Employer Branding Unfiltered: S1 Ep.9 – James Marable

in travel like yeah like last year I I went to South Africa so it’s like like even being able to break that to like peers like hey I’m going to South Africa for work it’s like I don’t want to oh really sit and you know like that’s the thing like yeah yeah I’ll just stay here in uh in waaaw and uh recruit on LinkedIn Thanks James yeah it’s it’s real like our job is fun don’t get it twisted it is a lot of fun [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right everybody uh the moment is here uh I am joined by uh a brother who I’ve known in this industry uh through conferences and I think we’ve even attended conferences uh across the years and we have a a solid network of people among us as mutual friends in this work uh but James marable welcome to employer branding unfilter my brother hey thanks for having me great to be here absolutely yeah yeah yeah this has been a long time coming man we um we were in uh in black black black and EB uh shouts out to um Ashton ashon fizer for starting that group because there’s so few of us and by us I mean folks in the employer brand space like few right I think we know I think we know each other actually all of us know each other but um for sure yeah but it’s a small space still but I but it’s growing I mean I’m seeing employer brand popping up on LinkedIn way more than I did before um so funny I remember yeah oh go ahead I was just going to say I just remember back in the day like yeah you know 10 years ago you know they were just overall there were very few roles and you know like now you’re really starting to see you know companies kind of take hold of it and really want to control that narrative that’s right that’s right absolutely yeah and we’re going to get into all of that but I think just setting the stage for our audience uh who might not be familiar with your amazing work give us a little background about uh your journey uh you know what you’ve done in this space yeah definitely um so I’ve been in the EB space since uh the middle of 2013 and at the time it’s kind of funny because um I owned the clothing store at the time and um I had a you know a background in marketing um but I kind of quit my job and like started this this clothing store which was like a dream of mine you know kind of coming right out of school and um you know I did that for about three and a half years and um like literally like never really thought I’d you know work in Corporate America again um like wasn’t really looking for a role but um um a a recruiter from Macy’s kind of reached out um um through Linkedin and it’s funny because at the time like I didn’t didn’t know anything about recruiting employer brand wasn’t even a thing um but he was looking for um you know someone that could um kind of create you know a brand around um you know working at Macy’s so it was professional or corporate recruiting um College recruit college recruitment as well um and again like I I kept my LinkedIn up to date but honestly I thought of LinkedIn as a place like where you would network with people um you know apply for jobs but like I wasn’t aware of recruiting as a discipline to be honest so when we had this conversation and he um you know I get the email and then you know we jump on the phone it was kind of surreal in a sense and he’s kind of explaining what he’s looking for um you know and it was an opportunity from my point of view to do marketing you know for you know a story brand so again like at the time like I wasn’t really looking for anything so I was like well I’ll try it out you know in a month like if it works for me I’ll keep doing it if not I’ll quit or they can fire me or what it go so like literally like we both like rolled the dice on each other um sure yeah like once I got into the space yeah and um for like the first two weeks I remember of the job like I didn’t do anything marketing related no social media no nothing um but just sat with recruiters um on intake calls watched them Source um just kind of really understood what that discipline was um and it really like I was kind of able to tie you know a correlation between you know me being the advertising um kind of agency internally and our recruiters or our salespeople so like my job was really to create you know marketing materials and a presence that allowed for our recruiters to go out and kind of sell the company um and just kind of having that knowledge of it um or or that understanding of kind of like what it was from that perspective I it made it you know kind of really easy for me to kind of transition into the space and you know started with no budget and you know I just asked for you know I have a little you know self-taught graphic design background or whatever like just give me a DSLR camera give me a Macbook um and you know let me run and and in those days like it was really what you know was the Wild West like you know again like employer brand didn’t have a name um and it was just really me like just trying to create people stories trying to create um you know that preference towards Macy’s as as an employer um and when it started it was you know I was more in the professional space but then also was able to kind of grow and take on um you know like the high volume hiring so like creating you know a unique or a unified story around whether you worked in a store whether you worked in the corporate space whether you were an intern um kind of like what you know what it all what it all meant you know to be an employee at Macy’s um from there um went on to um work with Eli Lily um pharmaceutical company um you know one of the top farmer companies in in the world um based out of Indianapolis Indiana um again like there wasn’t an employer brand around around that company at the time um so you know I was charged with being able to kind of develop that story and working with commun corporate Communications working with marketing um to kind of tell that story and kind of build that enrs and those you know connections across the company and it was a totally different environment so we’re going from you know Macy’s hires I don’t know like 50,000 people a year something something of that of that nature so high volume High kind of pressure we need you know we need people now to you know they’re hiring maybe 3,000 people a year and you know people were stressed out about that so it was like kind of going into a different environment but it was much more Niche so you know we’re we’re looking at you know um scientists we’re looking at Engineers we’re looking at manufacturers manufacturing workers um then also your typical you know corporate roles your your Finance your marketing your HR what have you I’m again so just finding different ways to kind of tell those stories there um and then ultimately moving on um to Amazon working with the Amazon Design Group um and building up an employer brand presence around Amazon design specifically so um you know a lot of times people think of Amazon is this place where you can’t be creative and you know you you know you go there and work you to death or whatever so it’s really around kind of telling the stories like because it wasn’t really like that and um so that’s for our designers you know again yeah hey for for some people may be um but I will say in the design space it was it was yeah you know it is what it is no doubt no doubt look thank you for taking us through this and and you’re going to find this hilarious but here’s why I think we were separated at Birth so so so same same year 2013 I’m doing social and digital uh and business uh performance analytics at QVC right Mass on right television shopping uh you know dominant play 800 pound gorilla in that space and I think they’ve acquired HSN and a whole bunch of other places either way but that was out of a need so my my uh that was the day job but by night I’m a recording artist figuring out putting out music uh absent a a label deal actually turned down a lab do to remain independent because at that time the industry was crazy either way the social and digital skills that I picked up obviously served in my work but then that got the attention of um of MK uh Pharma who who who needed to bring their recruiters into social and get them on social media and then oh by the way they need to build a global employer brand and uh and so you know these historic Pharma companies highly Reg ated Industries having to be Scrappy at a time where employer brand is like burgeoning just just like really getting its hooks it’s not you know employer brand as a concept is older than that but really what we see today is you know from the the the the 20 ODS uh forward and so you know and then being in this space growing having entrepreneurial uh Endeavors and initiatives outside of the day-to-day which we’ll get into in just a sec it’s like clearly we we’ve been on the same track in parallel space Oh and by the way we’re both Li I didn’t know that about you that’s pretty cool yeah right it’s it’s it’s wild so um but but that’s the thing right none of us went to school for this work right like there’s no exact there’s no employer brand curriculum at any at any school college or university so so I heard the journey when did you fall in love with employer branding though right because you could have stayed in Social you know or or expanded to a different marketing role but EB was like I got you what when did you fall in love with it I’d say for me um maybe I was about a year year and a half into it um I had gone to um was it the social recruiting strategies conference um at the time it was super small like now they have you know ta week and it’s you know it’s like a huge thing now um but at the time like maybe there were like 20 people like in a you know in a hotel Ballroom in in San Francisco and you know just 2019 shouts out prepandemic yeah man just like kind of just hearing people’s stories around um you know being able to kind of kind of tell their company story um them trying to figure out marketing there were a lot of Recruiters in the space that were kind of figuring out marketing and I kind of come in from a reverse perspective of a marketer understanding recruiting but I’m doing marketing so um I was able to kind of quickly become you know someone that you know people could reach out to and and and bounce ideas off of and just you know again like coming from you know a traditional marketing background I work for a agencies as well and again own my own business um just seeing being in this space that’s so Scrappy and so new and it’s funny like you know when I sit down with you know with our traditional Marketing Group in you know whether I was at Macy’s or or what have you and they’re just trying to figure out like what is this employer brand thing and it’s like I’m there and I’m speaking the language and you know and they’re kind of seeing these ideas and and and following along with me you know and then also like getting that buy in from you know my different you know just the people the the ah goodness ta groups that I I worked for so again like maybe like a year year and a half I got in and just just seeing the Headway and just how we were able to kind of go from nothing to something relatively quickly and then just continue to scale um and just watch that growth I think like a lot of the things that I was able to do you know in a tradition traditional marketing path that was already you know been defined for you know 50 100 years or whatever what you yeah um you know I just really love you know the the idea of you know actually marketing and understanding like my product is the concept of working somewhere that’s strong no it it’s a it’s a nod to I think the entrepreneurial Spirit that’s required to do this work well you know as it as it’s growing and getting more mature I think people are trying to make it more structured and formal and things like that which is necessary you need process right but but you can’t Overlook the amount of like gorilla tactics that that we had to use sometimes to get things over the line right yeah it’s funny like maybe six months into that first uh first role at Macy’s I kind of go to my director and and we’re just you know we’re we’re really cool at this point and um you know we spent a lot of time kind of trying to build this thing up and um I just asked him straight up like what made you hire me because at the time like I was I had been three three and a half years working for myself you know late nights early mornings like you know just kind of living you know on my own path and not in the corporate space and I’m you know and I just kind of mentioned like I’m sure you know there’s a traditional corporate person that you know gone through these ranks and like they would you know follow follow the rules to do what you know whatever you know kind of what made you pick me and he said like I recognize that you have a background in you know in the corporate space but you’re also an entrepreneur and you know how to work without money so like and it was kind of funny that he picked it up and it was like literally like yeah like I when I started my business I didn’t have any you know I was totally underfunded and like made it work and was able to create like a great presence for that as well and um he was just like we just wanted to see and the same way like I was willing to quit if I didn’t like it like they were willing to fire me if it didn’t work out so like it was kind of like we were you know we had like a mutual understanding of just you know we’re gonna make this work or not and and everybody will be fine and end up working out that’s amazing that’s an amazing story too I mean in a sense that look he’s like you’re used to working with no money and that works for us too so cuz we have no money for you yeah there was there was no budget I didn’t get a budget for like two and a half almost three years so yeah oh my gosh see I can’t say that I’ve gone through that everywhere like it wasn’t the budget I wanted but it was something right it was they they knew they had to fund something like we can’t just do this on shoe strings but yeah so you were boot bootstrapping it for real uh literally oh my gosh man so so that entrepreneurial spirit so like uh you know especially coming out of the social where it’s really about like spectacle like how can we get people to stop scrolling to to like look up and and be engaged what were some of your influences I mean if you take think back to that time like uh influences for getting that sort of not I don’t want to say shock value because that cheapens it but more so like that gripping engagement stop scrolling pay attention like what kind of what kind of external influences were you uh tapped into at the time um honestly it’s just you know kind of taking cues from you know just various Industries um you know my my my background also is you know involved fashion so like a lot of what we were doing um you know I did a lot of video shoots a lot of photo shoots um you know we did lookbooks um lots of Graphics you know with big boat letters um things that just kind of just catch the eye um you know playing with our colors um you know Macy’s color palette was you know red red and white pretty much and you know that red you know like that that can stop somebody just you know just having that so you know in the early days of infographics um you know that was something that you know I I was big on and and you know overlaying you know large text you know around you know a person’s face and just those kind of things like again like just to kind of get like you said like to get somebody to stop and then kind of read that story you know we had you know first it was you know short you know short form form you know written content and you know we moved into video and um again just being able to try to grab grab people’s attention as quickly as possible yeah yeah I I love how you borrowed from sort of the Fashion World and brought that into places like a Macy’s or or a lily um which you know can can either work well or it can run into the brick wall of bureaucracy right um yes yes which which we’ll we’ll talk about in just a second too we’ll get there um funny enough uh I I vividly remember um and this is pre- Kardashian but calling myself the Kanye of corporate America because well for because I was huge especially with social activations for uh independent recording artists it was like everybody’s trying to Hawk their CD like hey man just check out my CD right like it’s yep it’s nondifferentiated so you really had to get people to like stop and so um uh we would be really big on like what can we do in public fashion to get people to like like turn their head and be like what what did I just see and uh and that was like a lot of the inspiration came from uh Kanye’s rollout strategies for his albums and one of them being the album when he projected uh his his video for New Slaves onto the side of a building a side of luxury houses all over the world simultaneously I was like bro like his marketing team was Godlike at the time uh but we would do things like um putting uh digital brochures on a USB wristband that was branded so you know they can just take the wristband and be like oh okay cool and plug it into a drive and now you got the digital brochure for you know manufacturing jobs or uh physician jobs things like that but that was pulled directly from the music uh music world but but but these are the it’s funny you say that yeah no I was gonna say it’s funny you say that because I I used to man manage a band in a former life as well and um it was like 2010 2009 era when you know things were starting to go more digital and USB drives were like a thing like we’re giving these out now instead of you know instead of a actual CD so yeah I totally understand for the Gen zers listening a USB Drive is a thing that holds data and you plug it into never mind they’re like CD USB drive and that’s so crazy that USB drives are like literally a thing of the past old school bro like I when’s the last time you used one like think about it’s all in the cloud at this point I have I have one in my bag but it’s just been in that bag for okay years has moved all right I see you no need no no need for it but you never know one day I just just have it in case just in case yeah that’s that’s what everybody says when they hold on to nostalgic things right like I might need this one See it’ll come back around they’re going to use USB again one one day one day you never know I did let go of the CD I did let go of the CD I’m proudy I’m proud of you man that’s good I think I have some somewhere but I have no player uh to listen to them on um so look so so so this is good so uh speaking very very much about like those Scrappy gorilla tactics and the things that really catch um you know that that works well in a lot of Industries I mean retail is probably receptive to that but then when you get into like Pharma which is super regulated historically stodgy and stiff right and for good reason right they’re they’re they’re wanting to be taken seriously for the science how did you navigate sort of being bold and audacious but also working within the Frameworks of a regulated industry yeah so that was um that was an interesting time for sure because coming from from Macy’s I mean there were there were rules but like it was pretty loose to be honest um you know we had brand guidelines as long as I stuck to that like I didn’t really get any push back and I didn’t have too many different chains of command to go up and down um but with yeah with Fara when I first got there there was you know there wasn’t an employer brand group you know within the company anyway so I had to like kind of seek out like who who are those Partners within the company that controls the brand um you know like what’s what’s legal and what’s not legal like who you know like who has who has to look at it and there was um a legal review process that exists um that the corporate Communications Group already went through um so my my leader at the time he was able to kind of connect me with corporate comms and I would just sit in on their meetings like so they would have like weekly meetings discussing their content things that they’re putting out before I had anything that that I was even working on anything um I was working on building a relationship with that group um so understanding what they do understanding how they did things um so then when it was time for me whether it was to start creating videos or creating you know different brochures or you know pieces that were going to go out um you know I was able to kind of take what you know little brochures that did exist um and kind of run run it by them and kind of say like you know what do you guys like about this existing piece what do you what do you not like about it um what are you know like what are you know kind of branding pieces that you guys are using for just the overall Lily content um and then just again like finding ways to incorporate it into what we want to do um so it can be compliant um but then also still being able to kind of have you know more of a not cinematic but just a creative you know lens on what we’re doing and um I think like when it all really kind of came together for me I’d say there um this was during the pandemic so this was 2020 like during that summer um we started working on this this series um this video series for um our research group um there you know there was a lack of diversity um you know for lack of a better term um within within that research group but there were some you know some very Dynamic diverse leaders whether you know black or Latino that you know we wanted to be able to tell their stories but um we had a little trouble because uh quarantine so like nobody was nobody was in the office no one was even allowed to go to the office at the time um so I was able to kind of work with corporate Communications work with our facilities team um to kind of get access to get some access um to get in these buildings um and we created a video series where we went to some of these people’s homes um recorded them there recorded them like in a library um just like nontraditional spaces and then also in the labs um in you know where they would traditionally work and kind of funny because at the time like no one’s like there’s a lily has a huge campus like really really big like you you think it’s a university and um so like knowing what it’s like when it’s hustling bustling everyone’s there like you could hear a pin drop like there was there would be maybe five people in in a building at one given time so like we were able to kind of go in there and have like basically our run of the place and like do interviews anywhere we wanted to um so being able to do that um and then also working with our videography team to kind of create you know to get to make sure that we’re getting like Innovative shots and just kind of with them walking with them you know from you know alterior angles and whatnot um and then again like incorporating just different types of TCH and things like that um you know we were able to bring back a product to you know corporate Communications that you know rival theirs or we’re better you know in a lot of cases to be honest and um you know so being able to do that and again like me having an actual marketing background um I’m able to speak to language I’m able to um you know kind of work with our videographers and really communicate what I want because also I dabbled in you know video production as well like I wasn’t good at it but again like it trying it allowed me to at least be able to speak the language and kind of articulate what I’m looking for versus you know a lot of times you know you have you know an individual that that works with a videographer or creative of any sort whether it’s a graphic designer what have you and just kind of Say Hey I just want something that’s good or you know I want it to look neat or cool they you know you’re using these very general terms um but you know I’m able to kind of say like I I want this person walking from this angle or I want you know I want this type of shot and you know they’re able to kind of produce that for me so then again like being able to create high quality content and already you know building that rapport with corporate Communications um we were able to kind of you know seamlessly get you know to to kind of produce these you know these these pieces of content get them approved through legal um and not really have such a headache but you know it took you know me you know the first few months kind of laying that groundwork and kind of building that relationship and rapport with that group oh man so so there’s so many nuggets you just dropped in there but I’ll I’ll narrow down to like the top three that I think for any Junior employer brand practitioner just getting into the space like your first meetings should be with Le legal one what can I say what is the parameters of the work that I can do without getting us sued and me fired uh right and then uh ultimately working with your your comms or your marketing team because if you don’t sit in coms right if you are sitting in ta or HR uh where a lot of BB practitioners sit then they are going to be the the source of credibility Andor the barrier to your work moving forward uh right they can either be your Champion or your barrier but you have to work with comms and marketing because they are historically The Voice piece for the organization you doing comms and marketing work out of HR is like you’re an alien why are you here invading my space yep and I must kill you as a I must neutralize you as a threat so uh and and shouts out to the marketing and coms professionals we know that there are some tense relationships between HR and marketing incomes if in fact the right conversations aren’t had upfront um so yeah so I think that’s huge and then ultimately being able to speak the language of both uh Both Worlds right because marketing uh and HR are not historically intertwined functions and there needs to be some translation between the two so I think you dropped some gems and uh for anybody listening or watching definitely uh take heed because these are the ways that that you get your projects not only bought in by the people funding them but also from the people that will support or not right because if you don’t have access to LinkedIn or any of the channels that your content needs to go to guess what yeah good luck with that y yeah fire yeah we we can do a whole another therapy session on our challenges and scars froming across the a yeah it’s real I might do that too like a spin-off you know tell me about your marketing relationship so so so jumping into that a little bit like if we get into sort of the nuts and buls right like getting into the tactics of this work um you know we talk about the relationships across functions but I think one of the most important things just first and foremost building buyin right for we get hired into an organization because somebody there recognizes they need an employer brand awesome nine times out of 10 they’re not really vers in what an employer brand is does how it should be measured what’s who’s going to be involved right so so starting there like what has been your approach to sort of that education piece to build the buy and get the right support so that your life is somewhat easier in building an EB yeah um for me it’s you know it’s having those conversations to to to kind of I guess build that understanding and Rapport of of how you know marketing will influence you know someone’s decision you know when it comes to working for for you or somewhere else um you know for the past you know you know we’ve had ups and downs our economy obviously but you know in times where where it’s easy to get a job you know that’s really where you know employer brand comes into play because you know some whether it’s from an hourly perspective or or a professional perspective there there can be choice and you know I think like you know 30 years ago 20 years ago you know in a lot of lot of instances is kind of like take it or leave it from the company’s perspective so to speak because you know like people just want to work um because I you know I remember when I graduated college my dad was like oh you got a job offer you’re taking it like when I just wanted to go you know run around Europe and then figure it out when I got home but he’s like no you need to job like right now but then things changed um you know at a certain point and then you know the the idea of employer brand became important um so you’re having these conversations with individuals that may not be versed in marketing or like the benefits of it um you know just bringing you know bringing along just various stats um you know helping them understand that if you run an ad campaign like it’s not going to net you know 100% hires or you know like it’s not going to turn your application flow up you know like exponentially like within the first week or what have you like you know it takes time um and at end of the day it’s that like again like setting expectations um you know educating um you know like there’s even small things like when I started at at Lily um most of our recruiters weren’t very active on LinkedIn like they may make Outreach to you know a candidate they sourced to have a conversation but they weren’t really branding themselves or you know create or adding content to their own pages and things like that because they were scared about you know like would they get in trouble with Lily legal um you know because they’re you know they’re active on LinkedIn so like just having that knowledge you know like so I’m sitting down with them and had you know had Road shows and put together different presentations um you know based on my understanding and my conversations with legal around like what they could do so like kind of bringing them kind of educating them from a perspective of what you can do not what you can’t do so like you know and having examples and showing them what a good page looks like and how you know different cadences that could work um kind of helping them become um comfortable with that space so again like historically where you know five to 10% of the you know recruiters were the people that were using it and you have you know 90 95% not using it um me helping them become comfortable and and you know become advocates in that space also kind of drove the brand again like that’s something to take to leadership and say Hey you know we’re getting everyone involved so we have these ambassadors that you know they’re social recruiters social rock stars what whatever you want to call them um that are out here you know kind of pushing the brand along um and again going back to you know showing that to your corporate communication showing that to your marketing um showing that to your boss’s boss that you know you may be in a situation where you know your director believes in it but then the vice president doesn’t or it’s just kind of like ah we’ll try it you know and you’re on a short leas um but if you can you know at the end of the day Express you know to that leader or to your leader and explain to them in a way that they can explain to their boss um you know the effectiveness of this um you know then you’ll again like you’ll get that buy and those those thumbs up um one piece of information that um or piece of advice that I got from a director that I worked for the first director I worked for at Macy’s um because I had I had the opportunity to have one-on ones with with my VP which was his boss um kind of early on and it’s funny because I was coming from an entrepreneurial background so I didn’t realize like this was like a it was important you know like people are people to me so like it was just kind of like you know when other managers you know at that level were kind of like you going to me my I’m like yeah don’t you but like I didn’t know but but anyway so but his but his piece of advice was whenever you speak with her just make sure that that she understands that you know something that she doesn’t know so like and that was like my big thing so like whenever I would sit down with her I would have some information that she could kind of take in and use in other conversations or she’s speaking with other leaders that other you know other large organization she was really big in the uh the national retail Federation so when she in her meetings with there she’s saying stats that I’m giving her which makes her look smart which kind of makes our brand strong so again like that’s when when I mentioned like you know I didn’t get a budget for a little while but once I got a budget we were able to spend money and it was because like a lot of those that repor and those meetings that I was having with her who she didn’t really understand it but um at first and then like she started to kind of grasp it and she’s like yeah we really need this and we’re going to put some funds behind it look man that’s so you you touched on one and I think look this is something that most people won’t tell you um especially in the employer brand space that we have access to everybody in the organization because telling the employer brand story doesn’t just stop at the uh the individual contributor or the manager or mid-level management it’s so it goes all the way up to seet and SE CEO’s presiden and so forth right board that can be a challenge in the case of we’re navigating the building of a brand but not managing per se the politics and the Optics that go along with that right so James I know you know like you you’re having meetings with people that your manager’s never sat in a room with and they’re looking at you like how are you getting in there right right and that can breed right some you have to where I’ll go with that is you really just have to understand that you are still navigating corporate spaces there are politics and Optics and bureaucracy and so while we have this cart blanch access we also have to be very clear and um thoughtful on how we bring our leadership along our direct leadership uh along for that journey and keeping them in the loop and making sure they’re informed so just know that y’all when when you’re in this space you you get access but you have to you have to manage a lot more than just the brand work um yeah even amongst your peers yeah I was gonna say even amongst your peers you know like it’s it’s you know being an employer brand or recruitment marketing or whatever you want to call it um it’s looked at as the fun job you know like I remember when I first started you know like in I’m even in any company that I’ve in the very beginning because none of the companies I had had employer brand before me and you would have recruiters or different individuals that were kind of like well you’re just on social media or you’re just you know basically like it’s kind of positions that if you’re just playing on Facebook all day or you know or you’re just or or you haven’t thought of some idea that you know that they have or you know like so it’s it’s like this this fine line where it’s like you have to have exceptional work you have to be able to kind of listen to other people’s ideas and even if it’s something that you’ve already thought of you know like finding a way to make them feel like they’re a part of it or you know or finding a way to just kind of let them know like you’re you’re steps ahead like we it’s like all right this is the plan this is where we’re going towards this is this is what we’re looking to do because I think in a lot of ways like a lot of people kind of they may look at employer brand as like this easy thing but like to be honest like from my point of view it’s easier for a marketer to understand recruiting than it is for a recruiter to understand marketing and bar because we have you know in the social space and it’s you know we have all these buzzword and everyone’s a brand now and all these kind of things like just because you know some vocabulary words doesn’t necessarily mean you know how to actually get it done and create targeting and you know and run video shoots and create shot list and all these different things and again like you said um being able to politic with people that are three and four and five levels above you um and and be confident in that you know and to be able to you know to acquire budget to be able to prove you know Roi and different things like that and just kind of learn new technologies on the Fly and it’s it’s a pretty difficult job you know like when you really get into the nuts and most of it but it is fun don’t get me wrong but um yeah that is something that I’ve had to kind of learn to navigate where it’s like that perception of it where it’s just like oh just you know this this job is play you like and you’re not serious but yeah like it’s the thing yeah don’t let your job be Global too add in the whole whole another layer in travel like yeah like last year I I went to South Africa so it’s like like even being able to break that to like peers like hey I’m going to South Africa for work it’s like I don’t want to oh really sit and sou you know like that’s the thing like yeah yeah I’ll just stay here in uh in wakaa and recruit on LinkedIn Thanks James yeah it’s it’s real like our job is fun don’t get it twisted it is a lot of fun but it’s a lot of work that you don’t that that a lot of people don’t see right because we we what we put out it looks phenomenal but nobody nobody knows all of the things that went into getting this to this point so exactly I I want to go back to something you touched on and you said it sort of tongue and cheek but I think it’s super important uh is it employer brand or recruitment marketing or whatever you want to call it and that’s funny we say that because we know big difference between the two but then right we we deal with leaders who are like yeah um how many hires did that employer brand post get me it’s like right so I’ve come up with many analogies to to explain the difference between like EVP and employer brand and recruitment marketing they are not the same thing even though some people like to use them interchangeably but I would like I would love to hear how you have explained the difference between those three things to leaders who have sort of high level understanding but don’t really know the differences yeah um for me um employer brand is more of the long game it’s more around you know creating you know various pieces of content and various campaigns that over time will create like this preference like someone might not even be looking for a job or or looking for a job specifically with your company but if your employer brand is strong and you’re again creating you know different types of content and and campaigns that touch them in some sort of way um when it is time for them to look for a job they’re looking for you I think recruitment marketing is more in the now in a sense that like you know we you know we you know we have this wreck that needs to get filled or we have you know extra amount of WS that need to get filled and we’re creating you know this direct targeted kind of thing where we’re laying a blanket out to get applications in you know get that flow going relatively quickly um so yeah for me it’s more around um for employer brand again like it’s it’s the long game it’s creating that overall preference you know like you know when you think of they Coke people and they are Pepsi people like those Brands you know like for what happened like whether it’s from you’re when you’re a kid and like your grandma drunk Coke CA and now you drink Coca-Cola because the marketing that she saw when she was a kid you know that’s branding that’s something that like sticks with you and it can become generational um you know your your traditional marketing like where I think of like Star you know like they’re just trying to get acquisition like really quickly like they changed what was what was it before Sierra Mist or what have you you know like they’re just pumping it out like they’re they’re I didn’t trial they’re sponsoring yeah oh that’s funny see her Miss like they just and you know and it looks generic or whatever and looks so low budget it looks really low budget but like they’re pumping it out like it’s you know it’s it’s everywhere but it’s I don’t think that they’re trying to actually create brand preference they’re trying to get trial they’re trying to get somebody like hey let me try this like you know versus and then they’ll worry about the brand later because you know they just want people to to to try it so figure it out and like maybe taste will win people over versus like the overall brand um versus Sprite you know sprite’s been here forever like we you know obey your thirst yeah they’re the incumbent right like there there’s so many there’s so many memorable marketing experiences that seven uh Sprite has oops sorry that Sprite has that Sprite has created that has created brand Affinity but I think you’re you’re you’re nailing it in that one is a Long play as you said for Affinity right it’s resonance it’s recall it’s uh emotional connection via experiences or uh proximity uh that is not that does not create applications per se right or applicants that just that just gets you considered when they want to apply somewhere so I’ve always said like if if if we use the butts and seats analogy your EVP defines the seat the employer brand tells people there’s a seat and and and creates this desire to want to sit in it and then your recruitment marketing actually gets people to the seat right like it’s that that thinking and there’s there’s plenty of other analogies I’ve had to use based on the industry I’m talking to but point being is that right that it’s important for us as practitioners to make that differentiate that delineation for our stakeholders because then their expectations won’t be out of alignment right if we’re going to invest x amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars and building this brand well then you have to know that this is not what’s going to uh hire three to to 10,000 people during this push for summer you know retail right like this will be an enabler of that but that is not the way we Define the success of employer brand right your recruitment marketing metrics and your employer brand metrics are very different and I just wish more people would sorry I’m gonna get off my so box I wish more people knew these things we got to do a better job but but uh no that’s that’s huge I appreciate that um that perspective on that so I want to I want to shift gears a little bit um you know we see a lot of brands that ultimately especially if they’re in the same industry or sector uh they sound the same right like differentiation getting harder to do um because you have to find those things that make your company unique that the other company down the street isn’t already saying or doing but I believe personally um and and I’m staking my my EB consultant career on this and that um that I believe that transparency is the new authenticity right and and authenticity has been thrown around a lot in the past and it was usually like emotional heart string type content that we get right but but I think at this point we’re in an age where truth is what’s is what is most attractive um but we haven’t seen a lot of employers shift to a transparency BAS approach right it’s still still selling champagne and Roses in some some sense what are your thoughts in terms of differentiation through transparency and what do you think it’ll take for companies to like get there I think like a lot yeah like you said there’s a lot of pie in of Sky um you know people are just kind of feel good you know it’s a family you know that that kind of thing what I love is the people you know like people say that you know like that’s literally every every brand yes people but I mean and that that is true like don’t get me wrong but um I think that what I always say is um the best way to have a strong employer brand is to have an actual good company um because you can yeah like because you can you can create all the videos and you can find the right Niche people that have good experiences to kind of just tell their good experiences and kind of lay everything to the ways side or act like something that wrong isn’t happening um but I think that it really you know as a as a an employer brand marketer um you know kind of building with um your employee engagement group um that teamlo experience team um really kind of figuring out like what what are the complaints here what are you know like what you know what are people happy about um and then again like with the transparency being able to also maybe find those stories where things didn’t work out how it was supposed to work out but then you know how it’s being addressed or um you know or how you know aspirationally the company wants to move forward um you know like um even with the um the research video uh or the the research group um video that I did or video series that I did with Lily um you know we we sat down I think it was the first iteration of it 25 um African-American and Latino scientists of all different levels um kind of talk about their experiences and within those stories you know you had people that were part of um you know internal groups and and individuals that may have you know felt like they should have you know gotten a promotion at a certain point in time but are hopeful and believe in the company and continue to push forward um to kind of get to that point and encourage others to to kind of you know come along on the ride with them um I think like transparency like that you know it’s kind of like what you want to see and and these companies just got to be able to look themselves in a mirror and when you’re kind of creating that content you’re trying to tell that story of you know your successes and where you may have fall short and like but where you ultimately want to go with it um you know leadership just has the accept it and you know again like you know if you feel like um if all your content is just strictly aspirational but you’re not positioning it as such um I think that you’re just doing a great disservice um to the company as a whole so I think the vanity of it you know you have leaders that just kind of want it to look good but you know they have to kind of look at the company how it actually works and then try and figure out ways to come up with programs or different you know just different ways of doing things to actually make it better so then that way you’re not necessarily um kind of marketing from an angle of you know this is kind of true but not you know yeah I I think and that’s so good I think that the uh the EVP is so important in that very um vein because it is the balancer between what an executive thinks their company is versus what an employee is telling them it is and if you don’t have that sort of Truth check then yeah you’ll you’ll see a bunch of content out there that just sells the dream right it sells the the vision of what we what we’d love for us to be but it’s not uh in any way aligned to the reality of the experience of being an employee there uh and that to your point makes uh creates a a strong disservice I think uh because that is what drives attrition rates up right like we can bring talent in here but as soon as they see what it’s really like we’re out and we’re gonna tell everybody we know don’t go there by the way yeah a pet peeve angle of mine that I kind of I hate is a lot of compan like companies that say unlimited PTO but if you actually talk to the people they don’t use that that work there it’s noted they actually take less it’s like you know being able to talk about that that kind of thing like do you really get to use your unlimited PTO how does that work yeah like it sounds great it sounds amazing but look they don’t tell you we’re gon to work you so hard you don’t have time to take PTO if you you will feel like for trying to take this PTO in the middle of the deadline like no it sounds great uh but that’s real look there’s another point you made about uh you know trying to present a attractive uh piece of content or material that attracts um commun diverse Comm commun Talent from diverse communities when there might not be a lot of diversity cultural diversity gender diversity whatever the the the um um the mode of diversity we’re talking about but we still have to create employer brand work at of that right um what what is your your message to let’s say the junior or the seasoned employer employer brand professional who’s in these environments where they’re getting a mandate saying hey we need to attract X Y and Z uh Community uh to increase representation but we know we don’t really have a good you know uh base of um of that Talent here uh how do you navigate that yeah I think I think that it comes back to being able to address it like like you said like with with transparency um so like whether you’re if you’re creating some sort of video series and you have individuals kind of talking about their experience um you know you know have questions around like you know you know do you you know kind of see this growing you know like is this a place where you know a person a minority person would want to come and grow and are their opportunities um you know if it’s you know if you’re just creating little Graphics or what have you um you know obviously having you know Multicultural individuals within you know within your imagery um you know is is the go-to for that type of thing um but I think but I think that um the Showcase of diversity the equal R showas diversity but really you know it’s like one one in every 300 you know like what have you but again I mean I think like it’s also like again having that having that Rapport or that connection with HR and employee engagement and things in those types of groups to start to make it a reality um I think that being able to um kind of address um you know these needs um from the perspective of we’re actually looking to hire you know a diverse population um that’s the that’s really the the the only way for it to really work otherwise you’re just making it up um but but like at the end of the day like it yeah like you know those hard questions have to be asked within the company um like is there you know is there an emphasis on that like do do we want a diverse population within the company or you know is that just something that we say but we still you know only hire you know white males like we you don’t know um but like I I think that’s really that’s really the thing like um you know you can create any type of content and make it look any way that you want but um you also have to be able to have some of these tougher conversations with you know people that are going to be able to make the actual change so whether it’s hiring managers whether it’s Employee Engagement whether it’s HR um your de Dei group um you know just make sure that it’s not lip service right no that’s that’s gold I think uh one of the ways uh that you can do that is even if you don’t have a great uh story yet uh get with the functions in the organization who are working on improving policy structure uh culture uh and what stories you tell about the work that’s being done right if you if you have an aspiration and you know where you’re starting from the story is the bridge right how are you bringing those y aspiration and and current reality together um and I think that’s a start right that’s to your point that’s the honest look in the mirror and just being uh vocal about it being open about it and it’s it’s a it’s a hard muscle to build for a lot of companies that are you know entrenched in only showcasing things that put them in a positive light but there’s a lot of power in being able to talk about your flaws and and leveraging that as a position of power and attraction because talent talent will appreciate that more than lying yep and you know and with different ergs or employee resource groups um you know those individuals that are active in those groups are the best people you know honestly because they’re already engaged they’re already doing the work or attempting to do the work um you know being able to pull them in you know on whether it’s a campaign or even just a consult um because you’ll understand like what their goals are and what they’re actually trying to achieve whether it’s you know bringing in more um you know person with disabilities or bringing or making life more comfortable for person with disabilities within the company or more African-Americans more latinx individuals uh you know more larger agent population like whatever it may be um if you can connect with those leaders as well that will help you kind of craft a better story because like they are charged with kind of working on this this type of thing and you know if if you find that you know there’s ENC they’re encouraged and they’re working towards that and they’re making inroads then you know that that ultimately helps your marketing because like you’re kind of talking to the people that are on the ground floor trying to make change if that’s necessary absolutely and that’s assuming your companies still have ergs in a Dei function another topic for another show um cool so look we’ve talked about EVP we talked about employer brand uh We’ve covered uh educating uh Executives crossing the aisle between marketing and branding and HR one of the biggest things that I’ve noticed just over the past I’d say year year and a half and I work with a lot of companies a lot of clients um that they they either have an employer brand right EVPs done employer Brands done but they they haven’t launched it right and I think that is that is one of the biggest misses I think for anybody who’s going to invest in employer brand is to build it right do the research craft the creative the messaging and the Nar or the narrative and the uh the imagery and then don’t go to market right in a meaningful way internally and externally what so so thinking back around activations what what are some of the cool things you’ve done to like make the brand tangible right to make it touchable by internal employees and then make it experiential for external and vice versa yeah so um I think with any type of content um that you’re creating whether it’s in support of the EVP or just a general campaign um distribution matters um like you could make as many videos and Graphics as you want but if nobody sees them then it doesn’t matter um like from an internal perspective um you know I’ve done campaigns um I did a campaign at Lily where I worked with um internal com the internal comms group um to kind of get our content on like the video boards throughout throughout all of our offices um you know going in company newsletters um you know working with with you know internal like internal events group to to make sure that there’s you know representation um you know of you know of um our employer brand um you know working with um you know our referral team like to to kind of Supply different pieces of content for them so like when they’re talking to you know their cousin or they know somebody you know that’s looking for a role um again we have we have you know materials that we that we can spy to them because again like people that work for your company are the best people like recruiters it’s your job to do that and and obviously like you’re going to do that but like an actual employee that’s talking about um the company and what they like about it what they don’t like about it um you know where they see the company going you know and they’re supplying various pieces of content um you know they’re the most credible persons to a to a potential candidate um you know externally um you know targeted ads um you know if you have a specific population that you’re going after um you know you you want to build you know that targeting whether it’s through Linkedin whether it’s through Facebook Instagram um Twitter what have you um or X sorry um or what have you um but being able to um again like Target that group um because again like what is it um you know a person needs to see you know a piece of marketing like seven seven times um for for them to have recall so you got to get in front of them um yeah you have to have that repetition um you know you have to you know make sure that you’re constantly updating your so your organic social Pages um and again like um um Act activating your employees um you know having some sort of whether it’s formal or informal but you know having brand ambassadors um you know individuals that just work at the company they’re not recruiters they’re not HR um but they’re you know they’re happy to talk about um the company and whatever you’re rolling out um I think like that’s you know that’s one of the easiest and cheapest I’ll say ways of of of Distributing your content you know like once you get it done like say you have a $50,000 budget and you use most of it to make the video but but you need these targeted ads but you can’t pay for them um you know activating your your employee population um is is a is a great freeway um to kind of get that get that out there and that’s definitely something I’ve done um with every company that I work with absolutely yeah no look there’s several points in there I mean uh the the ambassadorship is I think table Stakes for any activation you have got to find ways to empower and then uh activate the people who are going who honestly have more reach and broader networks than you as one organization will ever have um and there’s plenty of tools to do that uh which you know again we could spend a lot of time on that the other thing I think um you know the content marketing strategy right the distribution is everything to your point you have to be on the channels that your perspective Talent are on as well as your existing Talent uh they have to know one of the things that I that I miss seeing um is the physical or the experiential activation right the the the event based ways to connect this brand imagery the messaging the swag the the the narratives in real time through experiences um talk about any of those those kinds of uh like onsite events that youve done yeah so um a really cool event that I was a part of um we we at um at Amazon um we gathered about 20 or so uh design leaders from all over um you know all over the country um you know working for you know very large organizations they’re all you know director level you know vice president level um design Talent um for for two-day um like I don’t want to call it networking um but we were kind of bringing everyone together to have conversations around what design Excellence means to them so flew them all out you had you know put everybody up in great hotels had different activities uh lunches you know happy hours um you know kind of like a a little Art Exhibit as well um that that we brought everyone to um and just kind of build like yeah like to build rapports like don’t get me wrong like this was very expensive um but it was it was something that you know we that we had buy in for like the average yeah the average employer brand person is probably not going to be able to put it together but um yeah but these are these these because of budget like it just is what it is but um like when we were when we when we got that you know when we got the okay on the budget for it I mean it was really cool because we were able to create um output a document um after it from the conversations um and it was called the um conditions for achieving design Excellence so this guide um literally just took advice from these highlevel designers that were basically kind of like looking back at their career and like things that they’ve done that’s were successful um advice that they would have for you know Junior design talent and kind of like where they you know where they could take things or what design Excellence looks like for you know your large organization your small organization your entrepreneurial um Endeavors as well um and then you know we were able to kind of take that that real life experience um we documented it videoed it so or recorded it and created you know like a little you know kind of a Sizzle reel for that piece um y had a little Sizzle reel for that piece with you know different quotes and individuals like that were in the different sessions and how they connected and like what they loved about it um totally unbranded in a sense that like the design guide um we put it out you know there’s you know there’s mention of Amazon in there as the sponsor of the overall event but it was nothing was done from an Amazon perspective so sure this was again like that branding long game piece um you know these individuals you know they were able to come out you know have a great time Network amongst each other most of them didn’t know each other they were off from different parts of the country but you know design in the design field but some people were for Pepsi some people were you know Xbox some people were you know guys like it’s just from all over and you know they were kind of just basically talking shop and like what it meant from a digital perspective or this person is a product designer this guy literally made you know I’m not going to name the shoe because then people know he is but you know a specific you know a specific model of shoe um so yeah like it was it was really cool to do that and um you know we were able to generate you know just like tons of Goodwill you know we we had a dedicated budget uh dedicated budget to kind of push that content out um you know to kind of push the download out for um for the gu to push the the scissor reel out to different populations um I think like that was that was like one of you know one of my my favorite events that we’ve done then also I mean just you know from college recruiting so Lily does um what’s known as Lily day at um Indiana University and Purdue University um where basically like just take over like it’s not just a career fair there are there are just different um info sessions there you know leadership you know our CEO he he went to Purdue or my ex company but the CEO the CEO went to Purdue and um you know so he’s there like he’s doing round taes with students um you know there’s tons of Lily branding there’s you know our our College recruiters are there um you know so we’re creating different marketing material different brochures um you know banners just all kinds of stuff like just to literally have like this presence and literally take over the campus for a day um so things like that like again like the real world and I’m sure they’re getting back to it because it slowed down due to due to covid but um like right before I left they were gearing up um to get back out there and do it again but um it’s something that you know that’s just a great branding opportunity so like there’s ways to do it in overt fashion like where it’s you know company name everywhere you know we’re showing people a great time and we’re we’re proving value and then in another way where it’s a little more subtle and um you know we’re just more so allowing people to to express themselves amongst each other and then you know kind of build a relationship with us as well so that’s what we were able to do with the design Excellence uh conference fantastic there are some great IDE y’all think about it yeah it’s one thing to just put out you know some content internally uh but it’s another thing to like show up in people’s spaces and bring the brand to them and generate conversation as well as content um look I I want to be conscious of time and there’s so many more questions I could ask so clearly I want to have you back we can definitely keep going yeah right um but uh something we do um it’s it’s answer a question leave a question so former guests provided a question uh that I would love to hear your answer for and then you can leave a question for the next guest uh so the question that was asked was uh what was your biggest failure either personal personal or professional and what did you learn from it biggest failure so unfiltered here unfiltered what what do they say in sports you have to have a uh short memory um and move forward I’m big on that like you know like you fail you fail like you learn what you learn and you move forward and you don’t dwell on it um um trying to think what what is something that did not work out um working on a working on a project um and our company was um a sponsor for the Olympics um so this was a few years ago and um you know we were we were charged from the employ employer brand side to um kind of come up with some different typ of activations that we could potentially do um you kind of leveraging you know the use of the Olympic rings and some athletes that we may have um had um access to um you know I put together you know just a couple different ideas um you know of of of what we could work work towards but at the time the group that was um the group that was kind of in charge of you know the marketing for utilizing you know our Olympic asset assets um you know they didn’t there was no relationship like it wasn’t the normal corporate Communications Group that I was used to um it was a group outside of them as well um and you know trying to get a meeting um proved to be kind of difficult um with you know to just kind of see what we could do um but again like I was able to put together a couple different treatments um for execution that we could potentially do um finally got you know finally had meetings finally sat down and you know had to let them know what I was looking to do um these these various ideas and they end up getting stonewalled like so it was just kind of like you know what’s going on you know reaching out to leadership trying to trying to figure out you know somebody could remove some barriers like you know for me to talk to and um I I I look at it as a failure because like a couple of those ideas did get used but it was like for not employer branding like it was it was re repurposed um is fine or whatever um um but like I look at it as a fair in a sense because like I wasn’t able to kind of build that build that Rapport like you know like I I pride myself on being able to kind of you know step in the room even though I’m you know partially an introvert um but you know kind of you know building relationships kind of expressing my ideas you know having like you know that full you know developed plan and I don’t know if it was because you know it wasn’t step by step at the at that point um because we had a couple different ideas that we we we had on the table um but it just we just weren’t we weren’t able to execute them so it was one of those things like where it’s like it’s the Olympics like this would have been so cool and like we weren’t able to kind of get it off the ground so yeah I’d say like that really that really showed me like sometimes like you know if you’re you know you’re on short timing um know you got to be able to build that relationship and those inrs like as quickly as possible and kind of come in with you know all guns blazing and just kind of be ready to um knock it out the park it’s a valuable lesson yeah come come in ready be ready for relationship and exe you know one of those things like yeah it just it felt like you know we were you know like it was already set but come to find out it wasn’t set so like I didn’t ask all the right questions before going in like you know and it was kind of like okay well oh that’s a great idea and didn’t hear anything and then then you see you know some ads it’s like wait that’s not my work hold on yeah look valuable lessons valuable lessons I appreciate you sharing that wisdom so also in due fashion leave a question for the next guest okay um I don’t know um what I guess I’d say um what will keep you in the employer brand space for the rest of your career oh like what like what has to happen within this industry within your career um that will keep you in this space um because you know um employer brand is you know it’s a it’s a niche it’s growing but there isn’t you know there aren’t always a lot of leadership level opportunities so it’s like how can you reinvent or recreate you know your career in a way but still be in this space I love it I love it we’ll fashion that question what what needs to happen in the employer brand industry for you to remain in the industry yep great question James thank you so much for this time uh the nuggets the jewels uh the personal experiences uh just for being you and joining us and sharing it with our audience I really appreciate it uh we’ll obviously link yeah we’ll link out all of your socials in the uh in the promo stuff but uh thank you again man hopefully uh we can get you back on here uh and talk more shop great appreciate it James marble thanks again all right [Music]