Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts):  Welcome everyone today. We’re chatting with the man that Google officially labels as the employer brand nerd. If you don’t believe me, just Google who is the employer brand nerd and you’ll see for yourself. Let’s welcome the man James Ellis (Guest).

 

James Ellis (Guest): Yeah, it’s weird. When you type in who the employer brainer and sometimes my picture shows up. I just want to be like I’m very sorry that is…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): actually

 

James Ellis (Guest): what got, thrown at you. it’s safe for work technically, but no one wants to see that thanks for having me on this is gonna be a blast.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): love it. So we put together a list of tough questions for James because this is something that you can talk about in your sleep. So we’re excited to hear your perspective. But first, let’s hear a little bit about James’ background. So James Ellis (Guest) is an authority on employer branding focusing on companies who think they have no choice but to post and pray for talent. He is the principle of employer brand Labs a best-selling author keynote speaker practitioner and podcaster with a wealth of experience across multiple Industries for almost a decade.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And I have to tell our listeners because this was funny to me but I added James on LinkedIn and before I even had a chance to message him. He already responded to me and said I guess didn’t respond but messaged me and said yes, I will be on your pet podcast. Let’s catch the Chase and it was perfect. So we are so excited to have you here. Thanks for joining us James.

 

James Ellis (Guest): There’s something about podcasters. We all know each other. Where everything is about can I get you as a guest? Let’s just go and say yes, I will happily be on your podcast. Yes.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We’re starting to get that. we’ve surpassed 30 episodes not anywhere close to your 200 plus but I mean, yeah, Yeah that’s impressive. So

 

James Ellis (Guest): Yeah, it’s just me and my dining room anybody can do it.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I do have a question though, just to kind of kick things off before we get into the ones that we prepared on our first call.

 

James Ellis (Guest): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We were chatting and I noticed your whiteboard. You have that statement behind your strategy that replaces effort. Tell us a little bit more about what that’s all about. Tell us the story there.

 

James Ellis (Guest): So it’s a collection of just thoughts that I think kind of connect in terms of things. Their brand is about creating choice and strategy, replacing effort. That line in particular replaces effort from Alex MH Smith who wrote an amazing book No BS strategy highly recommended. It’s 140 pages long. It’s like a short flight kind of book. But in it he explains everything you’d learn in an MBA strategy program in ways that you’re like, I get it. This is what this is about the strategy is not some Highfalutin big picture got to have the NBA sort of thing. But really it’s about saying.

 

James Ellis (Guest): You have resources you have these opportunities you can either outwork other people or you can out think other people and strategy. Is that out thinking other people and so in a way it just replaces all the effort you could have done trying to outwork somebody so I just thought that was such a great idea especially since recruiting seems to be very much an outwork out effort kind of job for most people. I don’t know any recruiters who aren’t completely burned out. I think a little strategy might be helpful.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, that sounds like the same kind of Matt always tells me to think smarter not harder and sometimes I’ll be trying to open a package with my hands and he’s like just get scissors,…

 

James Ellis (Guest): Yeah, yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): so just having a plan of getting any technology.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, just having a plan in place can save you tons of time and effort just

 

James Ellis (Guest): It’s really true.

 

James Ellis (Guest): Just thinking I like that recruiting is so much about doing what everybody else does. Unfortunately, every recruiter has the same story. I went backwards into it. I fell into it. I don’t know how I never went to school for this if any of us went to school for any of the things we do and they got taught sitting side by side with another recruiter…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That makes total sense and there can be Innovation and everything in life including areas of business recruiting that typically have this kind of standard protocol of doing things.

 

James Ellis (Guest): who learned it by waiting for it sitting side by side with another recruiter in 1983 who learned it sitting side by side with another recruiter in 1971, there’s so much of this kind of passed on received wisdom…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Talk to us more about employer branding by telling us…

 

James Ellis (Guest): it’s like, this is what recruiting is and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): what it is not so let’s do this backwards.

 

James Ellis (Guest): if you take a moment and go What’s another way of doing it? There’s so many opportunities and that’s why I love the employer brand. It’s kind of that area where you put a little thought into…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): first

 

James Ellis (Guest): who you want to Target what you’re trying to achieve not how to get as many applications as you can but how to get the right higher it changes all the math and hopefully leads to little less burnout.

 

James Ellis (Guest): I love it. And you could put that tattoo on me somewhere. We just do this backwards. Everybody seems to think and everybody acts like an employer brand is how to make your company look good and I’m not sure if you’re watching this when you’re listening, but I’m using big old bunny ear air quotes when I say look good. There’s nothing about that that’s useful And I mean every single company will say and honestly think that they’re a good company, the company that you’re like not in a million years, whatever work for that company. They think they’re a great company. Let’s be fair to the companies that were invested in scandals years and years ago. They think they’re a great company. They all say they’re a great company. So what’s the value and saying you’re a great company and the answer is

 

James Ellis (Guest): Nothing employer brand has nothing to do with saying you’re great. What employer brand is supposed to do is say this is how you’re different. So that people can go. I understand the way in which you’re great. I think that’s great too. Let’s match up. All recruiting is not about how I get a million people to buy my hot dogs or toothpaste or whatever it is. That’s consumer marketing employer branding recruiting is about how to find the right lid or the pot. You’re trying to create matches. That means you’ve got one job. You can only put one person in it. Do you need a million applicants? What do you need a million people saying? I heard this is a great company. We all hurt if you ever talk to recruiters whose company has gone viral. I imagine open AI is going through this right now where they had some sort of amazing thing happen. Everybody goes. I heard it’s a really good company to send applications and they just get to with applications. Did that make their recruiters job easier? No, it’s not about applications about saying look there is a role. There’s a certain kind of person who’s gonna be an amazing fit for this who’s gonna drive a lot of

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That makes total sense. So we talked to a lot of companies that have really poor reputations online. When we talk about Glassdoor on her site, all these different platforms are where employees can rate and review and typically if you’re not proactively asking for feedback you get a representation of that negative sentiment. So from your perspective and tell me if I’m hearing this right or wrong you’re saying that even a company with a really horrible star rating can still be good.

 

James Ellis (Guest): Who’s gonna get a lot of satisfaction out of working here.

 

James Ellis (Guest): Who is that person? It’s not about making lots of Haystacks. It’s about finding the needles because saying that I need more needles to make bigger Haystacks, which seems to be the recruiter’s motto.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): But maybe for certain elements of the experience certain people will still thrive in that 2.9 star company.

 

James Ellis (Guest): That’s not how needles happen.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. Yeah,…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): let’s just stop there and see.

 

James Ellis (Guest): It’s about saying this is what we’re about and the more you lean into What Makes You Different the more you can prove it the more you can show it the stronger your brand gets. My favorite example is Goldman Sachs who I hate as a company and I would never ever want to work there because we’ve all seen the Articles, you 100 hour work weeks. You never go home. You never see your families just when you live there and it sounds horrible except they have no problems filling roles because what they offer people is really simple, give us your 20s and your 30s and we’ll give you a big pile of cash at the end of it sound like a cool deal. Excellent on Monday. That is a strong employer brand. There’s no miscommunication. There’s no lack of expectations you get what you’re getting into and most companies.

 

James Ellis (Guest): All about looking good and then are surprised after putting the rosy glasses on everybody and having people show up and actually starting the job. This isn’t what I was promised. I leave, they’re shocked. That’s not employer branding. Think about what makes you different, focus on what makes it credible. That’s a strong employer brand.

 

James Ellis (Guest): certainly

 

James Ellis (Guest): Yeah, yeah. First of all, let’s focus on the glass door because it’s easy because they’re all kind of the same. And I think last no I know for a fact Glassdoor has spent a lot of time, energy and to be perfectly blunt money over the last 10 years convincing you that a tiny little two-digit number in the corner with a period in the middle is the sum total of what everybody thinks about you. And they’ve made a lot of money doing it. They’ve made way too much money doing it…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): mmm, and…

 

James Ellis (Guest): because that’s not actually…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): there’s probably some companies out there that are lies of themself?

 

James Ellis (Guest): what that says. That number is not a description of your culture. It’s not a description of your company.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): They don’t even know who they are and…

 

James Ellis (Guest): It’s not a rating of your company.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): then they obviously can’t be transparent…

 

James Ellis (Guest): That number is the rating of your ability to set expectations.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): because they can’t be transparent with themselves.

 

James Ellis (Guest): If you are told by the recruiter, this job is really hard. You’re gonna work hard. Your boss is gonna be tough on you. But at the end of the day you get x y and z and you show up. And the job is really hard and your boss is really tough . By the end of the day you get X Y and Z expectations met four stars. If you are told this is an amazing place. It’s a wonderful place. It’s puppy dogs and daisies and tickle fights and whatever you got every Thursday. It’s fantastic. It’s the world’s greatest employer and you show up and there’s no tickle fights. two stars

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. Are there companies that would be better off not doing employer branding?

 

James Ellis (Guest): You’re actually measuring how well you set expectations on what this company really is. So saying you have a 2.9 star is not saying you have a 2.9 company. It says you have set the wrong expectations. You haven’t been honest with yourself about what you offer your employees. Do you offer them an amazing mission? Do you offer them an amazing experience? Do you offer them a particular kind of reward? And if you don’t know what you’re offering, that’s different. All you’ve got left to say is we’re a great company and then they say they’re a great company and they show up and it’s not what they thought a great company was. Guess what the Stars are, that’s how the rating systems work. So if you want to elevate your score, it’s not about making a better company, your company’s fine. You just need to be crystal clear on who you’re for why they should want that and communicate every stage of the recruiting process you do that you’ll be looking at, just under four stars any time now, it doesn’t take very long, but it’s not about good or bad.

 

James Ellis (Guest): It’s about are you properly setting expectations?

 

James Ellis (Guest): yeah. Yeah.

 

James Ellis (Guest): And that’s really what one of the biggest challenges employer brand is that when you deal with a large agency because the price of dealing with a large employer brand agency is so high the only person in the company who can okay that particular bill is the CEO and the CEO doesn’t know what employer brand is so they think it must be making my company look good which in their mind is code for makes me look good. And so consequently, they love brands we say we’re great. We’re wonderful. We have the best culture that doesn’t tell a candidate anything of use, right? Let’s be fair that the CEO is not looking for a job. They are not applying for the job. They’re probably never gonna look for another job ever. Again. They have locked into a particular path. They don’t have a frame of reference. They don’t know what it’s like to work at Facebook or your hospital or a vet center or a Jiffy Lube. They’ll have a frame of reference and if they’re gonna say we’re great and the job is all about showing how you’re different. They’re not helping you and they’re actually undercutting because I’m good if I say the company is good. I will look good.

 

James Ellis (Guest): That’s not what it’s about. You have to understand what you offer and be specific and clear about it. So the people go. I know what I want. I want that. Let me join.

 

James Ellis (Guest): I really don’t think there are up here the only companies that should not think about their employer brand or companies who are not going to hire again. Simple is that and I don’t care if you’re talking about we’re a fast food joint. We only hire high school kids to flip the burgers and bring them to people’s tables right? I get that you think those are commoditized jobs and a lot of ways having worked in two or three fast food places in my time. They are kind of commoditized jobs. They’re really structured. You can’t put too much ketchup on the burger because it’s got a little gun and it puts exactly the right amount of ketchup on It does everything in this kind of you’re a human machine and so in a lot of these jobs Yeah,…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): It was true to the type of food that they were saying they served and…

 

James Ellis (Guest): you want them to stick around you want them to feel like they’re not degrading Myself by taking this job and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So the same thing with employer branding in a sense employees are consumers of this employee experience.

 

James Ellis (Guest): becoming an inhuman dispenser of the ketchup by pressing the button on the gun, You want them to feel like I’m making somebody happy, this burger’s gonna satisfy someone, this burger is gonna make someone’s day.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And so I think that’s your spot on and I ‘ve got a couple other questions.

 

James Ellis (Guest): This is the treat they’ve been waiting for all day.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We’ve talked a little bit about some of this but I want to skip yeah, let’s just go here for some of the advice questions. We’ll hit you with the hardball questions. Tell us very succinctly. How does someone start their employer brand Journey? If you’re just kind of receiving this as a revelation like man, I need to care about employer branding. What should I do next?

 

James Ellis (Guest): That’s gonna lead to better staff people who show up people who don’t call in sick people who go the extra mile when things go right when things are necessary if they understand what it takes to be rewarded to show up if they’re part of the company and I think so much over the last 50 years has shown us that the more you divorce the workers from the company and the job itself the better out the worst the outcomes are right if people don’t feel associated with the work they’re doing in the impact they make they phone it in they call in sick. They don’t care. This is how garbage work gets done by saying you’re not really part of the process. You’re not material to the outcome employer brand says, this is how we’re different and one of those ways you’re different is the connection you have to the work the connection you have to the outcomes. So I really can’t think of a company that doesn’t need an employer brand unless they’re just never gonna hire again. So governments need an employer brand. I have done marketing for the state government so I know what I speak.

 

James Ellis (Guest): Spoiler, don’t do it. I’ve made bombs. I’ve worked for big companies and small companies and Manufacturing and pharmaceuticals and SAS and software and all sorts of companies and so therefore they all need to be able to hire people who are the right fit. Otherwise, you’re hiring people who are gonna get automated out of existence and I don’t think that’s the kind of company you want to build.

 

James Ellis (Guest): Yeah.

 

James Ellis (Guest): certainly

 

James Ellis (Guest): Go for it.

 

James Ellis (Guest): Employer branding is one of those things where people ask me what’s your favorite tech stack for achieving employer brand? It’s not how that works. Your brand is completely agnostic to the company to the tech stack to the process to the recruiters. It starts by simply saying how do you tell your story and what even if you think you’re not telling your story you are looking at your job posting. Are you saying anything about marriage or are you simply saying here a bunch of requirements and you have to meet them. Otherwise, you can’t apply. What is it like to apply? What is it? when you screen an interview all that stuff are touch points that tell someone. This is what it’s going to be like when people are trying to hire you. That’s the nicest they’re going to be to you. That’s always to me like they want you now. The longer that seat is empty the more money they lose. They want you the most now. This is when you have maximum leverage, but at the same time this is when they’re gonna treat you the nicest and if they don’t treat you very well. Guess what the math is? It’s probably pretty accurate.

 

James Ellis (Guest): This is where every company can tell that story. And so they tell it in a lot of different ways. So my thinking as always is to start somewhere and do one project. Is it a Glassdoor project? Sure. Is it rewriting your job postings? Sure. Is it coming up with better outreach for your recruiters?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): There’s such an investment on both sides of this you have the person trying to get the job…

 

James Ellis (Guest): Biocon deals, whatever works for you. Just pick something that says this is…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): where it’s vulnerable. It’s taxing doing all the interviews doing all your applications trying to find one.

 

James Ellis (Guest): how we’re different and try it and what happens is as you do it once and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That’s the right fit for you.

 

James Ellis (Guest): you see some kind of results,…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And then you have the other end…

 

James Ellis (Guest): whatever depending on the channel depending on the tax depending on the project.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): where employers are trying to find the right fit for them and…

 

James Ellis (Guest): You’ll see different results. But once you start to see results, you’ll start to realize this is a game of the closer you get to a complete 360 the more value it has. Saying something slick on your social media channel is nice.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): they have a fear of turnover which is really expensive because how much money and time do they put into each candidate and so this right here is so effective.

 

James Ellis (Guest): You say how amazing you are at supporting your people.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): If you can get the right messaging across that gives the right expectations,…

 

James Ellis (Guest): I’m sure you’re gonna get a lot of eyeballs in that. Do you say it on your career site? Do you say it in your job posting, do you talk about interviews , do you talk about …

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): you’re gonna reduce turnover significantly, which is a better experience for the candidate…

 

James Ellis (Guest): is it just a one-off or is it something that’s true now…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): who gets the job.

 

James Ellis (Guest): if it’s a one-off this first thing everybody does when they get off the phone with a recruiter is Google that thing What is this company really like and so if you seeing alignment between what the recruiter says or what the ad says or at the job and they all kind of lined up when this idea you go. They must care about this. This is more likely to be true. So doing one thing is valuable. Doing that thing across the entirety of the candidate journey is incredibly valuable, so everybody starts with this idea that I have to come up with a catchy tagline. No, you just have to say something different but then you need to start to work backwards and validate it at every stage of the game to make that pithy catchy tagline more understandable. The thing about marketing is that we think it all boils down to coming up with that three, we all go what’s Nike’s world’s greatest brand. Their brand is just doing it.

 

James Ellis (Guest): Spoiled that’s just his headline. But that’s a separate conversation. And we think it has to be very very focused and has to be very very short. Marketing books will tell you the shorter the tagline the better the problem is. It’s actually telling you really

 

James Ellis (Guest): What exactly does it mean to just do the laundry? Is it just to tell your kids you love them? Is it just going to the gym? What is it telling me and that’s the thing marketing taglines like that are designed to be used for everything. They don’t really say much. What happens is that tagline Sparks the understanding of the totality of the experience and every commercial you’ve ever seen from Nike every time you slip their shoes on every time you put their shirts on every time whatever it is you go. This is a company that makes everybody an athlete, which spoiler there is in fact their brand, it’s not the tagline.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So we’re circling right back to strategy replacing effort thinking smart or…

 

James Ellis (Guest): They think that everybody is an athlete and everything is geared towards that idea. Take a lesson from that.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): not harder and I think for any of our listeners that maybe they’re not in the employer branding space.

 

James Ellis (Guest): It’s not about coming up with a cool tagline. That’s short. It’s about saying that the tagline is just the tip of the sphere.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Maybe they’re in a different space…

 

James Ellis (Guest): It’s a way to remind people of stuff.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): but always everybody has experiences looking for a job and…

 

James Ellis (Guest): What are they being reminded of don’t be scared to go deep like people get nervous that…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I think it can work for them too to use strategy in their resume instead of just trying to sound so amazing to make themselves be able to find a job that’s going to be the right fit for them, have their resume speak that and…

 

James Ellis (Guest): if go deeper if they go longer tagline, they’re gonna scare people off that’s good. You didn’t want a thousand people to apply. You needed the one you hired and the one who you almost hired. That’s the platonic ideal here, so it’s not about coming up with something cool and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): be transparent in that way.

 

James Ellis (Guest): catchy and pithy. It’s about saying look if you have a North star connected and align everything to it and even if it’s not pithy it will become incredibly effective.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

James Ellis (Guest): A hundred percent. I mean honestly, is anybody actually satisfied with the modern job seeking recruiting process recruiters are hated and tired of it.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And you are the employer brand nerd.

 

James Ellis (Guest): They’re exact.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That’s your reverse page,…

 

James Ellis (Guest): They’re bored. They’re exhausted. They’re burnt out candidates hate it hiring managers hate it leadership hates it…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So I’ve got one last question here before we’re kind of wrapping up.

 

James Ellis (Guest): because unpredictable that no one knows. How do we get to we’re all lined up on this thing that actually nobody likes that nobody feels Satisfied by and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I know that you’ve seen this when you have employees that see the employer branding and…

 

James Ellis (Guest): if you look at it, it’s kind of a crazy system on one hand.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): they say hey that’s not actually us.

 

James Ellis (Guest): You’ve got the candidate who’s decided to boil their entire professional career into two pages of Cherry Picked into lightfulness.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I haven’t experienced the puppies and the daisies and…

 

James Ellis (Guest): They don’t say they got fired at that job.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): all that kind of stuff. What is this?

 

James Ellis (Guest): Why would they not say that there was a complaint at that job…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Why is this happening? Sometimes those companies and…

 

James Ellis (Guest): what they say that it’s nothing…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): how do we address it?

James Ellis (Guest): but puppy dogs and daisies. It’s blue skies and green lights as far as the eye can see . Honestly everybody looks amazing in a resume. That’s right. Because on the other side is this company saying how great they are, how great they are and how great they are. They’re saying how great they are, but they’re not telling us anything of value and it’s like a dance where the candy that’s going. What’s Over there behind’s No, really what’s happening in that company in the candidate and the company’s going? Yeah. Yeah. It says, Spanish hablas español for Real come on what’s going on here? They’re all accusing each other of lying, nobody believes anybody and at the end of four weeks, they go home to the family.

 

James Ellis (Guest): What is this how it works? Everybody’s trusting. Everybody’s incredible. This is insane. It’s a wonder anybody ever finds a job ever. It’s a wonder that anyone sticks around for a job. The more you lean into this idea. That recruiting is about finding the lid for your pot. You realize how important it is to define and describe your pot accurately. So that the person who goes to Arab lead can hear you like a dog whistle from far across the field and go I’m here I can help you.

 

James Ellis (Guest): That is what recruiting should be and that’s where in the company’s employer brand work is the same model that makes a candidate work they stand out they Define what makes them different. They Define what makes them special and unique and interesting and together they find each other. Yeah. That’s how you get retention. You’re not so I say spouting platitudes about how wonderful you are. Then you’re just gonna get overloaded with applications. It’s about both sides going. I understand the pros and the cons on both sides. Let’s make this work.

 

James Ellis (Guest): I would imagine.

 

James Ellis (Guest): Yeah.

 

James Ellis (Guest): Totally there if you ever hired and you ever done, we’re in this weird point where no one has ever printed a resume in the last eight years, right? No one does that anymore; it’s all PDFs and stuff. I was there at the end where people still printed resumes and I remember I was hiring a replacement directly under me and the person who is leaving said, I’m gonna give you a gift. I’m gonna let you help me pick your replacement. She’s like what I said here. Someone has printed all of the application resumes. Take them home tomorrow and tell me who the handful of people I should talk to.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Absolutely and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): and listening to what the employees are saying.

 

James Ellis (Guest): Took them home and…

 

James Ellis (Guest): she came back like she could not believe…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I mean, they’re the ones experiencing this. This is the same as listening to your customers right now.

 

James Ellis (Guest): what she had just seen she goes to every one of these resumes. Do they say the same words?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We talked to companies all the time about their employee reviews and…

 

James Ellis (Guest): They use templates. It’s all in the same font.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): analyzing those reviews to understand the top positive and…

 

James Ellis (Guest): It’s all the same stuff like yes. So who did you pick ? I picked these three that said something different.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): negative experience drivers. The things that are mentioned in reviews most often about…

 

James Ellis (Guest): Yeah, when everybody sounds the same you don’t pick the best…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): what people like and dislike and…

 

James Ellis (Guest): because there’s no way to measure the best.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Those are your cultural competitive advantages, the things that are mentioned most organically in an unstructured request,…

 

James Ellis (Guest): What you do is you pick the person who stands out and that’s exactly the same model you use for employer branding if you stand out people have a reason to choose you and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): it’s not a specific question and…

 

James Ellis (Guest): I think we’ve taught generations of people, myself included, that resumes need to fit in a certain box and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): an internal engagement survey. It’s just on glass or what are the pros and…

 

James Ellis (Guest): the answer is no resumes are commercials for your value.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): cons and if you sum all that up that’s an easy place to start for a company that either feels they are misaligned or…

 

James Ellis (Guest): What would Oprah’s resume be, it wouldn’t be in 11.5 Times New Roman.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): they have no way they don’t know…

 

James Ellis (Guest): Oprah’s resume would say I’m Oprah period end of page turn page over first page.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): where to start just go review what your people are saying. You can do the same exercise with comments and…

 

James Ellis (Guest): That’s all Oprah’s resume has to be right.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): an employee engagement survey and in a best case scenario,…

 

James Ellis (Guest): She’s Oprah you can apply that to lots of different people. That’s the commercial.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I would say

 

James Ellis (Guest): It’s like This is what I’m for, and if you think you have to check certain boxes, it’s wrong. It’s understanding what makes you different and spelling it out. So that people go I see the value there.

 

James Ellis (Guest): It’s true.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Analyzing both of those data sets side by side because people have a different tone when they’re talking online publicly versus if they’re sharing something internally on a survey and when you compare, what are the top positive drivers on that internal survey and in the reviews, sometimes you’ll see misalignments where maybe it’s PTO and people are saying, you…

 

James Ellis (Guest): I worked for a company and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): they like the PTO but for whatever reason that’s coming up is more of a negative in the reviews,…

 

James Ellis (Guest): I will not name the name because it’s unnecessary where I swear one day.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): that’s an expectation management opportunity…

 

James Ellis (Guest): Somebody read an article. Probably Fast Company possibly far Harbor Business review.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): where we can speak to…

 

James Ellis (Guest): It’s important that you list your values.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): what the PTO is more accurately.

 

James Ellis (Guest): We’ve heard these articles and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We don’t need to go back to the CFO…

 

James Ellis (Guest): seen these blog posts and tweets and what have you liked?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): say hey we need to increase PTO.

 

James Ellis (Guest): Okay quick. Let’s write down our values and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): No, we need to talk about it differently.

 

James Ellis (Guest): they wrote down their values and one of them was customers and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We need to draw a more fair comparison about…

 

James Ellis (Guest): I’m like, I don’t think that’s a value.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): how we compare the national Benchmark and…

 

James Ellis (Guest): I think that’s called how one makes money Moving on…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): then all of a sudden your point you’re talking about that earlier satisfaction goes up…

 

James Ellis (Guest): but they wrote their values down and they handed the designer and they said make some posters the diet designer said you got it boss and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): because now people know what to expect and how fairly compares to other things so,

 

James Ellis (Guest): they made five posters and they said I made the posters great by taking the printers, making a hundred copies each and hanging around the office and they did and I think the sole purpose of that was to never have to think about those values ever again. I think about it. They’re on a wall. I can ignore them now. That’s not an employer brand. That’s not even a good value. What it’s about is businesses feeling aspirational, feeling the need to look good, feeling they need to sound good and going off on a weird tangent to do crazy things that aren’t adding value. If an employer brand says this is your employer brand and it doesn’t and it feels in any way like a reveal. They’re lying to you. They’re dated bad work like if I told you. Know what Matt?

 

James Ellis (Guest): I don’t know if you know this but you wear glasses. This is self-evident. Everybody can see it. It’s literally right there on the front of your face. It should not be a shock when employer branding is not here’s this magic secret thing about you that no one knows what it is to say. This is the thing that’s interesting and that people are going to be attracted to. It’s not about putting lipstick on the pig. It’s about saying have you tried the bacon? It’s delicious. It’s the same thing, except you’re not trying to figure out how to make it look good, you’re trying to say what is the true attribute about this place that is interesting and engaging and exciting. How do I pull that out? And you go? Yeah. That sounds like me saying good we’re done.

 

James Ellis (Guest): If an employee says that doesn’t sound like us go back to square one. Try again. Stop listening to the CEO and whoever else is telling you to make us look good and instead say what about us is different and that starts with a good audit of your competitors understanding what the industry is like and then going okay. What we What’s our experiences? What’s our reward that is different and start with that. That is how you build a better brand.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): .

 

James Ellis (Guest): Yep.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, I absolutely love that. your employer brand James. And I will just say everything that you said it just kind of clicks and it makes sense. And that’s how it’s the real build. It’s the right information and thank you so much for your time today and to our listeners. Be sure to follow James and we will post his LinkedIn link on our highlight article and yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Okay.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): 

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Employer brand. Thank you and to all our listeners, please like And subscribe and listen for future episodes and thanks so much James. We really appreciate it. Thanks James.

 

James Ellis (Guest): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We’ll see.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): You in the recording?

 

James Ellis (Guest): I’ll take that a step further. I think if there is something your company does that is really , really a really strong positive. It comes with baggage. There’s no such thing as an unadulterated pure positive. I’m sorry. It doesn’t exist. Facebook is famous for saying they move fast and break things, which is great if you want to move fast and break things but no one says you should join Facebook. It’s incredibly stable. They’re busy moving fast and breaking things. You can’t be both. You can’t go north and south the same time you pick a direction if your company says, we’re incredibly supportive and Incredibly collaborative. That’s great. They cannot also say and we make decisions quickly. I’m sorry. That’s not how that works. Everything is consensus driven. Everything is let’s make sure we all agree before we even decide what day it is.

 

James Ellis (Guest): Any good thing about your brand has a downside and don’t think about that quote unquote dark side downside that shadow side as a bad thing that dark side proves the positive claim you want people to know about you. So I worked at Roku and for a long time it was like you see these Glass Door reviews about this place being chaotic. It’s messy no one knows what’s going on? There’s no rules. There’s no process. There’s no documentation. The inmates are running the Asylum. It’s a nightmare blah blah on the face of it. That’s a bad thing, quick to get rid of it. you want to kill it, hit it with a shovel or something. The truth is you then respond and say, what we offer a great deal of autonomy. In fact, that’s what we focus on most and that means we hire people to tell us what the documentation of the process should be and what the rules should be. It’s not that the inmates are running. The Asylum is that we hired people like you to tell us how things should be and if that’s not comfortable for you. We completely understand we wish you best of luck with your next job blah blah BL.

 

James Ellis (Guest): law suddenly, I’m not changing the two star review into a five star review. But what I’m doing is making that two star review work for me because now it’s proof of the wonderful things I’m saying because you are admitting to and embracing the downside of it. It’s a three-dimensional brand.

 

James Ellis (Guest): I’m nice.

 

James Ellis (Guest): I want to add one thing. Yeah, look I put my resources in one spot because I know people like okay if that’s interesting, where do they want to go to employer brand all my resources there? It’s books, it’s classes. It’s white paper. It’s podcasts, it’s videos. It’s like articles, it’s everything I’ve ever built there and most of it’s free. So if you’re interested in thinking about how employer brand can work at your company, whether it’s big or small whether it’s exciting or boring and I think most people go my company’s too boring to do employer brand not true. I don’t care if you make bottle cap makers that have an employer brand they should use. But all the stuff is over employer branding.

 

James Ellis (Guest): Thanks Krista. Thanks, Matt. Bye.