As with many impactful things, this post started with a conversation. That conversation happened in the Talent Brand Alliance group discussion forum. But that’s not what made it great.

Personally, I have an exchange at least once a week with someone who’s looking to learn more about employer branding, talent branding, recruitment marketing (gasp, social recruiting!) and they’re desperately searching. Searching for learning resources, trying to define a role, a task, or a strategic initiative. And unfortunately, most resources available online are technology specific, or underwritten by vendors who have a financial stake in the public’s proper education.

The insights from asking over a thousand vetted practitioners who care about what they do, is what makes this great. If you talk to the people doing the work, they’ll share the most often asked and mis-quoted nuggets of wisdom for their profession. So I did.

In no particular order, here are the thirty-three things grouped by theme, that employer brand practitioners wish recruiters and Human Resources knew.

Defining the Work

• The difference between a job description and a job ad. The concept of the candidate journey and experience. The word culture needs an actual definition vs. just being a word you use.

• That we're a resource/support function for them. Not just the Brand police. 

• That Recruitment Marketing and Employer Branding are two different things.

• We aren’t just here for booth design and swag. To be effective, we have to wear so many hats by being the brand manager, content marketer, performance marketer, email marketer, social media strategist, data analyst, campaign manager, lifecycle marketer, employee engagement specialist, PR, the list goes on... 

• HR & Recruitment Systems are not your Employer Brand. They are systems that, when used effectively, can be used to market your brand and ensure seamless, engaging communication and service delivery experience to employees and candidates.

• Even within Talent Attraction there are silos and opposing camps between Employer Branding and Recruitment Marketing. Many EB pros who have mostly had to depend on bootstrapping it and guerrilla marketing may have an “anti-RM” or “anti-media” bias without realizing that a lot of the tactics they lean on like event marketing and email campaigns and direct mail ARE Recruitment Marketing tactics. Similarly there are lots of folks with strong RM backgrounds that never fully appreciate how a great Employer Value Proposition and authentic storytelling are critical foundations for successful RM. If you have a strong EVP and great content, you better have a really long runway to get eyes on your messaging if you’re depending only on organic exposure if you’re not leveraging paid media to amplify. And if you drive all kinds of traffic to crappy and inauthentic content, you’ve also failed.

Depth of the Work

• That what we do isn't just that cute stuff on social media. That doesn't even touch the surface.

• It demands collaborative work, alignment and a strategic approach.

• That Employer Brand and Recruitment Marketing play an imperative role throughout the entire candidate journey from initial brand awareness to employee experience and even employees departure (or boomerang!) from the company. Our efforts compliment the work of both talent acquisition and HR, as we understand the main customer at hand: the employee. Our work, the voice we use, speaks to the people - their emotions, their needs, likes/dislikes, etc. And our work is even more powerful when TA, HR and EB work closely together.

• You can’t necessarily expect to see the impact of the work overnight. It takes time and consistent reinforcement of messaging across many touchpoints to show ROI over time. If I have one more leader ask me “so how many hires will developing an EVP generate?....” 

  Also it can be more accurate depiction as to whether your efforts are working by showing impact higher up in the funnel (i.e. cost/qualified applicant as opposed to cost/hire, knowing how many factors are at play when it comes to making a hiring decision).

• That once a job has been posted, and you aren't getting the right candidates, it's kinda already too late to ask for my help! Need to include EB/RM professionals much earlier on to get the result you want and for us to work together.

• EB/RM, like any brand marketing strategy, is the long game, the million little things that work together to attract and retain your dream talent. It's about cultivating a following of people -- potential and current employees -- who are most likely to help businesses achieve their goals.

Demystifying the Work

• It's not about marketing gloss or PR'ing your way to a better employer brand. It's about authentically showcasing your workplaces and careers with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the forefront.

• You can't out advertise a bad candidate/employee experience.

• Candidates like consumers believe people over brand communication. They are doing their homework and evaluating multiple data points before making their decision. 

• Employer Brand doesn’t change the culture. 

• That it’s not just about fun sexy creative posts. 

• That you don’t create/design it, it already exists! 

• The world is on its arse. People are fighting both mental health problems and struggling to put food on the table. Think of people and their needs, not yours. 

• That HR and recruiting are an essential part of a strong EB, it’s not us and them. 

• A lot of the ‘Best Place to Work’ awards are overrated.

• That it has to be authentic. You can’t just “Jazz” things up or put buzzwords on something to attract MORE candidates. It has to be about attracting the RIGHT candidates that are going to excel in the job AND stay because they truly know what they are getting into. If you sell something that doesn’t exist, you lose them and your employer brand deteriorates.

• It’s not about attracting more talent- but the right talent. And enabling that talent to know you are the right employer for them as well.

• I noticed that a lot of the responses are "I wish recruitment / hiring would take us seriously." What have you done in order to combat this? I remember having to do a lot of selling, and then once I won them over, there was more than one person advocating on my behalf.

• Recruitment Marketing is NOT the silver bullet... Just because you have a pretty landing page does not mean candidates will apply.

Distributing the Work

• It takes a candidate on average 7-9 touch points before making a decision. 

• That we all own the employer brand and they play a huge part in what candidate’s think/say about the company.

• When built out properly it becomes a foundational part of attracting hiring and retaining quality candidates....and will change the role of the recruiter forever....

• Content that's coming from the brand should not be your only metric of success. Employee advocacy is crucial.

• It’s not about tactics, trendy work, collecting likes and shares, and a functional EB team only. It’s about unique foundations, strategy AND tactics, playing the long-term game and gravitating around a real world employee experience.

• The candidate journey is a long one. Candidates don’t make a decision to apply based on one (promoted) job ad; they do it based on multiple touch points where they find consistent and relevant information about the actual experience and values of the employees and the employer. EB’ers don’t just bedazzle and create one-hit wonder taglines. We do the research, gather stories & trends (good and bad), champion those stories to influence change or celebrate wins and differentiators, educate business partners, hiring managers, recruiters on how to shift / pivot / align to influence the funnel. I could go on and on. Like everyone else, I just wish our space was more widely understood and appreciated. 

• Recruiters / hiring managers should be our ally. We aren’t trying to make more work for them but if they want good quality candidates we need their partnership to understand the candidate personas so we can target them appropriately. 

• Put me in the room for headcount decisions and update me as they change. Even an idea of what’s to come helps frame and guide our audiences, messages, cadence - you name it.

The names of our members have been removed from these quotes, but I’m willing to wager that your colleague will validate at least one of these as intimately true from their perspective. I encourage you to share this with your talent brand / recruitment marketing / employer brand counterparts and have that conversation. My guess is that they’ll happily grab a coffee with you in the name of partnership.

About Our TBA Member:

Bryan Chaney is a global talent sourcing and attraction strategist and a cofounder of the Talent Brand Alliance. He’s worked at IBM, Twilio, and currently leads employment brand for corporate recruitment at Indeed. Bryan has worked in recruitment, technology, and marketing, providing him insights into the marketing of hiring, the importance of technology, and the buying process that candidates make when applying for jobs. You can follow along with him at @bryanchaney.