I’ve been listening to Wheel of Time during my runs.
I first read them twenty-odd years ago, and boy have they dated, but actually, they are surprisingly engaging.
At the end of each audiobook, there’s an interview with Robert Jordan, who sadly died before he could complete the series.
A bit weirdly it’s the same interview every time, but there’s one comment he’s made that really stands out.
In listening to his own audiobooks, he takes a different interpretation from how he wrote it, more so than reading back his own words.
The audio highlights to him the difference between what he means to say, what he actually writes, and how the reader perceives it. It shows him where his words have ambiguous meaning, and how the interpretation of his narrative may be different to what was intended.
I’m sure we’ve all encountered that online or in discussion - I didn’t mean that! That’s not what I said! But it is how it was understood and heard.
People take their own meaning, and often it’s from jumping to conclusions.
This here is the crux of what a brand is.
Most brand work I see focuses on what they think the employer is, and how they want to project that image. Not on how it is perceived and experienced, or how the non-brand touchpoints are actually the biggest part of a brand.
Think about those big brands. What can you specifically remember of them?
We all want to jump like Jordan. (I can barely make it off the ground)
A mark of cutting edge tech and a communitised platform in Apple.
That virtue signalling company who sacked all their people by Zoom.
A real example from yesterday.
I gave a bit of career coaching to someone who’d been out of work for a couple of years.
Long story short, she got the job! She evens says I helped a little - my intervention was principally about revisiting what her needs are from her career, and the support she’ll need from her next employer.
She mentioned the role she has accepted and that she really liked their advert, even though it was a little cheesy.
This is a company whose entry-level roles rotate across the business after six months, with good coaching and training opportunities. Something she’d found out about through a contact that had recently started there.
Sounds amazing, I replied, can I have a look at the advert?
Now the advert is pretty good, I like it anyway. ‘You’ focused, quite engaging, a bit cheesy we both agree.
She likes it as a non-recruitment-geek applicant, and she felt it stood head and shoulders above the competition.
However, what made her excited about the role wasn’t in the advert. It was that italicised paragraph above.
Here it was the real brand of insider information that got her excited, and I’ve no doubt would appeal to many readers if it was written down in their advert.
A missed opportunity, and one I see time and time again - with employers who know they are a great place to work but have no idea how to show it.
Shouldn’t that be the point of having an employment brand?
Not the photos of a hideous bearded Old bloke, an attractive Black man, a well-presented middle-aged Woman, and a young White man in a wheelchair, the one I saw on an agency website yesterday who value diversity don’t you know?
I can’t help but think they asked their design agency to show how they value diversity.
The same photo is on Frazer Jones, SR Group, Pure Executive, Reed, Talking Talent, BUPA, Nestle, Forbes, Wolters Kluwer, and many mooore.
Google image search is a handy way to find homogeneous diversity.
Or how about my brand?
"You don't see yourself the way others see you" Dad, 1994
What do you think of me?
If you don't know me, you'll see I'm a recruiter - does that affect my message?
Whatever your answer is, for you, that's my brand, and it will influence everything you see, hear and experience.
Sometimes you'll be wrong - that's on me because I'm accountable for my actions, behaviour and message.
There’s a recruitment coach on LinkedIn who I know has talked about me in private Facebook groups. For whatever reason, she took exception to something I wrote and thinks I’m a twonk and a virtue-signalling charlatan.
And that’s how she reads my words; how she advocates me to her peers.
For her, that’s my brand, which she is 100% right about in her mind.
Why not speak to me, or challenge me? Her choice of course.
There’s an MD in Suffolk who blocked me on LinkedIn the other day. He’d posted ‘Come see why we are an employer of choice’, to which I commented ‘Why not say why you are an employer of choice, to help readers make an informed decision?’
Who knows why he actually blocked me, but it was certainly a result of those words.
What you think of me, reading this now, is also my brand, intentional or not.
That there is the power of brand, and how it drives decisions.
Some good, some bad - all as a result of our work, message and behaviour.
I’ll be digging deeper into the nature of Brand across different recruitment touchpoints in the next few posts.
Thanks for reading.
Greg
p.s. these p.s.es are both my opportunity to do a mini advert and Easter Eggs for the attentive reader
p.p.s. feel free to drop me a line if you want to work on your brand - I know some great people who can help
p.p.p.s sometimes I subvert expectation