I do is talk about employer brand

[00:19:02] Yeah, but you knew that already. Thanks so much for being a part of season two of the talent cast

[00:19:06] I think this has been an incredibly successful project by all accounts

[00:19:11] The people who've asked for this are thrilled with it

[00:19:14] The people who got a chance to be exposed to this information are absorbing and are interested or asking good questions

[00:19:19] The ask me anything's have been going well. The newsletter has been growing

[00:19:23] I really do embrace this mission of creating a million employer brand thinkers

[00:19:27] So if there's anybody you think who needs to become an employer brand thinker like you and me

[00:19:32] Connect us. I'd love to meet them. Thanks everybody and I'll see you for season three in whatever shape that turns into bye

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