Whether you’re a global brand or a start-up, getting potential employees to want to work for you is always a challenge. Enabling them to understand what you stand for and why they should work for you than a competitor has become more down to your employer branding.
Joining James Whitelock this week is an employer branding expert and soon-to-be author, James Ellis. Ellis helps us define what employer branding is and its role in a business. Does it sit in marketing, or HR, or is it completely separate? He also shares some examples of how to practically start on your employer branding journey
Episode Transcript:
00:00.29
ThinkinCircles
Welcome back everybody to the marketing rules podcast and it’s my pleasure to be Jane by James Ellis self-confessed employ branding nerd who so we’ve just kind of discussed oh you know? and apparently there is a story behind that which I am looking for here James Pleasure Podcast
00:12.51
James Ellis
Um, yeah, well I mean it’s great to be here. It’s not much of a story. It’s not filled with drama and it’s not that kind of story. Um, no I realized a couple years ago that if you googled employer Brander, I was really appearing a lot in the search results. And I’ve just kind of said. Okay I guess that must be it and it’s to the it’s to the point now where if you just typing employer brand nerd without any quotes. It will be 5, 6, or 7 of the first page results is me but if you use quotes, I own the first 7 or 8 pages. It’s just it’s just wall to wall me. So, if it’s one of those things where you know you.
00:45.15
ThinkinCircles
Ah.
00:48.71
James Ellis
You brand yourself as you are right? You don’t see you don’t say ah this guy he is clearly the most attractive employer brander. No, that’s not going to play people going to see that and saying you know, maybe not That’s not how you want to go player Brand Nerd I can see that I can see how that works So that’s you know you lean into what your strengths.
01:05.78
ThinkinCircles
Um, it sounds very much like we’re getting onto personal branding which is an entirely another different podcast.
01:06.40
James Ellis
What they’re very, they’re very not well separated. There’s not a lot of daylight between them. Yeah.
01:15.61
ThinkinCircles
No, I can I yeah, it’s way for thin between the 2 Um, but it’s great. It’s great to have you on board and um and so tell us a bit about your background James tell us how you kind of got into employ branding and then what kind of led up to that.
01:26.10
James Ellis
Yeah, so I was ah a digital strategist for lack of a better term I was I was adrift for a very long time I was always the most digital person on the marketing team or the most marketing person on the digital team. So, which boils down to I made websites I made Twitter accounts right? I did a lot of stuff, and this is way back in the. Early two thousand s mid 2000 s where I was like ooh, he made a Twitter account. That’s a full-time job and now you’re laughing because it’s what I do those with my elbows that’s easy to do pay eight bucks a law does it for me anyway, um, yeah, and we’ve already descended into a long. So, I did that for a long time I did that kind of stuff for all sorts of different companies, and I realized that the kind of marketing I did was straightforward. It’s understood who your audience is and understand what they care about understand how your product of service or whatever it is connects to that and put it in front of them and if you can repeat it a couple of times you know more power to you.
02:14.97
ThinkinCircles
I.
02:18.93
James Ellis
And it’s ah so it’s a straightforward process. It’s not rocket science the way the more I learn about rocket science even rocket science that much about rocket science. Um, you know the more you watch Tv the more you learn I got poached by a big recruiting marketing firm T&P at the time now. And they said you know a lot about digital marketing, and I said, “Well, thank you, thank you very much.” They said, “And you are a bit of a job hoper…” I went, “Okay, that’s fair.” And, they said, “Yeah, so the fact that you’re a job popper means you’ve probably been to a lot of job. You know a lot of recruiters and you’ve been through this process.” So, what you’re saying is that job hopping is a skill.
02:54.69
James Ellis
Why has no one told me this before they had no idea that there was experience in job hopping and they said for what we do digital strategy and recruitment marketing and recruiting Glu Together. That’s what we’re looking for and that’s you I said OKAY, let’s do that and so I started. Being a digital strategist there and it was very quick that I realized that they had this weird team, and this is getting real inside baseball ah which was just at the time was just called the social media team and I went no. That’s it, you’ve got interns driving. You’ve got kids who are just straight out of school doing it. They there’s not getting a lot of leadership. They’re not getting a lot of guidance.
03:19.10
ThinkinCircles
Um.
03:29.58
James Ellis
I’ve done content marketing for years. Let me help you do that team and over the course of time you know they let me take it over we changed the offering but what it was we called it inbound marketing at the time. But what I realized in hindsight was that it was employer brand activation I was driving employer brand activation and that. Kind of penny drop moment for me was like wow okay I get what this is, and it was like all my experience of doing weird marketing for every sort of type of company and every sort of type of marketing in the world came to bear to employer branding I went. There’s so much to do here. There’s so much interesting work here and this is a place where marketing hasn’t predefined the rules. But you go to get your MBA. You’re going to get your b you say okay use the 4 P’s or you know depending on the year. Maybe it’s 5 p’s now and everybody has a baseline understanding of what marketing is and that you go to employer brand conference, and no one seems to have as it’s so scattershot now it’s. Ah, you know that sounds kind of pejorative that sounds like I’m making fun of them I’m not employer branders come from recruiting they come from university recruiting they come from coms they come from social they come from marketing. They have such different backgrounds and they’re all like I imagine it’s like a un situation where they’re all trying to talk to each other but they’re using. Different languages and different ways of referencing it’s taking forever for us to kind of move forward because there’s that lack of kind of framework and thought so I came from you know a marketing side that doesn’t make me better at this. It just makes me understand how marketing thinks and talks and work. So that’s how it is and since then I’ve done.
04:55.11
ThinkinCircles
E.
04:58.78
James Ellis
Agency working consulting work and in-housework and all the stuff I love employer branding and that’s that that is my kind of spiel that is my shtick for employer where I came from.
05:06.39
ThinkinCircles
Um, this is why we’re goanna get on well James because I think we’ve got quite a similar background in all honesty. Um, and but this this podcast isn’t all about me sometimes I guess word in h ways as well. I’m going to share a little story with you share a little story with you about digital strategy. Um, and.
05:18.39
James Ellis
Well, it’s good to hear. Um.
05:24.41
ThinkinCircles
You know and a similar trajectory to yours. Ah, the kind of ah mid-2000s I was in the process of ah applying her new job and went and got this new job and they um and previously and my previous surprise we’d wed had some jokes around ‘what would you know’ if you had a choice. What would you call yourself. You know what the kind was of like, and it was like.
05:27.85
James Ellis
We going to step on the ground here. Scale.
05:42.99
ThinkinCircles
I Just think of something really kind of ridiculous I went ah you know and know digital strategy manager or something ridiculous like that you know anyway I got this new job, and the question was well. You know this is a new role wo the position in this company Would you want to be called um I’ll go for digital Strategy manager.
05:47.15
James Ellis
Ah, yeah.
06:00.10
ThinkinCircles
And yeah, so um I was kind of probably on a very similar you’ve to you. Yeah, James obviously I went off into the marketing route or a recruitment marketing route and you’ve gone in the employ brand route similar disciplines. Um, that occasionally kind of ah occasionally crossover um like streams from ghostbusters. Basically.
06:09.20
James Ellis
Well, yes.
06:16.50
James Ellis
Yes, well whipped it to more positive effect.
06:19.37
ThinkinCircles
Um, ah, but yeah, so I take what you yeah exactly? Um, but it’s interesting. You kind of said you know you had all these people in that in that term in that kind of group and no one could really define employer branding, right? So have we moved on from that and is there a definite definition now from employer branding is.
06:38.49
James Ellis
Um, that that would be easier wouldn’t it. No, I think I won’t say there’s an official because who exactly would bless and vet an official like there’s no pope of employer brand, I mean Richard mostly maybe Simon Bur Steer the life. So maybe he could do it, but I don’t know that there’s really ah a governing body per se.
06:38.92
ThinkinCircles
Or what it isn’t as well which may be easier to answer if.
06:56.50
James Ellis
What I’m seeing is that in general there is a centralization I used to joke that you know for years if you asked 10 employer branders. How to define employer branding. You’re going to get 12 answers now. It’s okay, it’s gotten tighter. It is this idea that it’s an individual perception of how people see your company and think of what it must be like to work there.
06:57.90
ThinkinCircles
Um, agree.
07:15.19
James Ellis
Based on all sorts of previous touch points and experiences and that seems simple and then you start unpacking and you go oh wow, there’s depths here I mean there’s this this rabbit hole goes way down. You know this idea of, and individual perception means I like Nike you hate Nike we’re both right? How is that possible. I like this company you hate this company. They have individual perceptions and so as an employer brand owner or manager or director or whatever I am I’ve got to not just say this is the brand I must influence individuals.
07:34.21
ThinkinCircles
Um.
07:46.58
James Ellis
And those individuals have very different. Not only perceptions but their perceptions come from very honest places, right? You call customer service and customer service was bad to you and you no longer like that company valid you the CEO is in the news for doing something great now you like that company valid but all that touch points impact how you perceive the company.
08:05.75
ThinkinCircles
Um.
08:06.56
James Ellis
And that includes recruiters and recruiting if you got a really spammy recruiter who just says I happened to cross your profile on LinkedIn and was really impressed by your experience or whatever that you know that spiel is you’re like okay, spam or whatever they don’t know me, but I’ve had great recruiting experiences where they seem to get what I’m doing. They understand how what I do leads to help them right? That’s ah, that’s a recruiter I want to keep in my you know in my connections and say I like what they’re doing those 2 interactions dramatically impacted my sense of that brand so that’s the definition. The question is um, what I like to argue with is that what is it for.
08:40.24
ThinkinCircles
Well, that was give you my next question James right was what’s the goal of this right? You know I mean what is it, you’re trying to do because um you know you can brand a company to influence people to you know to buy your services to buy your product with employer branding.
08:40.26
James Ellis
Like this idea that employer branding is yeah.
08:56.29
ThinkinCircles
You mean you don’t want everybody to work for your business is your business. You want You know you want the people you want to work for your business, right? Um, that that’s how I would you know that’s that would be me to kind of kind of start. But you know you know what the point is. What is the point.
09:00.50
James Ellis
Exactly it’s a game.
09:10.94
James Ellis
Um, yeah, I mean there is a I mean employer brand really works in this level of quality. Not quantity and when I say that most marketers get mad at me real fast because they think I’m suggesting that their work isn’t quality I’m like no, no, you have qualified leads, and you have you have a threshold. But if I gave you a thousand qualified leads and you converted everyone to sales. Enjoy your bonus check. Right? Enjoy the employee the month picture on the wall there if you’re a recruiter you get a thousand qualified leads and you offer them all a job, you’re getting fired That’s not how it works right? It’s just a different way of being and I and I like that I think that’s interesting because that fundamental change in how marketing thinks.
09:34.70
ThinkinCircles
Um, yeah.
09:47.90
James Ellis
Allows us to say okay, we can steal tools and ideas and thinking from marketing. But we must rethink them in this moment of quality over quantity and I think that leads to this idea that the purpose of employer brand what it’s trying to do. Is create this amazing almost alchemical. You know, alchemical kind of like magical moment of it’s an intersection between the company the job and the person that there is a perfect match that lives in that Venn diagram smack tab in the middle. And that is what employer brand is trying to make happen every single time is that possible. Of course, not is it being it striving for that. It should my bigger beef with the industry is that it treats employer brand like just drive applicants. It’s top of the funnel more. It’s classical marketing but without really embracing the differences that. Recruiting and the reason we have recruiting and so I think if you say you know and if you get a little crazy with it if you understand the employer brain is really trying to make these matches what recruiting or an employer brain is trying to do is radically invent recruiting from the ground up recruiting is still in a lot of ways thinking top of the funnel and thinking Phil them.
10:50.50
ThinkinCircles
Um.
10:53.85
James Ellis
Ats and just generate. You know, it’s bigger haystacks equal more needles which is not how needles get made I hope everyone knows that um, but that’s how they’ve been trained for fifty sixty-one hundred years so they keep maintaining it employer branding is there to say look no one likes the hiring process as it is the recruiters. don’t like it. The hiring ministers don’t like it the candidates don’t like it. Ah, hr doesn’t like it. Leal’s always un-thrilled. No one likes this process employer branding is the lever by which we say what should it be? How do we think of it. How do we stop by post and pray and spray and pray and post everything the job boards and collect applications and applicants as far as fast as we can and think. Gosh I’ve got this 1 job There’s someone out there who’s perfect for it. Not only are they perfect for it once they understand what this job is this will radically change your life in incredibly positive ways in profound ways that I can’t even predict how do I connect those dots. That’s what recruiting should be It shouldn’t be feel like a cattle call. It should feel like matchmaking.
11:44.48
ThinkinCircles
3
11:50.95
James Ellis
And that’s what employer branding should be leading us all towards.
11:55.57
ThinkinCircles
Um, and I mean that that is ah 1 of the kind of but best definitions I’ve heard of kind of employ branding say I say thank you for that. But I would expect nothing less. Um, and so but a lot of people listen to this podcast. They will kind of they will oversee both.
12:11.18
James Ellis
First guess.
12:12.64
ThinkinCircles
Right? So, a lot of the kind of listeners are you know they’re in recruitment agencies or in ah Hr or something you know, and they will have responsibility for actual marketing because they’re in a smaller business and employer branding so having that kind of um delineation is that you know between the marketing and employer branding is that sometimes a good thing is it.
12:20.54
James Ellis
So
12:32.80
ThinkinCircles
Bad thing is should there be a delineation. They are obviously I mean this is me thinking they obviously have an interaction with each other because like the examples you mentioned that if the CEO is on online or in the news and it’s good bad. You know indifferent that can reflect inflect on the on the rest of the brand.
12:39.36
James Ellis
Um, you decide to.
12:41.88
James Ellis
And.
12:50.90
ThinkinCircles
Which in turn reflects on. Do I want to work for that business in a mean so how does that kind of interactions work when it’s a smaller team. It’s just 1 or 2 people that’s managing everything. Okay.
12:50.87
James Ellis
Um, yeah and I always joke that employer branders are crazy because the job is to manage an employer brand and there’s every single piece of a company impacts. The employer brand. And yet the employer brand manager has exactly 0 power to influence and change all those things that impact the employer brand. So again, only crazy people do this job to your point. Um because it doesn’t impact every part of the company. Yeah, it should have a great relationship with marketing should it live with marketing sometimes. I think it makes perfect sense and I think that if you want to get the employer branders to all riled up. You say employer branding should always live in a certain function and that’s the best and that’s the right answer as if it’s you know the holy truth or whatever and you’re like nah look get everybody’s everybody would be mad about that. I’m a big believer that because employer brand kind of connects all the dots. It’s the connective tissue. It doesn’t have to live anywhere in particular it lives in places purely for politics and convenience. If. You’ve got a strong marketing team who loves employer brand. It should absolutely live in marketing if you’ve got a ta team who understands the value of what it’s doing. It should absolutely live in ta it should live under the person who’s willing to go to bat for it and support it and drive it beyond that because two weeks after you start that job.
14:11.11
James Ellis
You may live in marketing. But you’re going to make friends in ta and every hiring manager and every in leadership in all coms and legal and h r Andy and Dan it’s great to have a starting point where you know I’ve got someone who supports me, and I’ve got someone who can help. Kind of bang that drum with me and get people who aren’t quite bought into this idea yet to say this is a worthy endeavour. This is worth at least listening to this person talk about how they can help you hire better. How we can use the customer service team to hire better. How we can use the products we’re building as a means of tracking more talent. How do we use all this stuff. So yes, it can absolutely live in marketing. Yes, it should be very closely tied to market. It doesn’t have to live in marketing I don’t like to get into that dogmatic kind of approach.
14:52.19
ThinkinCircles
Um, and okay so let’s go. Let’s take it to that. Let’s assumed. It’s living in marketing. Can you be a marketer and an employer brander all at the same time because again lot a lot of people listen to this are you know they’re going to have to wear many hats. A lot of marketeers listen to this from smaller businesses. Um, and you know.
15:04.27
James Ellis
Yeah.
15:11.13
ThinkinCircles
Employ branding is everywhere at the minute, right? Everything is pin this there and because whatever you and they are probably you know Marketeers will be. We’ve been told by people right at the top we need to kind of have more hires you need to get involved with this. You know you need to be kind of making sure that we look great online, and it fools on their lap, right? so.
15:19.61
James Ellis
Are. Um, yeah, they can’t they absolutely can’t I think it’s like its ah it’s an It’s an interesting needle to thread because there will be times in which you absolutely have taken the marketer hat off and the employer brand hat on and have a delineation. But.
15:29.43
ThinkinCircles
Can they do can they wear both hats and.
15:42.72
James Ellis
That’s baseline thinking that gets you kind of to a foundational level of okay, what is our reason people want to work here. How are we communicating that our career side are LinkedIn our glass door our blah blah blah blah blah blah right standard marketing just set your foundation of how we are communicating to the world. The marketer should then say gosh. The reason why people buy our products and the reason why people apply here to work here. They shouldn’t be that different right? They shouldn’t be like 2 different companies who’ve never met right? They should be too strangers. They really should feel integrated and what great companies do is they understand that their employer brand and their consumer brand and honestly their investor brand their corporate brand, etc, etc. It’s just one brand and when I say that people go okay, but I’m talking to that. Yeah, I’m doing this eventually I get that think of your brand as like a lens think of as like a crystal right? and you as the marketer are seeing through that crystal through that lens to talk to consumers or prospects the employer brander is seeing through the exact same crystal to look at their prospects and candidates. Investor relations are looking for the answer to talk through institutional investors, etc, etc. It’s the same company if you do it right? Consumer marketing makes employer branding better, now there’s no one who will argue with a higher stock price increase makes it easier to hire right? That’s just ah, that’s just make that’s just grease for the machine, right? That’s super easy. At the same time when investors institutional of investors look at a company and they make their evaluations. They look at all sorts of employer branding data. They look at attrition they look at who’s leaving they look at who’s being hired. They look at glass door scores. They look at you know how.
17:14.38
James Ellis
How many jobs are open right now. How are they describing that that influences their reason do I invest in this company long-term same with consumer marketing right? If you’ve got a great product people want to be in it. Let’s be fair. Google did no employer branding for the first twenty-five years of its existence and yet they have great hires because product. Their product was a halo effect to the reason why people showed up. It can go the other way, right? There are plenty of examples happy to give them in which a company kind of hits that pr crisis mode and they say oh our CEO is a little racist got to get rid of him. What do you do? then What do you do? then? will you bring in the person who works day to day and say meet the people who work here. Not a racist bone in their body aren’t they nice aren’t they sweet. Don’t you want to buy from them so employer they all those parts of them.
17:50.18
ThinkinCircles
Ah.
18:01.30
James Ellis
But very interactive. They should support one another. it’s like it’s like going to the gym. You don’t just have that one strong muscle and the rest of you is weak. You must make your whole body strong to really make anything strong so that kind of integrated marketing and integrated brand thinking is where you want to be now to be fair. That’s not every day that’s not most companies that’s kind of like what I think of as platonic ideal like I can think of like Delta does that Spotify sort of does it and there’s plenty of companies that try to do it or are aspiring to that or leaning towards that and at the top of maturity model. But that’s really where you want to take it and if you have someone who’s doing. Marketing and employer branding. You got yourself a kind of ah a cheat code to get you there where you can say look there, I’m always thinking about this brand I’m just thinking about it from 2 different angles. It might as well stay the same brand and allow that kind of constraint to be a strength and say oh I can think about how. I can put marketing messages in my job postings or in my LinkedIn postings that are for candidates, but we all know that they are future buyers they are they are going to influence whether someone buys a product from us vice versa, right? You should put consumer messages out there that. Showcase how wonderful. The people are and how they are the ones building or managing this product. They should integrate.
19:19.55
ThinkinCircles
Well, that’s some great tips, right? And so that that brings me on to kind of my next question is again, just kind of focusing on the smaller businesses that might want to kind of consider this you know where do you start right? You know I mean there are businesses out here. Ah that are that they’re small businesses. Struggling to hire and you know one of the strings in their bow is building themselves an employer brand no matter how big they are in their industry. You know I mean they can still make an impact, right? So, they’ve decided to go on this journey where what happens now.
19:46.45
James Ellis
Yeah.
19:52.40
James Ellis
Yeah, I think the mistake is for small businesses to treat employer branding as this oh that’s kind of cool. That’s interesting and they poke at it a little bit like oh what does it do like everybody who you know the first time you heard about Chat GBT you luck and you went I’m going to ask it a question.
20:09.14
ThinkinCircles
And.
20:09.98
James Ellis
Oh wow, that’s crazy and then you walk away like you treat it very many arms like small businesses are probably positioned to make the most impact from their employer brand like imagine if you’re a 50-person company. The fifty first employee makes a lot more of a difference to the company. Then at an ah meta or Google where the one hundred and twenty-seven thousandth person who gets hired is not going to make the same kind of impact. It’s just the people you hire matter and the way we’ve been hiring has been do. Do you meet some skill sets. Great. The boss likes you come on in. Employer brand says if you’re really trying to make that match between company role in person, you’re saying not only do I see how you’re going to be successful in this role I see how you align with our values I see how you’re going to push us to be better how you are going to be someone who will who effectively. Wants the rewards we offer and thus is more likely to stick around for a long time more likely to drive us in the right direction, etc, etc, etc that there’s all sorts of benefits where you start is a tough question and the answer is just to start right? It is the same kind of. Journey any zen master would tell you just it’s the first foot take the first step I’m a big believer that any good employer branding work begets more good employer branding work. Try a pilot project try to just honestly put some headlines on your job postings.
21:28.20
James Ellis
And you’re like there’s no field in my Ats for a headline I’m like no, there isn’t but if you write 1 sentence that encapsulates why someone should read more about this job posting think about, you’re a candidate you’re on indeed you’re on LinkedIn. You’re on a job board or steps so whatever you’re like I type in project manager and 14000000000000 jobs pop up all these logos. You’ve never heard of and you’re like why do you pick one? How do you pick one? Well obviously, the employee brand is the answer if you like that brand you click on that one first beyond that if they start to say something interesting. You’re like oh wait. There’s a headline there. It says this is the job that will change your life or something better copywritten because I’m not a copywriter. And you click on it. The headline’s job is not to say this is why you should take this job. The headline’s job is to say this is why you should read the first paragraph and the first paragraph job is to explain what you’re getting into and make you want to read the second paragraph and the second paragraph job talk about why the team is so interesting and why you should read the third paragraph and why you should read the bulleted lists. We write job postings as if we are angry at people, we like we don’t like candidates we’re actively rejecting them and saying you do not want part of this their son. You don’t want to pay any part of this and it’s like I don’t get it and if you marketed.
22:29.50
ThinkinCircles
I.
22:39.43
James Ellis
Cars the same way we marketed jobs it would say is car has wheels. This is the thickness of the steel like oh I’m going to buy that car like they’ their technical specs masquerading is marketing and it’s just junk if you write a headline for every single job posting that is interesting true about your company and. Makes me want to read a little bit more put it on the top of everyone your job post 6 put little html header tags around them. That’s all it takes I will header to that’s all I’m going to say google h 2 it’s all you got to do it will literally take you 3 seconds to learn how to do this thing and it will make your headline look like a headline.
23:08.51
ThinkinCircles
And.
23:17.20
James Ellis
Do that see what happens do that and see how it changes people now the problem with that is of course it’ll derive more applications and you don’t want more applications. You want better applications, but this is the start. This is the beginning of that journey and when you do it, you go? wow.
23:26.33
ThinkinCircles
So
23:30.53
James Ellis
Just this stupid headline thing that this bald guy suggested on a podcast that one time it worked what else does he say to do I’m low write more paragraphs about why people like working here. Ask people what they tell their friends about the company make little quotes and put them on LinkedIn when you’re on LinkedIn. Don’t think about hey how do I get people to apply for a job. Think how I get people to be interested in my company just change your mindset ever. So just a tiny little bit and it will make a huge impact like I did a huge study earlier this year where I looked at 1200, I’m sorry I was filed. But yeah, 1200 LinkedIn posts from more than 100 companies and I spoke. This is what everybody’s doing wrong, and this is the same old stuff help wanted to join us. We’re hiring so we got all these posts that just simply say we’re hiring and you’re like wait a second. That’s not a compelling reason for me because all you’re telling me is that you’re hiring I don’t know anything about you I don’t know why I’m joining you I don’t know what you’re offering me. The reason I’m applying is simply because you have an open role put that way. Do you want to hire that person. Of course, you don’t so stop writing them that way you know we’re writing we’re posting these things hey we won this award good bully for you I mean who cares. Tell me why tell me what makes you interesting tell me what makes you deserve that award. You got to? We’re a wonderful place to work which is ah you know where places we do workplace is good right? That’s name my fake award that I use because I can’t say the one that you know because I don’t want to, I don’t want to you know I don’t want to help them.
25:00.40
James Ellis
Um, you won an award but now so instead of saying we won this award. Yeah, we good instead say we won this award because we care about X and Y and Z, we reward X, Y, and Z. It’s clear that our employees agree that is why we won this award that is information that makes me go oh this is an interesting company and. I joke. So, I teach employer branding I joke that 99% of my job as an employer brander to make a complete and total stranger. Do this huh I didn’t know that huh that’s interesting ha I think I want to learn more That’s the whole job right? if I can make a stranger do that, I win I’ve done it what I’m supposed to do. I don’t have to force feed like a duck turn into foie gras. All the reasons why you should want to work for me all I want to make you do is go huh. That’s interesting because the second you find it interesting. You’re off on your own path and you’re going to figure it out on your own right? I don’t want to inject it. You I want you to want that thing I want you to want to learn about us and I’m done. I win, I am the best right? That’s you know you want to take your tiny little victory left because that’s all it is about so as a small brand do something see the value of what you’re doing and then double down do a little more everybody’s path is going to be this different. But the act of doing it leads to more thought leads to more action leads to more impact.
26:17.91
ThinkinCircles
Um, amazing brit if anybody takes anything from today then you know stop writing your job adverts like you hate your candidates I think is quote of the day. Ah, but these it’s so true.
26:28.27
James Ellis
It’s clearly very early. Yeah.
26:30.84
ThinkinCircles
But the problem is I’ve never had it described to me, but it is true right? When you say it is so transactional so functional and you’re right? It’s like it’s like a technical spec, right? Um is not a reason to.
26:33.20
James Ellis
Yeah.
26:39.60
James Ellis
Yeah, you will have this skill. You will do these things you will you? what I mean I you know you want to make an unpleasant Joke. You do it in a real German accent because that’s the most exciting way of making people feel. Love like you feel has these things you will have these skills you but you like ah why do you not like the candidates. It’s rough.
26:59.19
ThinkinCircles
Um, will all it is brilliant James I also understand that um I go leave it. You know, not. You haven’t done enough self- promotion but a little bit more self-promotion. There’s ah, you’ve got a book coming out soon in the next kind of month or so would you want to kind of talk us through that tell us little bit about that. Okay.
27:14.24
James Ellis
Absolutely, it’s cleverly titled employer branding for small business. It’s very yeah, I Really, I Dug dip I dug deep, right? I went right? No, it’s purely a look. This is this thing you know I’ve done a previous book I’ve done talent chooses you which is.
27:20.98
ThinkinCircles
I mean I mean what else you know.
27:33.54
James Ellis
Available on Amazon or you can buy it for get it for free I have it online for free all over the place. Um, this is something where I said rather than talk theoretically how do I help a small business kind of say exactly the question you ask? What’s the first step What’s the second step What’s the third step and I kind of said here are the 12 skills or the 10 skills you probably should think about. And this is the way you put them in order so that in twelve weeks you go left foot right foot left foot right foot and at the end of twelve weeks you’re activating your brand. You’re doing good work. You’re seeing your results. Your bosses are understanding why you’re spending an hour to every week kind of grinding through. Glassdoor review responses and job postings and coming up with headlines and putting the headlines on the career side and changing and adjusting ever so slightly how you’re posting things on LinkedIn right? That stuff is the super powerful stuff and walking people through how to do that because again I do believe that once you start doing it. You start to realize. All the opportunity you have in front of you, and I want people to do take those opportunities employer branding is so big that there is no such thing as a book that captures all of it. It’s not possible. But if I can get small businesses excited to realize this is an audience I don’t speak to very well. It’s not that hard to do great work it’s not expensive it all to do great work right I don’t ask anybody to spend a penny on text you know tech stacks or tools or anything like that. It’s just talk about why people should want to be there. Get them have that moment where they go huh. That’s interesting I want to learn more and that’s what it is and once you do that, you’re on the path and you’ll want it. You just want to keep doing it. So
29:06.93
James Ellis
Ah, the book will be coming up this spring I don’t have an actual date I have it’s it just finished proving getting proofed yesterday proving. It’s not a loaf of bread. It’s a book. Um, it’s just getting finished proofed um too much British baking show and. Now I must start laying it out and getting it ready so it is going to happen in the next month or 2 hopefully I shouldn’t be a problem but um, that’s really the plan for that.
29:30.30
ThinkinCircles
Ah, lets brilliant. So, for anyone listening. Um, once it’s available James will reach out to me, I will let everybody know and we’ll kind of update the kind of show notes we will also include all of James’s kind of details on the show notes. So, anybody you want to know more going to go contact with him connect with him on LinkedIn. It’s all going to be there as well. Ah, James, it’s been absolute pleasure talking to you today. It’s been fascinating I’m sure we’ll have you back again at some point in the future. But for now, thank you very much.
29:51.94
James Ellis
That would be amazing. This has been an absolute blast James that what we’ll start our own show. ‘The James and James Show’ that’ll be it, really does. I’m all mentally designing the logo as we speak.
29:57.56
ThinkinCircles
I mean, I can see it, right? You know?
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