Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Welcome everyone. Today we are sitting down with a problem solver who knows exactly what it takes to build a thriving organizational culture since moving on from a major chapter at Caterpillar. She has been helping companies look past quick fixes to solve real underlying issues holding teams back. So Morgan, welcome and thanks for joining us today.

Morgan Smith (Guest): Thanks for having me. I’m so excited to be

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, we’re really excited for the conversation. And before we dive into it,

Morgan Smith (Guest): here.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Morgan Smith (Guest) is a strategic marketing leader, professional dot connector, and passionate horsewoman splitting her time between Los Angeles and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For over a decade, she has been creating experiences that connect people, ideas, and opportunities. Morgan is a journey designer, seeing the big picture, charting the path forward, and bringing others along. She helps Fortune 500 companies attract top talent through strategic marketing because great organizations are built by great people. And you can say that from your experience at Caterpillar and so cool that you’re now doing this on your own.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So tell us a little bit about

Morgan Smith (Guest): Yeah.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): yourself.

Morgan Smith (Guest): Yeah, I think that was a great intro. Um, but I love doing this work. I’ve been building teams in the employment brand and recruitment marketing space for over a decade like you mentioned. Back when it was, you know, new to the block and no one really knew what employment brand and recruitment marketing was. Now,

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Right.

Morgan Smith (Guest): now it’s become so nuanced and there’s so many different niche areas that you can really find yourself in. So, it’s exciting to see this part of the work really grow. And I love, you know, now in 2026, we’re really connecting it like as your podcast um focuses on the culture. It’s not just bringing new talent in, but it’s retaining talent and making sure that our good talent stays within the organizations that we work for. But yeah, I just recently departed Caterpillar. I was there for five years building the employment brand function there and managing their marketing.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Okay.

Morgan Smith (Guest): Uh but I’m excited to be you know supporting other teams from a freelance perspective also looking for new opportunities. So just open to the next

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah,

Morgan Smith (Guest): step.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That’s great. And I’m really curious about the horse woman uh just in there.

Morgan Smith (Guest): Yeah.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Tell us a little bit about that. That’s not You must be patient holding all those horses. Holding your

Morgan Smith (Guest): you know, true.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): horses.

Morgan Smith (Guest): Patience is the number one ingredient to working with horses. Um, and not to,

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): There’s a reason they about

Morgan Smith (Guest): you know, do a whole LinkedIn post,

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): them.

Morgan Smith (Guest): but it really does translate in how we build relationships at work and in our personal lives. Um, when you’re working with an animal as big as a horse, you have to be so patient and really truly listen to them.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Right.

Morgan Smith (Guest): Um, and we don’t have a common language. So, really taking the time to understand how you’re communicating in your body uh, and in your energy uh, and then reading that through the horse has been a really interesting journey for me.

Morgan Smith (Guest): I practice natural horsemanship. So, it really focuses on the psychology of the horse um and understanding what motivates and encourages horses rather than a traditional mindset which might be a little bit more um you know, you do as I say, this is what we’re doing.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): No.

Morgan Smith (Guest): It gives the horse a say. So, it’s been really fun and I hope to get my own horse soon.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So, have you been able to do horsemanship in LA or is that more of a Wisconsin hobby?

Morgan Smith (Guest): I have been doing it in LA and I’ve been working and training other people with their horses. So, you know,

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow.

Morgan Smith (Guest): That’s a whole other kind of business that we can discuss. But, uh yeah, I have been leasing and riding horses out in LA my entire life here. And I rode when I was in Wisconsin. Uh and in the last two years I started helping people understand how to better connect with their horses through natural horsemanship and specifically through psychology and understanding.

Morgan Smith (Guest): So uh in Tanga, California, Los Angeles area, Malibu, uh I’ve been going out to see people in their horses and help them understand how to speak and read horse.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. Yeah. Connect with their animal, right? And yeah,

Morgan Smith (Guest): Yeah.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): it sounds like there’s lots of lessons that can be derived from that. So, and tell us more about now what you’re doing with the freelance work

Morgan Smith (Guest): So,

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): and what what you’re offering

Morgan Smith (Guest): yeah. So, this is a really new space for me.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): is

Morgan Smith (Guest): Uh I have supported massive companies in the employment brand and recruitment marketing space for so long and I’m excited to offer that as a freelance you know option to all all different kinds of clients anywhere. Uh and so I built a site, a portfolio. I have some options based on what I know, you know, teams really struggle with and how they struggle to support the internal structures and solve those problems. I’ve built different toolkits and solutions to help clients do that.

Morgan Smith (Guest): So, uh, I’m also open to full-time W2 work, but I’m excited to kind of expand the horizon and work with all different kinds of companies and better understand their problems and needs and help them solve

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That’s awesome. And honestly, I think um it is as you mentioned it, it can be nuanced and there’s a lot to employer brand,

Morgan Smith (Guest): Those

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): especially now compared to years ago as it was kind of an emerging um discipline. But I’m curious if you can talk to us a little bit about what kind of what you’ve seen you’ve experienced in this space. What are some of those quick fixes that maybe an executive leader wants to address, but maybe it’s actually just a symptom of something deeper that you need to address as a root issue? So, what are some of those symptoms that you see and what’s the root that you really need to be working on?

Morgan Smith (Guest): It’s a great question and it’s something that I see about 90% of the time when a team comes with a specific need.

Morgan Smith (Guest): uh you know typically when I’m asking questions to seek to understand the problem the the top of the the funnel problem that’s brought to me is often something like we need to hire a hundred so and so fill in the blank and we’re behind we needed to hire these people last week we need to do marketing ASAP to get these people in the door so it’s it’s all different variations of that kind of problem statement. And what I try to help teams understand and uncover is that’s actually not the true problem statement. You know, the problem statement is a bit deeper and the issue is located at the core of why do we need to, you know, why do we need to hire this talent? It can be as simple as it’s a new product that we’re building or a new location or a new line. But often times I find that the challenges are deeper rooted within the culture. So you know it’s oftentimes maybe an attrition issue, a management issue, uh maybe a lack of talent in the in the area that has the skill set.

Morgan Smith (Guest): So there’s a gap. And so turning on a marketing campaign might bring in some applicants to the top of the funnel, but when you’re looking for qualified candidates that will stay with the company and build, that’s where I like to work with the teams to have discussions about how we can look at the root cause and maybe find some solutions or options outside of the box that can build kind of a surround sound support and solution. to help them with that overall problem

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, I can definitely tell you are a problem solver and I think that is a skill that a lot of

Morgan Smith (Guest): issue.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): people lack in in and of itself and and so as much as you want to help these companies, you know, with their emergency franticness, uh, you know, taking that long-term approach and fixing processes to, you know, make it so that emergency mode never even happens. Yeah. And you know, diving a little deeper, kind of being a doctor almost to diagnose what’s going on. You know, if you identify it’s more of a nutrition issue or a t lacking talent pool, like you’re going to address those dramatically differently based on how you

Morgan Smith (Guest): Mhm.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): help fill those roles and get people engaged and fill them with the right people that are most likely to be aligned with the actual experience they’re going to have. So yeah, I think are th would you say those are the three kind of biggest uh roots you see or are there any others that you’ve seen that may be a little bit more um interesting or or not as obvious. Yes.

Morgan Smith (Guest): I guess another one I can add to the list is the brand reputation in a market which most teams don’t really think of because I work with talent acquisition teams, executive leaders, HR teams. They don’t have that marketing mindset naturally. So they’re not really thinking necessarily about a candidate’s experience and they’re not necessarily thinking about what the perception of the employer is in the market. So for example um a lot of traditional manufacturing companies that I’ve worked with, they operate in rural or small towns. Um that’s where their facilities are or their production locations are. Um, now when they hire and they do maybe seasonal hiring or they do it in waves, they do layoffs, whatever it is that the company is making the decisions on, that impacts the community significantly, especially in a small town or a small area.

Morgan Smith (Guest): So when you have a limited talent pool and then as a company these decisions are being made that impact the candidates negatively it quickly builds a negative reputation in that area. Now that’s not necessarily for the entire company or the business. But in that specific small town area, you know, my dad, your cousin, you know, they were laid off or they know someone who’s been laid off or they know someone who had a bad experience. Word of mouth travels fast. And people trust other people five times more than they trust a company. So, if a company’s saying things on their website or on their social media about hiring and all this exciting happy news, but they know from word of mouth the reputation isn’t that in the area, that takes a little bit more time for us to address with the community. Uh, and it’s not a quick fix.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, it definitely is a long-term game to address the reputation that an employer has. And you know, I promise everyone listening, we didn’t like plan this, but this is what Mobim does.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): you know, we help with those employee reviews because,

Morgan Smith (Guest): Yeah.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): you know, as you mentioned, Morgan, people trust that word of mouth um to a much higher degree than what the company says.

Morgan Smith (Guest): Yep.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And, you know, those reviews are the sum voice of all those friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, colleagues, and it’s given an aggregate score with that star rating. And so we’ve seen on our side that it’s hugely impactful and has a direct correlation with volume of applicants, the quality of applicants, and even the voluntary turnover just from like say your glass door four star rating because your

Morgan Smith (Guest): Yeah.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): current employees see that too and make a comparison of where they could be elsewhere. And so it helps with both the attracting and and the retention. So yeah, I mean from our experience with that piece, it’s huge and oftentimes very underutilized as a strategy. A lot of employer brand leaders and executives think, well, we can’t ask for reviews. How do we even do that?

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): How do we ask for feedback to get testimonials and reviews and you know, whatever that is? But you can do that. There’s a legal way to do it. You do want to stay FTC compliant, but yeah, you have the right task. Yeah. And I will add like you mentioned earlier having a root issue of, you know, wanting people to just apply for a job, right? Or but not that’s not the root issue. You get to the root problem and you realize you don’t just need the volume. You want those quality candidates. and having that transparent employer platform where it says this is what it’s like to work here gets those the people who align with that company. So, okay. Well, I wanted to dive a little into today’s buzzword AI. You know, there’s a lot of hype around this and a lot of controversy. So, in your opinion, what role does AI have in the employer branding space? And is there a way it can contribute to solving these root problems that we’ve talked

Morgan Smith (Guest): I think it’s a really great segue because we were just talking about reputation,

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): about?

Morgan Smith (Guest): right? And one of the biggest I mean AI is a pretty broad term and it can have a lot of different imp impacts to the employer brand in recruitment marketing space but if we want to just focus in on the candidate experience right because this is a pretty hot discussion topic right now is really with those LLMs how they’re pulling in that reputation management the reviews the software and how people are utilizing it. It’s becoming a much more important source of candidates. They’re coming in through uh generative AI. They’re asking those questions of the Geminis, the Claws, the Chat GBTs. Uh, and it’s really interesting because at this point in time, I mean, we’re really early into how this is developing as a candidate uh, attraction tool, but it’s organic, right? And so, these platforms and generative AI itself pulls a lot from Reddit and Glass Door and reputation management sites. Uh, what those reviews are saying from candidates.

Morgan Smith (Guest): It’s also pulling from websites, career websites, but you know, employers don’t always have the influence and the paid specifically the paid influence over these reputation management platforms. So, it does give the candidate a real true honest look inside the company because these are real reviews from people. So, I think it’s it’s interesting and I was on a um sales call the other day where now ChachiBT is allowing companies to pay to play in that space and we’re going to see more of that and I’m interested to see how it plays out and how authentic it’s going to look and feel for candidates, right? Um, I think candidates are pretty smart and they’ll start to soon see, okay, if it’s looking a bit polished, it’s not giving them the answers that they’re looking for in terms of the inside information. So, it’s definitely an evolution and I wonder how you guys are seeing it um within that like reputation management space as well.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, honestly, we have seen it um be directly impactful. You know, if someone’s going to their favorite AI and they’re saying, “What are people saying about this company or what’s it like to work at this company?”

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): It’s referencing reviews um substantially.

Morgan Smith (Guest): Mhm.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That’s like a high um reference content lane that these generative AI models have. And we’ve seen it’s both customer reviews and employee reviews.

Morgan Smith (Guest): Mhm. Mhm.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So if you’ve got a job seeker or a potential customer searching, they’re they’re highly likely to see overlap from both of those types of review sets to get both perspectives. So if people hate your product or hate your service, that actually may derail a job seeker because they see a lot of the negativity. Or vice versa, you may have a customer who wants to do business with you. And if it’s a larger purchase, they’re more likely to do more research, right? You’re not searching for paper plates, but if you’re buying a car or an appliance, you’re willing to do more research. and that customer may be derailed because they see negative employee reviews.

Morgan Smith (Guest): Mhm.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And so you have this kind of uh cross searching that we see. Um but there is a way to authentically um influence

Morgan Smith (Guest): Yep.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): those AI summaries and that’s through the data itself. Yeah. The data itself, the actual reviews and asking for reviews. Like we do audits of employers all the time. We’ve done hundreds and hundreds of them. And almost always when we come across an employee that has a low rating, we also see it paired with really really low participation. And so it’s an over representation of negative.

Morgan Smith (Guest): Mhm.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): But if we can lift the overall volume of reviews,

Morgan Smith (Guest): Mhm.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): then it ‘s the number one way to increase the ratings authentically and legally. But the way in which you ask has to be compliant.

Morgan Smith (Guest): Mhm.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): You know, you don’t want to break FTC law. Um but yeah,

Morgan Smith (Guest): Mhm.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): that’s what we’ve seen how you influence organically without paying for chat GBT ads. You need to influence actual reviews that are being um referenced and then aggregated.

Morgan Smith (Guest): Yeah.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So taking a diversified approach and soliciting reviews across more than just glass door but also Indeed and we like to target comparably in her site as well.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So at least four um but some companies like if you’re a big sales or you may want to target rep view for example. So there are some different use cases but yeah you want to diversify your reputation and proactively work to improve those profiles.

Morgan Smith (Guest): Yeah, for sure. And I like what you mentioned and I’ve been saying this for since I started in this space, but the candidate is the customer. It is, you know, the same person. Um, and it I’m sure you’ve experienced this. If you’ve had a bad interview experience with a company, you’re much less likely to continue to purchase from that company or that brand. Or vice versa, if you’ve had a great experience um maybe being a customer, maybe you’re a brand fan of something, you then want to work for that company because you love that brand. Um but if you have a really negative experience with a product or uh the brand then maybe you don’t want to work for the brand anymore. So it is very fluid and we’ve been seeing this for a very long time.

Morgan Smith (Guest): Uh so it the candidate experience really matters and I think that’s what AI is really bringing to light. You can say whatever you want on your social media platforms. You can run social advocacy programs internally to get people to say things online. But once candidates are using AI and LLMs to do, you know, their search and their research, they’re digging deeper and they want to know what people are really saying, what the culture really is. So, you know, that has to be authentic through the candidate lens. Um, another aspect of it is the experience of finding the information. So yes, the candidates are looking for the internal reviews and the culture, but how quickly can they find what the interview process is like, what the job functions are, you know, getting to the website, getting to the job. I mean, so many companies have broken websites and user experiences where it takes 20 minutes to just get to click to apply. And that was one thing at Caterpillar that we that I really spearheaded was a oneclick to jobs uh user experience.

Morgan Smith (Guest): So anywhere you are through that um digital ecosystem, you should be able to click no more than once to get to jobs to see the jobs and apply. Uh and we saw significant results from it. So I think getting the right information to the candidates at the right time is a huge part of those LLM and then also that authenticity of those reviews and what what that internal culture

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah,

Morgan Smith (Guest): is.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): removing that barrier to entry. I mean, if if you’re getting people frustrated before they’ve even started the application process,

Morgan Smith (Guest): Yeah.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): you’re not going to get the volume or caliber of candidates that you want. And I think it’s clear like Caterpillar did well hiring you in the beginning and um you’re such a high caliber person and totally understand this space. And one thing I wanted to point out especially is that you went into Caterpillar and created processes and things that could continue after you have now left. And and that’s I think what your greatest offering for anyone who’s interested is going to be is you can create processes that they they’re not going to need you to, you know, babysit forever more or something, but to to be someone who can go in and fix things from the ground up and and have a lasting effect.

Morgan Smith (Guest): Mhm.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And so did you have any final advice you would give to, you know, leaders in the HR space or in employer branding that you would recommend they get started

Morgan Smith (Guest): I love the idea of starting with a candidate journey audit.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): with?

Morgan Smith (Guest): um this is what I’ve done for clients and for companies that I’ve worked for and putting yourself in the candidate’s position. Even if you haven’t been in a while or you’re exec and you’ve been in your position in leading an organization for a while, put yourself in that intern’s shoes or maybe a shop floor person’s shoes. Where would they start their search? What does that look like for the company that you work for? where are things broken along the way that maybe people would get disengaged. It’s a really eyeopening experience for leaders and for teams and it’s a good reminder of like okay how is everything working today for us uh just to see you’ll find a lot of lowhanging fruit where you can start to oh this this link is broken or there’s a misspelling here.

Morgan Smith (Guest): You know, those are some little things that you can start and then ultimately you can start to chip away

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): right?

Morgan Smith (Guest): making that a much better experience overall and looking at it like 360. So if someone out of home for example is really big right now and it’s a type of marketing that goes beyond digital, right? So, what is someone’s experience like if they see a billboard first that an employer is hiring or they get a pizza box or they hear a radio ad? Um, you know, what does that experience look like and how do we infiltrate that, make it more experiential, more exciting? Um, really going straight to the customer or candidate where they’re at and pulling them into our process and wanting them to work for the company. So, I think that’s a really great piece that most people don’t think of of where to start and it can uncover a lot of quick quick and easy

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah,

Morgan Smith (Guest): fixes.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): audits are critically important and we believe in the same thing with your reputation.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So, yeah, to totally agree. That’s a great place to start. And you know, it’s interesting that we started a majority of this conversation talking about horses because I’m going to end with with that as well because I think holding your horses, having patience to to hold on for a second, take a step back before you just try to fix what you think is the problem and say, “What’s the problem really? and how can we do a long-term fix that’s going to drive more that top of the funnel or maybe it’s going to just help our uh presence online be more authentic but things that are going to fix that long long-term solution. So hold your horses people and I just want Yeah,

Morgan Smith (Guest): Yeah. Hold your horses.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): exactly. Thank you so much Morgan for being on the podcast today. We will link to her LinkedIn and make sure you connect with her and if you have a problem that you’re looking to solve, reach out. And um anything else you wanted to add with with what you’re up

Morgan Smith (Guest): Uh, no.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): to?

Morgan Smith (Guest): I’m open at this time. So, I would love to hear from people and visitors. Uh, my website is morganmariemarketing.com with the dashes in between. So, I’m sure you can include that in the show notes. But if you want to see a little bit more of what that freelance support would look like or what working with me and partnering with me would look like, that’s where you can find it. But of course, reach out on LinkedIn. I’m happy to talk. I don’t ignore messages. I am from the candidate experience side, you know, if there’s anything I can do to help or even be included in a conversation, I I like to respond.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I can attest to that because she responded to my LinkedIn message to be on this podcast. So, we were really excited to have you and thanks so much for your time today and for everybody tuning in for next time.

Morgan Smith (Guest): Thank

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Thanks, Morgan. Okay, I’ll turn the recording off

Morgan Smith (Guest): you.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): here. It’s a little finicky. Yeah, it is. There we go.