This week we welcome Susan LeMotte to the podcast. Before starting exaqueo, Susan held a number of leadership positions in talent acquisition and employer branding, including as an HR consultant for Home Depot, Director of Talent Acquisition at Ritz Carlton, and Senior Director of Global Employer Branding and Marketing at Marriott.
Topics include: the evolution of and current state of employer brand as an industry, reactive employer branding vs. strategic employer branding, why employer brand should “live” under HR instead of marketing, the concept of recruitment marketing as a subset of employer branding activities, transactional vs. communal relationships in marketing, post-hire employer brand touchpoints, the limits of consumer marketing when applied to employer branding, the differences between competition for talent and competition for products and services, how early career and hourly jobs can be more than transactional, the current state of the candidate experience, and why large organizations are sometimes the worst offenders in terms of offering poor candidate experiences
Susan LaMotte
CEO, exaqueo
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the changing state of talent
acquisition, where your hosts,graham Thornton and Martin Kred,
share their unfiltered takes onwhat's happening in the world
of talent acquisition today.
Each week brings new guests whoshare their stories on the
tools, trends and technologiescurrently impacting the changing
state of talent acquisition.
Have feedback or want to jointhe show?
(00:21):
Head on over to changestateio.
And now onto this week'sepisode.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
All right and we are back with another episode of the
changing state of talentacquisition podcast.
Super excited for our nextguest, susan Lamott, ceo and
founder of Exactio.
Susan, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah, so we're going to start with, I think, a
softball question, so we'd lovefor you to briefly share your
career journey today.
So what led you to foundExactio, what's your mission and
maybe you know, what questionsor ideas do you spend most of
your time on today?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
So I started my career really at the age of 13,
when I lost my first job.
I didn't show up for work and Igot fired.
I was working at the swim clubsnack bar, and the reason I
share that is because, eversince, I've spent my entire
career thinking about work, theway we work and how to make work
better.
I always tell people that I sitat the intersection of where
(01:17):
business meets behavior and, atthe end of the day, we all have
jobs because we are required towork right.
Most of us aren't sitting on apile of money that can fund our
lives.
If you are, congratulations,but if you're like me, you need
to make some money to put somefood on your table and a roof
(01:37):
over your head, and so that'sthe nexus of why I do what I do.
I started Exactio because,prior to starting the company, I
spent the majority of my careerin-house, either leading talent
acquisition functions, leadingemployer brand functions or
recruiting, and I found that weneeded to tell a better story
(02:00):
about what it is we want to doas companies when we hire people
, how we attract them, how weretain them and what really
would make them thrive at ourcompany.
So it's not just come work here.
It's great, but what is itgreat for you?
And so that's the reason I loveworking in employer brand.
Exactio in particular, I foundedbecause when I was at Marriott
(02:23):
and running employer brand, Iwas looking for a particular
type of firm to support me andto support my strategy, and I
couldn't find exactly what I waslooking for.
I had a lot of differentpartners and so I left Marriott
to go create the firm I wishedthat I had when I was in-house
that could support me end to end, all the way through from
(02:47):
research and deep dive intounderstanding the depths of my
talent in the organization andthe kind of talent that I wanted
to recruit, but then also allthe way through to helping me
build strategy, thinking aboutwhat my stakeholders and my
leaders needed, reallyunderstanding my people, but
then also getting tactical right, building out the assets that I
(03:09):
needed, helping think about thecreative strategy and direction
, aligning that with mymarketing team and my
communications teams, and thenhow do you actually pull that
all the way through the entireemployment experience.
It's a big ask and there wasreally no firm that did that.
So I set out to create Exactio12 years ago to do just that and
that's where we really spendour time now.
(03:32):
I think there's a lot of firmsout there that are agencies and
are agents of employer brand anddeliver the assets and deliver
the technology.
Our mission is a bit broader.
We're really focused ontransforming the employment
relationship.
We really believe thatemployment is not a transaction,
it's not just a job.
We're not trying to sell jobsor just do recruitment marketing
(03:54):
.
We are here to transformemployment, the relationship we
all have with employment, and atExactio we do that through
insight, through employer brandand through Canada, and then
we're going to be working on itat an employee experience.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Wow, that might be the best intro we've ever had.
I don't know.
Well, graham and I will chatlater.
We're thrilled to have you here, susan, and there's so many
different ways we can take theconversation.
I kind of wanted todouble-click on this idea of
providing what might be calledauthentic employee experiences.
We had a guest on recently andthis actually reminded me of
something she said, but callingout the difference between
(04:29):
treating employer brand as atactic versus treating employer
brand as a strategy, and hereyes was, or is, rather, that a
lot of organizations come toemployer brand because it's
something they think they haveto do and they're looking for
very tactical outputs.
We have empty seats that we needto fill right now, and they're
not necessarily thinking aboutit in a very holistic, strategic
(04:50):
way for the organization.
It's not that we need to trickpeople into coming to our
organization by putting someappealing message out there.
That may or may not be true.
What you're proposing, I think,is a lot more strategic, and
this doesn't have to be acontrived activity.
Like what would it actuallymean as an organization if we
actually cared about eachindividual employee and wanted
(05:12):
to provide them an amazingemployment experience, rather
than taking this very hands-offapproach of what do we need to
say to get people in the seats.
I don't know if you have anythoughts about that or if you
would push back in any way, butwe'd love to hear your
perspective.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I think it's a really important conversation right
now, particularly as the spaceof employer brand has grown
tremendously.
We did an assessment of thedifferences in our industry
between 2011 and 2022.
We just wanted to see how ithad changed over the past 10, 11
years and what we found wassuper interesting.
In 2011, there was probably yousearch on LinkedIn.
(05:49):
You can do Google searches tosee how many people were
searching for employer brandjobs a couple hundred In 2022,
at the time that we did thatsearch, there were over 16,000
jobs on LinkedIn at the timewith employer brand in the title
, and the reason I share that isbecause what happened is we got
reactive, we got tactical.
(06:10):
It was this fear factor of ohshoot, I've got to go out and
promote my company.
And when we get reactive, weget tactical and we're focused
on assets and creative and we'vegot to be on a social media
channel and we've got to makesure we're telling our story
without really thinking morebroadly about what story it is
(06:32):
you want to tell and why do youneed to tell a story.
Part of strategy is figuringout what do you even want to do
and why, and connecting it tothe business, and I think that,
to me, is what's superinteresting is most employer
brand professionals that I talkto right now, the majority of
them.
When you ask what's youremployer brand strategy, they go
(06:54):
right to tactics, becausethey've actually never been
taught how to do a strategy.
Yeah, they are focusedparticularly on the execution.
So I think it's a reallyimportant conversation, one I
think we need to have over andover again, especially for some
of the new folks in the industry, so they can learn and grow.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Yeah, wow, there's so much there that I agree with
you.
Know this distinction between,or what you're saying about, as
the industry had.
The employer brand space hasevolved and we've gotten more
people who are identifying asprofessionals in the industry.
The industry has kind ofresponded in a way that I would
argue is what's most common inthe industry outside of employer
(07:34):
branding, which is to be verytactical and kind of reactionary
.
You know most organizations,most recruiting functions, are
kind of constantly putting outfires.
I know there are exceptions,but you know it's a very
reactive business.
When I, when I started thisbusiness with Graham is my first
for a HR or TA, and that wasone of the things that surprised
(07:54):
me, it is how reactionary itwas.
But what it sounds like you'realso saying is that we're kind
of poised for this next chapterthat's probably felt long
overdue for folks like you andme, susan, which is that you do
think that organizations arestarting to understand that yes,
as a, as an industry, we'vebeen focused on the tactics and
those are all important and goodand exciting and that's people
(08:15):
get excited about those for goodreasons.
But it really needs to startwith strategy.
You're starting to see theconversation shift in a big way.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
For sure, and what we're seeing in particular is
asking the broader questions.
So, rather than asking thetactical question should we be
on tiktok or snapchat, right,because that's a tactic People
are asking the broader questionof should we even be on social
media, right?
Which is, if you think aboutthe difference between strategy
(08:43):
and tactics.
Strategy is the action plan.
The broader, what is the actionplan for our brand as an
employer?
And then, what are the specifictactics?
But most employer brands, asthey're built in an organization
, your first hire tends to besomeone who is hired as an
individual contributor, and sothey tend to be someone who is
(09:03):
assigned to either through jobdescription or because of their
experience.
Someone is used to being reallytactical.
The other part of it that'ssuper interesting is when we
look at talent strategy rightnow, it is very reactive, right,
the whiplash of back and forthwe hire, we fire, and so
employer brand follows suit.
(09:23):
Let's dump money into contentcreation when we really need to
hire.
Let's cut the budget and cutthe employer brand team when we
don't.
We had a client that we workedreally hard on helping them
build their employer brand andtheir employer brand strategy.
The leader launched theemployer brand, did a tremendous
job, got feedback and kudos atthe board level, which is, you
(09:46):
know, the best you can hope for,and then that particular leader
was laid off two months laterand really disappointing to see
because, at the end of the day,they're creating more cost for
themselves downstream becausethey're going to have to hire
back a team.
They just are looking for theshort term gain and that goes
(10:08):
back to what investors arevaluing right now, which is
short term game, and we thinkthe easiest way to do that is
through talent, which is reallydisappointing.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah, yeah, I think that there's a lot that we're
gonna unpack in this episode, soI'm gonna maybe start high
level.
We can get into a couple morespecific.
So you know we're talking aboutthe concept of employer brand,
it's evolution.
One of the sort of perennialdebates about employer brand is
really where should it live?
Should live under each other?
Should live in marketing?
You know, I think kind of, youknow it's kind of set the stage.
(10:38):
In some of your publiccommentary you come down pretty
strongly in favor of housingunder each other.
I wonder, like maybe that's agood place to start to bounce
off here.
You know, can you make thatcase like why is employer brand
best position under each other?
You know, how, can you know,how can they are build effective
bridges, you know, with thefolks in marketing who may, you
know, feel pretty strongly thatshould believe under them
(11:00):
instead?
Speaker 3 (11:01):
First and foremost, regardless of where it lives,
you need the good partnerships.
I want to make that reallyclear.
Every successful employer brandever built or been a part of
building, whether in house or,you know, with clients here at
exactly there's always therecurring theme of strong
partnerships between marketing,hr and coms.
So that is, you know, that's agiven.
That being said, absolutely Ibelieve that it should be an HR.
(11:25):
I think it's most successfulthere and that's because at its
core and this is so important torepeat over and over again
Employer brand is branding andmarketing the entirety of the
employment experience.
Recruitment marketing is a smallsubset of that.
But what exactly are youmarketing?
Your marketing?
Employment and employment inand of itself is not a
(11:49):
transaction.
It is a relationship and it isvery different than marketing a
product or service.
And we have a lot of clientsthat come to us because they
started trying to do an employerbrand with a consumer agency
and those consumer agencies areincredibly talented and they did
an incredible job with thatcompany is consumer or master
(12:09):
brand.
But when they try to attempt toapply all the same tactics or
all the same philosophies tobuilding the employer brand,
they often fail or they struggleand that leads the company to
come to us.
Why?
Because building an employerbrand is different.
Creating that relationship isdifferent.
Ultimately, you know, if I goand buy a cup of coffee, that
(12:34):
coffee is delicious.
It's really important that thecoffee company build a strong
brand relationship with me, so Ipurchased it Over and over
again.
Right, all the marketing thingswe learned in school.
But a job is different.
A job puts food on my table,puts a roof over my head it
might be the difference betweenfeeding my family or not.
And we forget that right, as alot of white collar workers,
(12:56):
where we're not paying attentionto our bank accounts because we
might not, we have or I shouldsay we have the luxury perhaps
of not having to worry about Arewe going to be able to pay our
bills this month.
It's a very different type ofmarketing and it is very core to
understanding the human andcreating that relationship.
So you need marketing, you needthe relationship with marketing
(13:20):
, you need to build it, you needtheir expertise, but it has to
sit in HR.
I firmly believe that.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Okay, I'm convinced.
I mean, and I'm someone whospent his early career and most
of his early career in consumermarketing and market research.
So you know, if I have a biasgoing into this it's probably
let's keep it with the marketingfolks, but I think you make a
pretty compelling case.
There was a lot you said therethat I wanted to kind of zoom in
on a bit.
One, I think, is just a pointthat I just want to make sure
(13:49):
I'm understanding you if we seeit the same way, because I think
it's a pretty profound point.
You're saying, I think, that asit relates to recruiting and
just employment of all kinds,the whole talent life cycle,
employer brand is really thecontainer that contains
recruitment marketing amongother functions within the
(14:09):
organization.
It is sort of the whole bigidea, that organizing principle
that everything else shouldladder up to.
And it's odd to think of itthat way, I think, in our
industry, since employer brandis a relatively new concept in
the business world and we'vebeen employing people much
longer and doing recruitmentmarketing much longer than
anyone thought about employerbrand as a standalone concept.
Is that accurate?
(14:29):
Is that how you see it?
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah, and I think part of the challenge is when we
created the term employer brandand for those people who don't
know, it was created in the late90s.
So you're 100 percent right,it's still a relatively new term
.
When we created it, we wereleaning heavily towards talking
about it related to recruitingand most people when they think
about employer brand, they'rethinking about it from the
(14:53):
outside in, because when wethink about brand right that and
you know this from from- yourbackground.
That term comes from theexternal, internal relationship
of customer to company.
But the brand that you createwith your employer, with your
employees, start externally butthen it moves internally and
(15:14):
that's another reason it's gotto sit with HR to, because
you're managing that brand allthe way through the employment
experience and every singledecision you make in HR makes or
breaks the brand.
That's a huge pet peeve of mineas we spend all this time an
employer brand thinking aboutall of the things we can do to
impact the way that we brand andmarket to candidates and
(15:38):
employees in this really big way.
We don't think about the offlineways.
But, for example, when my bosstells me or gives me information
that I don't like, that'semployer brand, because that's
branding my employmentexperience.
When a new program is launchedright Like performance
(15:59):
management, they launch a newprogram, I get the email in my
inbox about it that's employerbrand.
When the benefits packetsmailed to my house at home,
that's employer brand.
When I do my exit interview,that's employer brand.
All of those things.
But we don't typically thinkabout all those things and so
we're always on a mission tohelp companies and employers see
(16:23):
it's the whole experience, andwhere the real value often comes
isn't in just the sexy creativethat gets to go on your career
site.
That's all important, but wherethe value comes is the
one-on-one conversation that ahiring manager has with a
candidate to convince them toaccept the offer.
And yet we spend almost nomoney in our employer brand
(16:46):
budget on how to train thosehiring managers to pull the
brand through.
That's, to me, where theexciting future is to you of
employer brand and the sort ofholistic nature of what our
industry really is.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
Yeah, it's hard to imagine a marketing department
managing employee experiences.
That's right, that's a goodcall out.
And I think we want theminvolved because, again, I do
think in some way the employerbrand exists to serve a bigger
brand or a more encompassingbrand.
This is our reason for being anowner.
As an organization, we needpeople who are passionate about
(17:20):
delivering on this mission forour customers.
So there's an intimateconnection there.
But, yeah, it's hard to see howit could live really in a
holistic way outside of HR.
The other thing I would sayabout that is I think it does
near trends that we see inconsumer marketing.
I think consumer marketing 20years used to be in a much more
nascent state.
That's, frankly, similar to thestory that we've talked about
(17:40):
here, with employer brandgrowing up, where it was very
focused on advertising andconverting to sales and people
didn't necessarily spend a lotof time thinking about the
entire customer experience,support experiences, what is the
experience after the order isplaced, what happens when
someone has a problem with theproduct?
And you're seeing, I think, inmodern marketing departments
(18:02):
thinking of brand much moreholistically like that.
One of the fun offshoots ofthat, I think, is why we get an
NPS score email every time youopen the Comcast or Xfinity app
on your phone.
It can go too far, but I thinkthat's super encouraging to see
both the consumer side of thehouse and the employer brand
side of the house thinkingstrategically and holistically
(18:24):
about these things.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
You bring up a really important point about the
inherent relationship betweenmarketing and HR as it relates
to the experience that I thinkis important not to overlook,
and that is that even if HR isresponsible for the employer
brand and I think they should beand even if they're responsible
for the employee experiencewhich I think they should be at
(18:47):
their core, employee is, nomatter the kind of organization
B2B2C they still have to deliveron the brand and deliver to
customers, clients, end users,whoever that may be, and so
marketing still has anincredibly vested interest in
making sure the employeeexperience is a good one, so
(19:08):
that they are equipped todeliver on the brand.
So, for me, the role of, forexample, of chief experience
officer there's very few of them, and those that exist, it's
debatable whether they'reactually working, but this idea
that there's somebodyresponsible for unifying
marketing in HR, I think is alsoreally intriguing, and seeing
(19:31):
how CMOs and CHROs can buildreally strong relationships
together to partner, I thinkthat's really key.
One of my most powerfulpersonal career moments was
sitting in a boardroom atMarriott where the CMO and the
CHRO were discussing where myfunction could sit and if you
(19:54):
get to that point in youremployer brand career.
In my mind, that's a huge win,not for any ego reason, because
it means that you've actuallyshown them the value of employer
brand, that they both see valuein your function to their
business.
That, to me, is gold.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Yeah, yeah, that is the must have been a surreal
experience.
I'm sure there's a lot ofpeople listening who maybe have
not experienced that yet intheir organization.
Sadly, I know this is changing,but it does seem like employer
brand is often just shuffled offto someone in a random seat
that appears to have bandwidthrather than someone who has, and
(20:33):
so there are a lot of peoplewith really good intentions that
I think just lack the broaderview because they haven't been
exposed to it.
So I think there is anobligation as leaders in the
space to just educate peopleabout how to think about these
things.
Okay, well, I have one morequestion about this and then
I'll shut up and let Grahamspeak.
But I really think it wasfascinating what you were saying
(20:54):
about how consumer marketersdon't.
Setting aside the very realissues that I would just discuss
about, it's about more thanjust job applicants and getting
people hired.
It's about the whole talentlife cycle.
Fair point, but even justfocusing on the top of the
funnel, if you will, that thepart about getting our job
advertisements out there andtrying to deploy the tactics to
(21:18):
use the term from earlier thatwill get our brand out there the
best.
You still said that theconsumer marketing folks
generally some of them are great, they're great at being
creative, but they don'tnecessarily understand some of
the nuances behind marketing toemployees, and I wonder if you
could just say a little bit moreabout that.
(21:38):
I mean, one point you made itseems to be that and this is
something I thought about too isthat there's a fundamental
difference between a job and aproduct or a service that
someone's buying Consumermarketers are really used to.
There's really skies the limit.
Yeah, you may have an inventoryproblem and a temporary lack of
supply, but really you got amarketing machine that's working
(22:01):
.
You've got a brand, you want toturn the volume up on it and
you want to sell as many widgetsas you possibly can, and it's
just a very differentenvironment.
In hiring, of course becausethat's never true we always have
a finite supply.
It's a revolving door.
Some people are leaving, we'retrying to add new people, so
there's inherently a fundamentaldifference there in the nature
(22:22):
of this marketing activity.
We're trying to cultivate arelationship so when the moment
is right, we can get the rightpeople in the seats, but we
don't have a product, if youwill, to offer it all times.
Could you say a little bit moreabout that, and I wonder if
there's just any other colorthat you could add to help us
understand the consumer.
Marketing folks Maybe justdon't fully understand the task
(22:42):
before them.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
I think it's so important to differentiate
between marketing and marketinga product and marketing
employment because of thoseinherent differences.
One of the visuals that I liketo use is one that you just
touched on, which is this notionof funnel selling to the many
versus selling to the few.
And I think in the old days ofrecruiting, I started my career
(23:05):
as a recruiter and we used touse terms like post and pray or
spray and pray, which isessentially put your jobs out
there and you want to attractevery single person you can to
those jobs and ultimately, Ithink in many cases that worked
and you got a lot ofapplications.
In the early days I'd get themby facts, if you can believe it,
(23:27):
I'm dating myself and you'd gothrough interviews and hire, et
cetera.
But now we recognize that thejob market doesn't work that way
anymore.
Not everyone thrives at everyorganization, and so, in the
case of a consumer brand, you'regoing from a small audience to
a large audience.
(23:47):
When you have a consumerstartup, if I'm selling I use
the example of coffee I've got anew coffee bean and I want to
sell this I'm going to startwith a really small audience
with the goal of growing it aslarge as possible.
With employer brand, you'restarting with a large audience.
You want as many people topotentially to be aware of you
as an organization as possible,and then you may be recruiting
(24:09):
for one role.
So it's a completely flippedtriangle.
And when you're talking aboutyour competition, it's different
.
So on the consumer side,there's only so many kinds of
coffee beans that exist.
It's a very narrow, focusedcompetition.
But from an employmentperspective, if I'm a software
developer, there's thousands andthousands and thousands of
(24:32):
employers that I could beemployed with, and so therein
lies our challenge.
More broadly, I like to thinkabout it from a social
psychology lens.
Personally, when we think aboutbuying a product, it's what in
social psychology they call atransactional relationship, and
(24:53):
that is, you are trading for abenefit, for a need.
So I go into a coffee shop, Itake oat milk in my coffee.
Here in Charleston, southCarolina, where I live, there's
a great little local coffee shopcalled Brown Fox.
Brown Fox has oat milk.
I get my coffee, I know thebarista well, I have small talk,
I say thank you, I go about mymerry way.
(25:15):
They take my money, but if I goback tomorrow and they don't
have oat milk anymore, there'sno harm, no foul, I'm going to
say, oh gosh, you know.
Best of luck, you guys.
I'm sorry that I can'tpatronize y'all anymore, but I
can't.
You know, I only take oat milk,so I've got to go to the other
shop down the street.
It's a transactionalrelationship.
They can't meet my need anymore, so I can't give them my money.
(25:36):
But when it comes to the otherkind of relationship in social
psychology, the one we're allused to, when it comes to
romantic relationships, familialrelationships, that's called a
communal relationship.
That's where you're in arelationship for a series of
common goals.
So my husband and I we've beenmarried for over 10 years now
(25:57):
and we've been together foralmost 20.
And we're together not becausewe trade things or it's
transactional.
We're together because we havea series of life goals, things
we're trying to achieve.
When he brings me my coffee inthe morning, he doesn't get
anything out of that.
He does it because it makes himhappy to see me happy and he
(26:17):
knows that that's going to helpmy day go a little bit easier
and that's going to help us getto our goals more effectively
together.
And so if we treated employmentmore as a communal relationship
, we would be so much moreeffective as employers.
That's the work we've beenspending a lot of time on.
It's also why employer brand isjust not the same as a consumer
(26:39):
brand and why we can't marketit in the same way.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
Yeah, I really think that is a key, key insight.
I certainly thought beforeabout, well, the difference
between what you're callingtransactional relationships and
communal ones, but I hadn'tthought about the implications
for that in terms of where youshould be housed and who should
ultimately be holding the reins,and I think that's probably the
most compelling story to tellabout it.
(27:04):
There's just a lot of thingsthat are of interest in what you
just said, a couple of thembeing this idea of yeah, it is a
transactional relationship.
As someone who spent a lot oftime researching all categories
of consumer products, one of themost well, here's one of my
stories that Graham servedbefore.
But there's theories inconsumer marketing where they
claim that all consumerdecisions are based on deeply
(27:27):
held values, and some of thissimilar thinking to what you're
saying.
So I used to spend time askingconsumers about why did you
choose this brand of cranberryjuice over another brand of
cranberry juice, and thenpushing them to tell, to reveal
these deeply held feelings andvalues about why they made that
decision.
You know, why is saving moneyimportant to you and what does
that say about you as a mother?
(27:48):
And you know you're reallyleading the audience here in
those cases.
So that's just an aside, butthose research projects always
reminded me of, like, I justdon't think it's this deep.
You know, I don't think it'salways that deep, whereas
employment relationships, yeah,I mean it's a spectrum.
If you're taking your first jobor a summer job as a college
(28:09):
student or something like, it isvery transactional most likely.
But when you start to thinkabout career and this not just
being a career, how you spendmost of your waking hours in
life, but also the way that yousupport your family, the way you
allow your dreams to comebecome real in some, in some way
, I mean it's incrediblyprofound, or at least can be.
And really like what other?
(28:31):
What consumer purchases areremotely comparable to that?
You know, maybe a home you knowlike?
Speaker 3 (28:37):
even that.
Yeah, it's hard to think of one,yeah you bring up a really
interesting point, though,around the early career right,
and is that transactional?
I think a lot of people alsothink hourly jobs are often
transactional right, like, oh,that you know fast casual
restaurant or you know thehospitality housekeeper, like
(28:58):
they're just here for the buck.
I would argue not, especiallywhen we think about young people
.
Some of the most compellingroles I ever had and I counted,
I think I had 30, some jobs,something crazy, before you know
, before I even graduatedcollege and those jobs can be
the most compelling becausethey're teaching you things for
the first time.
You know when you get.
(29:19):
When I got fired for that fromthat job at 13, I got fired from
another job.
Now I'm now I'm really paintinga picture of what I was like as
a teenager, but I got firedfrom another job when I was 17.
You, those are the first timeyou feel those feelings as a
human being and you're stillgrowing right Like young people
are, from an emotionalperspective, are much more
(29:42):
affected sometimes by thosethings, and I think they can be
really traumatic or compellingor they can really shape who you
are.
A lot of what I learned aboutmanagers and bosses and
coworkers that all happened fromthose early jobs.
This is super interesting.
I there's an entrepreneur herewho runs a consumer packaged
(30:06):
goods company and she's speakingto a bunch of college students
who were interested in beingentrepreneurs and she asked them
all to raise their hand if theyhad had a part time job yet and
almost nobody raised their hand.
She couldn't believe it, andpart of the reason that she got
so frustrated or couldn'tbelieve it I don't want to speak
for her was because she shesaid look, if you guys want to
(30:26):
be entrepreneurs, if you want tostart your own company, you
need to go, experience, work,you need to figure out what kind
of worker do you want to be,what kind of boss do you want to
be, what kind of company do youwant to create?
And you can't do that unlessyou've been in a whole bunch.
And so I think that, for all ofthe, we all have successes and
failures as entrepreneurs.
You both know this.
But I think, for all of thefailures and bad mistakes that
(30:50):
I've made as a leader, some ofthe good ones that I've made as
a leader or an entrepreneur havecome from having that, all of
that observational time in allof the jobs that I've had in my
career to be able to say like,oh yeah, like I want to be a
boss like that or I don't.
Or I want to run a company likethat or I don't, and that's a.
That's a big miss right now fora lot of early careerists Is
(31:13):
their very first job, is the onethey take right out of college,
and so a lot of companies arereally struggling to because
they're getting these peoplethat have no work experience.
So that's another interestingchallenge we're hearing from
leaders as well.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
You know that's funny and I'm still here, by the way,
I'm really your two'sconversation.
But you know, when I came outof college I remember taking a
job at Enterprise like like anygood student fresh out of
college and you know you reallydo learn how to work and I think
that's interesting.
I was talking with a friend ofmine who manages a team of 800
(31:48):
employees and one of herstruggles that we've talked
about is like people justlearning to work coming into the
workforce over the last threeor four years, susan and I think
so much of that is.
Like.
You know, covid is kind of.
This move to remote work hasbeen great in so many ways, but
I think there's ongoingchallenges trying to figure out
(32:11):
for people that are newly in theworkforce and have never gone
to a team meeting.
I'm not saying we need moreteam meetings, but we can stand
up that people are stillstruggling to learn quite
literally what to do.
I think that's one of thebigger gaps that's popped up
(32:32):
over the last four years.
We've just stopped going to theoffice.
We've done a lot more remotework.
Again, broad strokes positive,but it's also created a pretty
real gap for just early careerfolks who have never learned
what it's like to have a jobbefore 100 percent.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
I think a lot of it is.
I'm an older parent so I had mykids a little later in life.
A lot of my friends and familymembers have kids in high school
and college.
It's helpful for my husband andI because we're again.
We get to sit back and watchand learn and see how they're
traversing things I'm seeing alot of.
(33:14):
I don't want my kids to work inhigh school because I need them
to be focused on sports or Idon't want them to be exhausted.
They've got a lot of schoolworkand grades.
It led to a lot of interestingconversations around.
What does that mean for college?
Isn't the whole point, then, togo to college and get a job?
Shouldn't they be learning howto work?
(33:35):
And is that trig test moreimportant than having a
part-time job?
I don't know.
I certainly don't have all theanswers, but this all, coming
back to employer brand, affectshow we brand and market.
Because do we want to bebranding and marketing
employment earlier to some ofthe early careerists and
thinking about how we talk aboutit?
Do we want to be trying tooffer them jobs right out of
(33:58):
high school Because college nowhas gotten so expensive?
That's where strategy comesinto play, and it's not just
about marketing what is, butit's helping the function become
more strategic and thinkingabout what are these intractable
problems that employers arefacing?
The employer brandprofessionals.
They don't need to just becreative advertisers and
(34:19):
marketers.
They can actually be part ofthe solution and say, hey, let's
think about how we're part of aconversation with people who
are going to potentially beworking for our company.
How can we be talking to themnow, the same way we talk to
customers and learn from them?
We don't do enough of that.
An employer brand Marketresearch is such a passion of
(34:40):
mine and so few companies do it.
It's so surprising to me.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Yeah, well, I know Marty will want to weigh in on
that, but I'm not going to lethim yet.
Well, we still have a season.
I want to talk a little bitmore about the can experience,
just in general.
So taking a step back beforepeople get hired, it'd be remiss
if we left this episode withoutgetting your perspective on the
can experience.
So we read one of your articlesin NPR's Marketplace and I'll
(35:06):
paraphrase your quote.
He said that some of theworld's most successful
companies are probably some ofthe worst actors in terms of
offering a good candidateexperience, just because they
never have a problem hiring.
So I'm curious how would youdescribe the current state of
candidate experience?
Maybe just broadly?
Are things getting better?
Speaker 3 (35:27):
The current state of the candidate experience is
pretty terrible.
If you haven't seen the talentboard's latest global candidate
experience benchmark researchreport, definitely take a look.
The talent board is part of ERE, which is a global recruiting
media company.
They have been doing anassessment of the candidate
experience for about a decade.
(35:48):
We don't have any relationshipwith them, we just think that
they do great work.
They've been assessing justthis question and there's a
couple of really interestingthings I noticed in the most
recent report.
One is the fact that, to yourquestion, nothing has really
changed.
So when I look at the data from,and they measure it by region.
(36:10):
So when I look at the data forNorth America, which they
started measuring in 2014, whenthey measure what they call
candidate contentment so who'sgot a great experience?
In 2014, only 24 percent ofrespondents said they had a
great candidate experience.
Between 2014 and 2023, thatnumber only jumped as high as 31
(36:32):
percent and as low as 24percent.
So, on average, about 26percent.
It has barely moved.
The number was only at itshighest 31 percent coming out of
COVID in 2020 and 2021.
No surprise, right?
Because the market was hot.
(36:53):
People were so excited to getback to work after being out
during that time.
So that's shocking to me thatthat's the case.
On the flip side, they measureresentment, too, and who's
having a poor experience, andyou're still seeing people, even
in 2023, you're still seeingpeople 14, 15 percent of people
(37:13):
saying I'm having a really poorcandidate experience, which is
shocking.
I mean, just meeting basicexpectations with all the
technology that we have is stillnot happening.
It shouldn't be surprising tome, but it is.
We also see a lot oforganizations that still aren't
even investing in gettingcandidate feedback.
(37:34):
So that was another reallyinteresting, I think, data point
from their study Only a littleover 60% of organizations are
even getting Canada feedback,which is shocking to me.
Imagine marketers just sayingwe're going to put a product out
there and we just we don't carewhat you think of it, we're
just going to sell it, buy it,don't buy it, we don't care.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, wow .
That is surprising to me too,even though I guess it shouldn't
be so really interesting, andeven more surprising in light of
the conversation we were justhaving about transactional
versus communal relationships.
I mean, this is a communalrelationship.
The stakes of this areincredibly high for both parties
.
(38:17):
In the consumer space, peopleput incredible budgets in
meticulous detail behindcrafting these end-to-end
consumer experiences.
How are they going to feel whenthey land on our website?
What happens if they click here?
When they give us their emailaddress?
This triggers a drip campaignthat's tailored at getting to
exactly what this person caresabout.
Then, once the order is placed,we follow up with them and say
(38:40):
here's what you should do whenit arrives.
This is just an elaborateattention to detail is put into
curating these very specificconsumer experiences for
something that is astransactional often as a pack of
gum or any other number oftrivial CPG products you could
think of.
Then it's just mind-boggling.
While organizations don't findvalue in providing even, I mean,
(39:03):
we're not even in the sameballpark.
We can't even get.
It doesn't seem like we caneven get big organizations to
think seriously about investingin that.
I just don't understand.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
I mean there's a lot of reasons for that.
I think most HR professionalswould break it down in so many
different ways.
Wanting to provide feedback isa tricky one.
One of the reasons there is thelegal piece and all of the
complicated laws.
I think there's a lot oforganizations that just don't
want to get into giving feedbackto candidates in terms of
(39:34):
saying here's how you did.
That's one piece.
In terms of asking for candidatefeedback, that should be just a
no-brainer.
We should just always be askingfor feedback.
The challenge is just the howdo you do it?
For the companies that ask forfeedback, they're only going to
do it where it's easy.
Where do they do it?
They tend to do it on a careersite.
(39:54):
You all know that when you'reon the career site, that's not
necessarily the best place inthe journey to actually ask for
feedback, because many timesyou're not even necessarily a
candidate at that point.
If you're getting feedback inthe journey, you might also be
getting it at a time whereyou've just been given an offer.
(40:14):
You might not mentally beprepared to give feedback in a
meaningful and unbiased waybecause you just got an offer.
You're like I'm not going toshare anything negative or I
might be afraid to sharesomething negative Unless you're
meaningfully collecting it atevery stage, unless you're
talking to people who haveexited the journey in all
(40:35):
different ways.
You're collecting it in anunbiased way and then you're
doing something with thefeedback, it doesn't necessarily
matter.
I think the challenge isconnecting it back.
This is where strategy comesinto play.
It's not collecting feedbackjust for the sake of collecting
it.
This is why I say I sit at theintersection of where business
meets behavior.
On the behavior side, I wantcandidates to feel like their
(41:00):
opinion matters.
We want to know what they think, just like customers.
You want them to feel liketheir opinion matters.
You want them to know you careabout them and care what they
think and have to say.
On the business side, we shouldknow that so we can fix the
broken stuff, so that we can bemore efficient cost-wise and
(41:21):
stop spending money on stuffcandidates don't like.
We can stop spending money ontechnology that's getting in the
way or not working.
That should be a no-brainer,but that's the complicated piece
Then.
I think the last problem isjust our tech stacks.
Our tech stacks have gotten sooverwhelmingly wieldy and
complicated, and that's becauseall the technology we bought
(41:43):
promised us that it was going tofix it for us Again, because we
thought that was strategy.
I'm here to tell you technologywhile wonderful is not strategy
.
I'm going to get a t-shirt thatsays that Technology is not
strategy.
I'm going to wear that to HRTech every year.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Probably get us courted out.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
I don't want to end on a negative note.
I suppose it seems like thestate of the candidate
experience is pretty dire.
Are there any reasons to behopeful?
I guess.
Maybe can you share anyexamples of companies that
finally got it.
After years of neglecting thecandidate experience, someone
came in and said yes, let'sactually treat our employees at
(42:26):
least as well as we treat ourcustomers.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
I think, in general, there's a lot of really good
things to see.
I will say there's a lot ofreally good technologies that do
exist to make it better.
There are technologies that arecollecting the feedback.
That's a start.
I think a lot of the bots thatexist on career sites now that
can answer some of the questionsthat you have.
(42:51):
You're not wondering where tofind something.
Those are really, reallyhelpful.
I think the experience when itcomes to interview scheduling
from a technology perspectivehas definitely made candidates'
lives easier.
For sure, I think that'sincredibly helpful.
When it comes to experience,then, we're seeing a lot of
companies really humanize theexperience too, thinking about
(43:13):
the personalization of it.
As some companies are returningback to the office, what does
that look like?
When it comes to the interviewexperience, how are you greeting
people?
How are you welcoming them intothe interview?
How are you escorting themthrough the interview process?
How are you making sure thatpiece is personal?
I will tell you one thing thatExactWio does.
(43:34):
We just hired two new peoplefor our team.
They started last week.
One of the things we do is we doa turn the table interview
Partway through about two-thirdsof the way through our hiring
journey.
We give the candidates that arein the journey at that point in
time a chance to interview us.
We purposely tell them that thepoint of the interview is to
(43:55):
assess are we a place that theythink they can thrive?
We ask them to come prepared.
We set them up with anotheremployee in the organization.
That's not part of theinterview process.
We say, please come prepared topepper this person with
questions about what it's liketo work here.
Make sure you know our values.
You can say what does thisvalue look like in practice?
(44:17):
What's hard, what's easy?
What's the reality of workingthere?
What are the challenges ofworking there?
They have a designatedconversation to make sure they
really understand the culture.
That's purposeful.
I think the honesty goes a longway in making the experience
real.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
I think this has been great.
I think this is the logicalplace to put a pin in this
episode, susan.
But I'll speak from Martyalready and say we've got to
figure out a way to get you backfor a second episode, because
we barely scratched the surfaceand what we wanted to cover.
Let's end with a super easyquestion when can people find
you online?
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Any time that anyone wants to find us.
We are online at exactlyocomthat's exaqeocom For me
personally, please connect withme online at LinkedIn.
I spend a lot of time sharingpersonal stories about work and
home.
I'm really proud of being notonly a female entrepreneur, but
also a working mom.
(45:17):
I know a lot of folks out therethat are working parents
struggle with a lot of thosechallenges, as I do too.
I just love talking about howpeople are managing those things
.
I'm always looking for adviceand guidance.
I'm getting ready to enter thetween years with my older
daughter, looking forward to anyadvice that anyone has there
and any ideas.
(45:39):
We'll gladly take all adviceand guidance in and outside of
work.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
That's fantastic.
We'll link everything in theshow notes, of course.
Again, Susan, this has beenfantastic.
Thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
Thank you both so much.
What a pleasure.
Thanks, Susan.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
All right, thanks for tuning in.
As always, head on over tochangestateio or shoot us a note
on all of the social media.
We'd love to hear from you andwe'll check you guys next week.
Welcome to the changing state of talent
acquisition, where your hosts,graham Thornton and Martin Kred,
share their unfiltered takes onwhat's happening in the world
of talent acquisition today.
Each week brings new guests whoshare their stories on the
tools, trends and technologiescurrently impacting the changing
state of talent acquisition.
Have feedback or want to jointhe show?
(00:21):
Head on over to changestateio.
And now onto this week'sepisode.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
All right and we are back with another episode of the
changing state of talentacquisition podcast.
Super excited for our nextguest, susan Lamott, ceo and
founder of Exactio.
Susan, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah, so we're going to start with, I think, a
softball question, so we'd lovefor you to briefly share your
career journey today.
So what led you to foundExactio, what's your mission and
maybe you know, what questionsor ideas do you spend most of
your time on today?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
So I started my career really at the age of 13,
when I lost my first job.
I didn't show up for work and Igot fired.
I was working at the swim clubsnack bar, and the reason I
share that is because, eversince, I've spent my entire
career thinking about work, theway we work and how to make work
better.
I always tell people that I sitat the intersection of where
(01:17):
business meets behavior and, atthe end of the day, we all have
jobs because we are required towork right.
Most of us aren't sitting on apile of money that can fund our
lives.
If you are, congratulations,but if you're like me, you need
to make some money to put somefood on your table and a roof
(01:37):
over your head, and so that'sthe nexus of why I do what I do.
I started Exactio because,prior to starting the company, I
spent the majority of my careerin-house, either leading talent
acquisition functions, leadingemployer brand functions or
recruiting, and I found that weneeded to tell a better story
(02:00):
about what it is we want to doas companies when we hire people
, how we attract them, how weretain them and what really
would make them thrive at ourcompany.
So it's not just come work here.
It's great, but what is itgreat for you?
And so that's the reason I loveworking in employer brand.
Exactio in particular, I foundedbecause when I was at Marriott
(02:23):
and running employer brand, Iwas looking for a particular
type of firm to support me andto support my strategy, and I
couldn't find exactly what I waslooking for.
I had a lot of differentpartners and so I left Marriott
to go create the firm I wishedthat I had when I was in-house
that could support me end to end, all the way through from
(02:47):
research and deep dive intounderstanding the depths of my
talent in the organization andthe kind of talent that I wanted
to recruit, but then also allthe way through to helping me
build strategy, thinking aboutwhat my stakeholders and my
leaders needed, reallyunderstanding my people, but
then also getting tactical right, building out the assets that I
(03:09):
needed, helping think about thecreative strategy and direction
, aligning that with mymarketing team and my
communications teams, and thenhow do you actually pull that
all the way through the entireemployment experience.
It's a big ask and there wasreally no firm that did that.
So I set out to create Exactio12 years ago to do just that and
that's where we really spendour time now.
(03:32):
I think there's a lot of firmsout there that are agencies and
are agents of employer brand anddeliver the assets and deliver
the technology.
Our mission is a bit broader.
We're really focused ontransforming the employment
relationship.
We really believe thatemployment is not a transaction,
it's not just a job.
We're not trying to sell jobsor just do recruitment marketing
(03:54):
.
We are here to transformemployment, the relationship we
all have with employment, and atExactio we do that through
insight, through employer brandand through Canada, and then
we're going to be working on itat an employee experience.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Wow, that might be the best intro we've ever had.
I don't know.
Well, graham and I will chatlater.
We're thrilled to have you here, susan, and there's so many
different ways we can take theconversation.
I kind of wanted todouble-click on this idea of
providing what might be calledauthentic employee experiences.
We had a guest on recently andthis actually reminded me of
something she said, but callingout the difference between
(04:29):
treating employer brand as atactic versus treating employer
brand as a strategy, and hereyes was, or is, rather, that a
lot of organizations come toemployer brand because it's
something they think they haveto do and they're looking for
very tactical outputs.
We have empty seats that we needto fill right now, and they're
not necessarily thinking aboutit in a very holistic, strategic
(04:50):
way for the organization.
It's not that we need to trickpeople into coming to our
organization by putting someappealing message out there.
That may or may not be true.
What you're proposing, I think,is a lot more strategic, and
this doesn't have to be acontrived activity.
Like what would it actuallymean as an organization if we
actually cared about eachindividual employee and wanted
(05:12):
to provide them an amazingemployment experience, rather
than taking this very hands-offapproach of what do we need to
say to get people in the seats.
I don't know if you have anythoughts about that or if you
would push back in any way, butwe'd love to hear your
perspective.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I think it's a really important conversation right
now, particularly as the spaceof employer brand has grown
tremendously.
We did an assessment of thedifferences in our industry
between 2011 and 2022.
We just wanted to see how ithad changed over the past 10, 11
years and what we found wassuper interesting.
In 2011, there was probably yousearch on LinkedIn.
(05:49):
You can do Google searches tosee how many people were
searching for employer brandjobs a couple hundred In 2022,
at the time that we did thatsearch, there were over 16,000
jobs on LinkedIn at the timewith employer brand in the title
, and the reason I share that isbecause what happened is we got
reactive, we got tactical.
(06:10):
It was this fear factor of ohshoot, I've got to go out and
promote my company.
And when we get reactive, weget tactical and we're focused
on assets and creative and we'vegot to be on a social media
channel and we've got to makesure we're telling our story
without really thinking morebroadly about what story it is
(06:32):
you want to tell and why do youneed to tell a story.
Part of strategy is figuringout what do you even want to do
and why, and connecting it tothe business, and I think that,
to me, is what's superinteresting is most employer
brand professionals that I talkto right now, the majority of
them.
When you ask what's youremployer brand strategy, they go
(06:54):
right to tactics, becausethey've actually never been
taught how to do a strategy.
Yeah, they are focusedparticularly on the execution.
So I think it's a reallyimportant conversation, one I
think we need to have over andover again, especially for some
of the new folks in the industry, so they can learn and grow.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Yeah, wow, there's so much there that I agree with
you.
Know this distinction between,or what you're saying about, as
the industry had.
The employer brand space hasevolved and we've gotten more
people who are identifying asprofessionals in the industry.
The industry has kind ofresponded in a way that I would
argue is what's most common inthe industry outside of employer
(07:34):
branding, which is to be verytactical and kind of reactionary
.
You know most organizations,most recruiting functions, are
kind of constantly putting outfires.
I know there are exceptions,but you know it's a very
reactive business.
When I, when I started thisbusiness with Graham is my first
for a HR or TA, and that wasone of the things that surprised
(07:54):
me, it is how reactionary itwas.
But what it sounds like you'realso saying is that we're kind
of poised for this next chapterthat's probably felt long
overdue for folks like you andme, susan, which is that you do
think that organizations arestarting to understand that yes,
as a, as an industry, we'vebeen focused on the tactics and
those are all important and goodand exciting and that's people
(08:15):
get excited about those for goodreasons.
But it really needs to startwith strategy.
You're starting to see theconversation shift in a big way.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
For sure, and what we're seeing in particular is
asking the broader questions.
So, rather than asking thetactical question should we be
on tiktok or snapchat, right,because that's a tactic People
are asking the broader questionof should we even be on social
media, right?
Which is, if you think aboutthe difference between strategy
(08:43):
and tactics.
Strategy is the action plan.
The broader, what is the actionplan for our brand as an
employer?
And then, what are the specifictactics?
But most employer brands, asthey're built in an organization
, your first hire tends to besomeone who is hired as an
individual contributor, and sothey tend to be someone who is
(09:03):
assigned to either through jobdescription or because of their
experience.
Someone is used to being reallytactical.
The other part of it that'ssuper interesting is when we
look at talent strategy rightnow, it is very reactive, right,
the whiplash of back and forthwe hire, we fire, and so
employer brand follows suit.
(09:23):
Let's dump money into contentcreation when we really need to
hire.
Let's cut the budget and cutthe employer brand team when we
don't.
We had a client that we workedreally hard on helping them
build their employer brand andtheir employer brand strategy.
The leader launched theemployer brand, did a tremendous
job, got feedback and kudos atthe board level, which is, you
(09:46):
know, the best you can hope for,and then that particular leader
was laid off two months laterand really disappointing to see
because, at the end of the day,they're creating more cost for
themselves downstream becausethey're going to have to hire
back a team.
They just are looking for theshort term gain and that goes
(10:08):
back to what investors arevaluing right now, which is
short term game, and we thinkthe easiest way to do that is
through talent, which is reallydisappointing.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah, yeah, I think that there's a lot that we're
gonna unpack in this episode, soI'm gonna maybe start high
level.
We can get into a couple morespecific.
So you know we're talking aboutthe concept of employer brand,
it's evolution.
One of the sort of perennialdebates about employer brand is
really where should it live?
Should live under each other?
Should live in marketing?
You know, I think kind of, youknow it's kind of set the stage.
(10:38):
In some of your publiccommentary you come down pretty
strongly in favor of housingunder each other.
I wonder, like maybe that's agood place to start to bounce
off here.
You know, can you make thatcase like why is employer brand
best position under each other?
You know, how, can you know,how can they are build effective
bridges, you know, with thefolks in marketing who may, you
know, feel pretty strongly thatshould believe under them
(11:00):
instead?
Speaker 3 (11:01):
First and foremost, regardless of where it lives,
you need the good partnerships.
I want to make that reallyclear.
Every successful employer brandever built or been a part of
building, whether in house or,you know, with clients here at
exactly there's always therecurring theme of strong
partnerships between marketing,hr and coms.
So that is, you know, that's agiven.
That being said, absolutely Ibelieve that it should be an HR.
(11:25):
I think it's most successfulthere and that's because at its
core and this is so important torepeat over and over again
Employer brand is branding andmarketing the entirety of the
employment experience.
Recruitment marketing is a smallsubset of that.
But what exactly are youmarketing?
Your marketing?
Employment and employment inand of itself is not a
(11:49):
transaction.
It is a relationship and it isvery different than marketing a
product or service.
And we have a lot of clientsthat come to us because they
started trying to do an employerbrand with a consumer agency
and those consumer agencies areincredibly talented and they did
an incredible job with thatcompany is consumer or master
(12:09):
brand.
But when they try to attempt toapply all the same tactics or
all the same philosophies tobuilding the employer brand,
they often fail or they struggleand that leads the company to
come to us.
Why?
Because building an employerbrand is different.
Creating that relationship isdifferent.
Ultimately, you know, if I goand buy a cup of coffee, that
(12:34):
coffee is delicious.
It's really important that thecoffee company build a strong
brand relationship with me, so Ipurchased it Over and over
again.
Right, all the marketing thingswe learned in school.
But a job is different.
A job puts food on my table,puts a roof over my head it
might be the difference betweenfeeding my family or not.
And we forget that right, as alot of white collar workers,
(12:56):
where we're not paying attentionto our bank accounts because we
might not, we have or I shouldsay we have the luxury perhaps
of not having to worry about Arewe going to be able to pay our
bills this month.
It's a very different type ofmarketing and it is very core to
understanding the human andcreating that relationship.
So you need marketing, you needthe relationship with marketing
(13:20):
, you need to build it, you needtheir expertise, but it has to
sit in HR.
I firmly believe that.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Okay, I'm convinced.
I mean, and I'm someone whospent his early career and most
of his early career in consumermarketing and market research.
So you know, if I have a biasgoing into this it's probably
let's keep it with the marketingfolks, but I think you make a
pretty compelling case.
There was a lot you said therethat I wanted to kind of zoom in
on a bit.
One, I think, is just a pointthat I just want to make sure
(13:49):
I'm understanding you if we seeit the same way, because I think
it's a pretty profound point.
You're saying, I think, that asit relates to recruiting and
just employment of all kinds,the whole talent life cycle,
employer brand is really thecontainer that contains
recruitment marketing amongother functions within the
(14:09):
organization.
It is sort of the whole bigidea, that organizing principle
that everything else shouldladder up to.
And it's odd to think of itthat way, I think, in our
industry, since employer brandis a relatively new concept in
the business world and we'vebeen employing people much
longer and doing recruitmentmarketing much longer than
anyone thought about employerbrand as a standalone concept.
Is that accurate?
(14:29):
Is that how you see it?
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah, and I think part of the challenge is when we
created the term employer brandand for those people who don't
know, it was created in the late90s.
So you're 100 percent right,it's still a relatively new term
.
When we created it, we wereleaning heavily towards talking
about it related to recruitingand most people when they think
about employer brand, they'rethinking about it from the
(14:53):
outside in, because when wethink about brand right that and
you know this from from- yourbackground.
That term comes from theexternal, internal relationship
of customer to company.
But the brand that you createwith your employer, with your
employees, start externally butthen it moves internally and
(15:14):
that's another reason it's gotto sit with HR to, because
you're managing that brand allthe way through the employment
experience and every singledecision you make in HR makes or
breaks the brand.
That's a huge pet peeve of mineas we spend all this time an
employer brand thinking aboutall of the things we can do to
impact the way that we brand andmarket to candidates and
(15:38):
employees in this really big way.
We don't think about the offlineways.
But, for example, when my bosstells me or gives me information
that I don't like, that'semployer brand, because that's
branding my employmentexperience.
When a new program is launchedright Like performance
(15:59):
management, they launch a newprogram, I get the email in my
inbox about it that's employerbrand.
When the benefits packetsmailed to my house at home,
that's employer brand.
When I do my exit interview,that's employer brand.
All of those things.
But we don't typically thinkabout all those things and so
we're always on a mission tohelp companies and employers see
(16:23):
it's the whole experience, andwhere the real value often comes
isn't in just the sexy creativethat gets to go on your career
site.
That's all important, but wherethe value comes is the
one-on-one conversation that ahiring manager has with a
candidate to convince them toaccept the offer.
And yet we spend almost nomoney in our employer brand
(16:46):
budget on how to train thosehiring managers to pull the
brand through.
That's, to me, where theexciting future is to you of
employer brand and the sort ofholistic nature of what our
industry really is.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
Yeah, it's hard to imagine a marketing department
managing employee experiences.
That's right, that's a goodcall out.
And I think we want theminvolved because, again, I do
think in some way the employerbrand exists to serve a bigger
brand or a more encompassingbrand.
This is our reason for being anowner.
As an organization, we needpeople who are passionate about
(17:20):
delivering on this mission forour customers.
So there's an intimateconnection there.
But, yeah, it's hard to see howit could live really in a
holistic way outside of HR.
The other thing I would sayabout that is I think it does
near trends that we see inconsumer marketing.
I think consumer marketing 20years used to be in a much more
nascent state.
That's, frankly, similar to thestory that we've talked about
(17:40):
here, with employer brandgrowing up, where it was very
focused on advertising andconverting to sales and people
didn't necessarily spend a lotof time thinking about the
entire customer experience,support experiences, what is the
experience after the order isplaced, what happens when
someone has a problem with theproduct?
And you're seeing, I think, inmodern marketing departments
(18:02):
thinking of brand much moreholistically like that.
One of the fun offshoots ofthat, I think, is why we get an
NPS score email every time youopen the Comcast or Xfinity app
on your phone.
It can go too far, but I thinkthat's super encouraging to see
both the consumer side of thehouse and the employer brand
side of the house thinkingstrategically and holistically
(18:24):
about these things.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
You bring up a really important point about the
inherent relationship betweenmarketing and HR as it relates
to the experience that I thinkis important not to overlook,
and that is that even if HR isresponsible for the employer
brand and I think they should beand even if they're responsible
for the employee experiencewhich I think they should be at
(18:47):
their core, employee is, nomatter the kind of organization
B2B2C they still have to deliveron the brand and deliver to
customers, clients, end users,whoever that may be, and so
marketing still has anincredibly vested interest in
making sure the employeeexperience is a good one, so
(19:08):
that they are equipped todeliver on the brand.
So, for me, the role of, forexample, of chief experience
officer there's very few of them, and those that exist, it's
debatable whether they'reactually working, but this idea
that there's somebodyresponsible for unifying
marketing in HR, I think is alsoreally intriguing, and seeing
(19:31):
how CMOs and CHROs can buildreally strong relationships
together to partner, I thinkthat's really key.
One of my most powerfulpersonal career moments was
sitting in a boardroom atMarriott where the CMO and the
CHRO were discussing where myfunction could sit and if you
(19:54):
get to that point in youremployer brand career.
In my mind, that's a huge win,not for any ego reason, because
it means that you've actuallyshown them the value of employer
brand, that they both see valuein your function to their
business.
That, to me, is gold.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Yeah, yeah, that is the must have been a surreal
experience.
I'm sure there's a lot ofpeople listening who maybe have
not experienced that yet intheir organization.
Sadly, I know this is changing,but it does seem like employer
brand is often just shuffled offto someone in a random seat
that appears to have bandwidthrather than someone who has, and
(20:33):
so there are a lot of peoplewith really good intentions that
I think just lack the broaderview because they haven't been
exposed to it.
So I think there is anobligation as leaders in the
space to just educate peopleabout how to think about these
things.
Okay, well, I have one morequestion about this and then
I'll shut up and let Grahamspeak.
But I really think it wasfascinating what you were saying
(20:54):
about how consumer marketersdon't.
Setting aside the very realissues that I would just discuss
about, it's about more thanjust job applicants and getting
people hired.
It's about the whole talentlife cycle.
Fair point, but even justfocusing on the top of the
funnel, if you will, that thepart about getting our job
advertisements out there andtrying to deploy the tactics to
(21:18):
use the term from earlier thatwill get our brand out there the
best.
You still said that theconsumer marketing folks
generally some of them are great, they're great at being
creative, but they don'tnecessarily understand some of
the nuances behind marketing toemployees, and I wonder if you
could just say a little bit moreabout that.
(21:38):
I mean, one point you made itseems to be that and this is
something I thought about too isthat there's a fundamental
difference between a job and aproduct or a service that
someone's buying Consumermarketers are really used to.
There's really skies the limit.
Yeah, you may have an inventoryproblem and a temporary lack of
supply, but really you got amarketing machine that's working
(22:01):
.
You've got a brand, you want toturn the volume up on it and
you want to sell as many widgetsas you possibly can, and it's
just a very differentenvironment.
In hiring, of course becausethat's never true we always have
a finite supply.
It's a revolving door.
Some people are leaving, we'retrying to add new people, so
there's inherently a fundamentaldifference there in the nature
(22:22):
of this marketing activity.
We're trying to cultivate arelationship so when the moment
is right, we can get the rightpeople in the seats, but we
don't have a product, if youwill, to offer it all times.
Could you say a little bit moreabout that, and I wonder if
there's just any other colorthat you could add to help us
understand the consumer.
Marketing folks Maybe justdon't fully understand the task
(22:42):
before them.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
I think it's so important to differentiate
between marketing and marketinga product and marketing
employment because of thoseinherent differences.
One of the visuals that I liketo use is one that you just
touched on, which is this notionof funnel selling to the many
versus selling to the few.
And I think in the old days ofrecruiting, I started my career
(23:05):
as a recruiter and we used touse terms like post and pray or
spray and pray, which isessentially put your jobs out
there and you want to attractevery single person you can to
those jobs and ultimately, Ithink in many cases that worked
and you got a lot ofapplications.
In the early days I'd get themby facts, if you can believe it,
(23:27):
I'm dating myself and you'd gothrough interviews and hire, et
cetera.
But now we recognize that thejob market doesn't work that way
anymore.
Not everyone thrives at everyorganization, and so, in the
case of a consumer brand, you'regoing from a small audience to
a large audience.
(23:47):
When you have a consumerstartup, if I'm selling I use
the example of coffee I've got anew coffee bean and I want to
sell this I'm going to startwith a really small audience
with the goal of growing it aslarge as possible.
With employer brand, you'restarting with a large audience.
You want as many people topotentially to be aware of you
as an organization as possible,and then you may be recruiting
(24:09):
for one role.
So it's a completely flippedtriangle.
And when you're talking aboutyour competition, it's different
.
So on the consumer side,there's only so many kinds of
coffee beans that exist.
It's a very narrow, focusedcompetition.
But from an employmentperspective, if I'm a software
developer, there's thousands andthousands and thousands of
(24:32):
employers that I could beemployed with, and so therein
lies our challenge.
More broadly, I like to thinkabout it from a social
psychology lens.
Personally, when we think aboutbuying a product, it's what in
social psychology they call atransactional relationship, and
(24:53):
that is, you are trading for abenefit, for a need.
So I go into a coffee shop, Itake oat milk in my coffee.
Here in Charleston, southCarolina, where I live, there's
a great little local coffee shopcalled Brown Fox.
Brown Fox has oat milk.
I get my coffee, I know thebarista well, I have small talk,
I say thank you, I go about mymerry way.
(25:15):
They take my money, but if I goback tomorrow and they don't
have oat milk anymore, there'sno harm, no foul, I'm going to
say, oh gosh, you know.
Best of luck, you guys.
I'm sorry that I can'tpatronize y'all anymore, but I
can't.
You know, I only take oat milk,so I've got to go to the other
shop down the street.
It's a transactionalrelationship.
They can't meet my need anymore, so I can't give them my money.
(25:36):
But when it comes to the otherkind of relationship in social
psychology, the one we're allused to, when it comes to
romantic relationships, familialrelationships, that's called a
communal relationship.
That's where you're in arelationship for a series of
common goals.
So my husband and I we've beenmarried for over 10 years now
(25:57):
and we've been together foralmost 20.
And we're together not becausewe trade things or it's
transactional.
We're together because we havea series of life goals, things
we're trying to achieve.
When he brings me my coffee inthe morning, he doesn't get
anything out of that.
He does it because it makes himhappy to see me happy and he
(26:17):
knows that that's going to helpmy day go a little bit easier
and that's going to help us getto our goals more effectively
together.
And so if we treated employmentmore as a communal relationship
, we would be so much moreeffective as employers.
That's the work we've beenspending a lot of time on.
It's also why employer brand isjust not the same as a consumer
(26:39):
brand and why we can't marketit in the same way.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
Yeah, I really think that is a key, key insight.
I certainly thought beforeabout, well, the difference
between what you're callingtransactional relationships and
communal ones, but I hadn'tthought about the implications
for that in terms of where youshould be housed and who should
ultimately be holding the reins,and I think that's probably the
most compelling story to tellabout it.
(27:04):
There's just a lot of thingsthat are of interest in what you
just said, a couple of thembeing this idea of yeah, it is a
transactional relationship.
As someone who spent a lot oftime researching all categories
of consumer products, one of themost well, here's one of my
stories that Graham servedbefore.
But there's theories inconsumer marketing where they
claim that all consumerdecisions are based on deeply
(27:27):
held values, and some of thissimilar thinking to what you're
saying.
So I used to spend time askingconsumers about why did you
choose this brand of cranberryjuice over another brand of
cranberry juice, and thenpushing them to tell, to reveal
these deeply held feelings andvalues about why they made that
decision.
You know, why is saving moneyimportant to you and what does
that say about you as a mother?
(27:48):
And you know you're reallyleading the audience here in
those cases.
So that's just an aside, butthose research projects always
reminded me of, like, I justdon't think it's this deep.
You know, I don't think it'salways that deep, whereas
employment relationships, yeah,I mean it's a spectrum.
If you're taking your first jobor a summer job as a college
(28:09):
student or something like, it isvery transactional most likely.
But when you start to thinkabout career and this not just
being a career, how you spendmost of your waking hours in
life, but also the way that yousupport your family, the way you
allow your dreams to comebecome real in some, in some way
, I mean it's incrediblyprofound, or at least can be.
And really like what other?
(28:31):
What consumer purchases areremotely comparable to that?
You know, maybe a home you knowlike?
Speaker 3 (28:37):
even that.
Yeah, it's hard to think of one,yeah you bring up a really
interesting point, though,around the early career right,
and is that transactional?
I think a lot of people alsothink hourly jobs are often
transactional right, like, oh,that you know fast casual
restaurant or you know thehospitality housekeeper, like
(28:58):
they're just here for the buck.
I would argue not, especiallywhen we think about young people
.
Some of the most compellingroles I ever had and I counted,
I think I had 30, some jobs,something crazy, before you know
, before I even graduatedcollege and those jobs can be
the most compelling becausethey're teaching you things for
the first time.
You know when you get.
(29:19):
When I got fired for that fromthat job at 13, I got fired from
another job.
Now I'm now I'm really paintinga picture of what I was like as
a teenager, but I got firedfrom another job when I was 17.
You, those are the first timeyou feel those feelings as a
human being and you're stillgrowing right Like young people
are, from an emotionalperspective, are much more
(29:42):
affected sometimes by thosethings, and I think they can be
really traumatic or compellingor they can really shape who you
are.
A lot of what I learned aboutmanagers and bosses and
coworkers that all happened fromthose early jobs.
This is super interesting.
I there's an entrepreneur herewho runs a consumer packaged
(30:06):
goods company and she's speakingto a bunch of college students
who were interested in beingentrepreneurs and she asked them
all to raise their hand if theyhad had a part time job yet and
almost nobody raised their hand.
She couldn't believe it, andpart of the reason that she got
so frustrated or couldn'tbelieve it I don't want to speak
for her was because she shesaid look, if you guys want to
(30:26):
be entrepreneurs, if you want tostart your own company, you
need to go, experience, work,you need to figure out what kind
of worker do you want to be,what kind of boss do you want to
be, what kind of company do youwant to create?
And you can't do that unlessyou've been in a whole bunch.
And so I think that, for all ofthe, we all have successes and
failures as entrepreneurs.
You both know this.
But I think, for all of thefailures and bad mistakes that
(30:50):
I've made as a leader, some ofthe good ones that I've made as
a leader or an entrepreneur havecome from having that, all of
that observational time in allof the jobs that I've had in my
career to be able to say like,oh yeah, like I want to be a
boss like that or I don't.
Or I want to run a company likethat or I don't, and that's a.
That's a big miss right now fora lot of early careerists Is
(31:13):
their very first job, is the onethey take right out of college,
and so a lot of companies arereally struggling to because
they're getting these peoplethat have no work experience.
So that's another interestingchallenge we're hearing from
leaders as well.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
You know that's funny and I'm still here, by the way,
I'm really your two'sconversation.
But you know, when I came outof college I remember taking a
job at Enterprise like like anygood student fresh out of
college and you know you reallydo learn how to work and I think
that's interesting.
I was talking with a friend ofmine who manages a team of 800
(31:48):
employees and one of herstruggles that we've talked
about is like people justlearning to work coming into the
workforce over the last threeor four years, susan and I think
so much of that is.
Like.
You know, covid is kind of.
This move to remote work hasbeen great in so many ways, but
I think there's ongoingchallenges trying to figure out
(32:11):
for people that are newly in theworkforce and have never gone
to a team meeting.
I'm not saying we need moreteam meetings, but we can stand
up that people are stillstruggling to learn quite
literally what to do.
I think that's one of thebigger gaps that's popped up
(32:32):
over the last four years.
We've just stopped going to theoffice.
We've done a lot more remotework.
Again, broad strokes positive,but it's also created a pretty
real gap for just early careerfolks who have never learned
what it's like to have a jobbefore 100 percent.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
I think a lot of it is.
I'm an older parent so I had mykids a little later in life.
A lot of my friends and familymembers have kids in high school
and college.
It's helpful for my husband andI because we're again.
We get to sit back and watchand learn and see how they're
traversing things I'm seeing alot of.
(33:14):
I don't want my kids to work inhigh school because I need them
to be focused on sports or Idon't want them to be exhausted.
They've got a lot of schoolworkand grades.
It led to a lot of interestingconversations around.
What does that mean for college?
Isn't the whole point, then, togo to college and get a job?
Shouldn't they be learning howto work?
(33:35):
And is that trig test moreimportant than having a
part-time job?
I don't know.
I certainly don't have all theanswers, but this all, coming
back to employer brand, affectshow we brand and market.
Because do we want to bebranding and marketing
employment earlier to some ofthe early careerists and
thinking about how we talk aboutit?
Do we want to be trying tooffer them jobs right out of
(33:58):
high school Because college nowhas gotten so expensive?
That's where strategy comesinto play, and it's not just
about marketing what is, butit's helping the function become
more strategic and thinkingabout what are these intractable
problems that employers arefacing?
The employer brandprofessionals.
They don't need to just becreative advertisers and
(34:19):
marketers.
They can actually be part ofthe solution and say, hey, let's
think about how we're part of aconversation with people who
are going to potentially beworking for our company.
How can we be talking to themnow, the same way we talk to
customers and learn from them?
We don't do enough of that.
An employer brand Marketresearch is such a passion of
(34:40):
mine and so few companies do it.
It's so surprising to me.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Yeah, well, I know Marty will want to weigh in on
that, but I'm not going to lethim yet.
Well, we still have a season.
I want to talk a little bitmore about the can experience,
just in general.
So taking a step back beforepeople get hired, it'd be remiss
if we left this episode withoutgetting your perspective on the
can experience.
So we read one of your articlesin NPR's Marketplace and I'll
(35:06):
paraphrase your quote.
He said that some of theworld's most successful
companies are probably some ofthe worst actors in terms of
offering a good candidateexperience, just because they
never have a problem hiring.
So I'm curious how would youdescribe the current state of
candidate experience?
Maybe just broadly?
Are things getting better?
Speaker 3 (35:27):
The current state of the candidate experience is
pretty terrible.
If you haven't seen the talentboard's latest global candidate
experience benchmark researchreport, definitely take a look.
The talent board is part of ERE, which is a global recruiting
media company.
They have been doing anassessment of the candidate
experience for about a decade.
(35:48):
We don't have any relationshipwith them, we just think that
they do great work.
They've been assessing justthis question and there's a
couple of really interestingthings I noticed in the most
recent report.
One is the fact that, to yourquestion, nothing has really
changed.
So when I look at the data from,and they measure it by region.
(36:10):
So when I look at the data forNorth America, which they
started measuring in 2014, whenthey measure what they call
candidate contentment so who'sgot a great experience?
In 2014, only 24 percent ofrespondents said they had a
great candidate experience.
Between 2014 and 2023, thatnumber only jumped as high as 31
(36:32):
percent and as low as 24percent.
So, on average, about 26percent.
It has barely moved.
The number was only at itshighest 31 percent coming out of
COVID in 2020 and 2021.
No surprise, right?
Because the market was hot.
(36:53):
People were so excited to getback to work after being out
during that time.
So that's shocking to me thatthat's the case.
On the flip side, they measureresentment, too, and who's
having a poor experience, andyou're still seeing people, even
in 2023, you're still seeingpeople 14, 15 percent of people
(37:13):
saying I'm having a really poorcandidate experience, which is
shocking.
I mean, just meeting basicexpectations with all the
technology that we have is stillnot happening.
It shouldn't be surprising tome, but it is.
We also see a lot oforganizations that still aren't
even investing in gettingcandidate feedback.
(37:34):
So that was another reallyinteresting, I think, data point
from their study Only a littleover 60% of organizations are
even getting Canada feedback,which is shocking to me.
Imagine marketers just sayingwe're going to put a product out
there and we just we don't carewhat you think of it, we're
just going to sell it, buy it,don't buy it, we don't care.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, wow .
That is surprising to me too,even though I guess it shouldn't
be so really interesting, andeven more surprising in light of
the conversation we were justhaving about transactional
versus communal relationships.
I mean, this is a communalrelationship.
The stakes of this areincredibly high for both parties
.
(38:17):
In the consumer space, peopleput incredible budgets in
meticulous detail behindcrafting these end-to-end
consumer experiences.
How are they going to feel whenthey land on our website?
What happens if they click here?
When they give us their emailaddress?
This triggers a drip campaignthat's tailored at getting to
exactly what this person caresabout.
Then, once the order is placed,we follow up with them and say
(38:40):
here's what you should do whenit arrives.
This is just an elaborateattention to detail is put into
curating these very specificconsumer experiences for
something that is astransactional often as a pack of
gum or any other number oftrivial CPG products you could
think of.
Then it's just mind-boggling.
While organizations don't findvalue in providing even, I mean,
(39:03):
we're not even in the sameballpark.
We can't even get.
It doesn't seem like we caneven get big organizations to
think seriously about investingin that.
I just don't understand.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
I mean there's a lot of reasons for that.
I think most HR professionalswould break it down in so many
different ways.
Wanting to provide feedback isa tricky one.
One of the reasons there is thelegal piece and all of the
complicated laws.
I think there's a lot oforganizations that just don't
want to get into giving feedbackto candidates in terms of
(39:34):
saying here's how you did.
That's one piece.
In terms of asking for candidatefeedback, that should be just a
no-brainer.
We should just always be askingfor feedback.
The challenge is just the howdo you do it?
For the companies that ask forfeedback, they're only going to
do it where it's easy.
Where do they do it?
They tend to do it on a careersite.
(39:54):
You all know that when you'reon the career site, that's not
necessarily the best place inthe journey to actually ask for
feedback, because many timesyou're not even necessarily a
candidate at that point.
If you're getting feedback inthe journey, you might also be
getting it at a time whereyou've just been given an offer.
(40:14):
You might not mentally beprepared to give feedback in a
meaningful and unbiased waybecause you just got an offer.
You're like I'm not going toshare anything negative or I
might be afraid to sharesomething negative Unless you're
meaningfully collecting it atevery stage, unless you're
talking to people who haveexited the journey in all
(40:35):
different ways.
You're collecting it in anunbiased way and then you're
doing something with thefeedback, it doesn't necessarily
matter.
I think the challenge isconnecting it back.
This is where strategy comesinto play.
It's not collecting feedbackjust for the sake of collecting
it.
This is why I say I sit at theintersection of where business
meets behavior.
On the behavior side, I wantcandidates to feel like their
(41:00):
opinion matters.
We want to know what they think, just like customers.
You want them to feel liketheir opinion matters.
You want them to know you careabout them and care what they
think and have to say.
On the business side, we shouldknow that so we can fix the
broken stuff, so that we can bemore efficient cost-wise and
(41:21):
stop spending money on stuffcandidates don't like.
We can stop spending money ontechnology that's getting in the
way or not working.
That should be a no-brainer,but that's the complicated piece
Then.
I think the last problem isjust our tech stacks.
Our tech stacks have gotten sooverwhelmingly wieldy and
complicated, and that's becauseall the technology we bought
(41:43):
promised us that it was going tofix it for us Again, because we
thought that was strategy.
I'm here to tell you technologywhile wonderful is not strategy
.
I'm going to get a t-shirt thatsays that Technology is not
strategy.
I'm going to wear that to HRTech every year.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Probably get us courted out.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
I don't want to end on a negative note.
I suppose it seems like thestate of the candidate
experience is pretty dire.
Are there any reasons to behopeful?
I guess.
Maybe can you share anyexamples of companies that
finally got it.
After years of neglecting thecandidate experience, someone
came in and said yes, let'sactually treat our employees at
(42:26):
least as well as we treat ourcustomers.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
I think, in general, there's a lot of really good
things to see.
I will say there's a lot ofreally good technologies that do
exist to make it better.
There are technologies that arecollecting the feedback.
That's a start.
I think a lot of the bots thatexist on career sites now that
can answer some of the questionsthat you have.
(42:51):
You're not wondering where tofind something.
Those are really, reallyhelpful.
I think the experience when itcomes to interview scheduling
from a technology perspectivehas definitely made candidates'
lives easier.
For sure, I think that'sincredibly helpful.
When it comes to experience,then, we're seeing a lot of
companies really humanize theexperience too, thinking about
(43:13):
the personalization of it.
As some companies are returningback to the office, what does
that look like?
When it comes to the interviewexperience, how are you greeting
people?
How are you welcoming them intothe interview?
How are you escorting themthrough the interview process?
How are you making sure thatpiece is personal?
I will tell you one thing thatExactWio does.
(43:34):
We just hired two new peoplefor our team.
They started last week.
One of the things we do is we doa turn the table interview
Partway through about two-thirdsof the way through our hiring
journey.
We give the candidates that arein the journey at that point in
time a chance to interview us.
We purposely tell them that thepoint of the interview is to
(43:55):
assess are we a place that theythink they can thrive?
We ask them to come prepared.
We set them up with anotheremployee in the organization.
That's not part of theinterview process.
We say, please come prepared topepper this person with
questions about what it's liketo work here.
Make sure you know our values.
You can say what does thisvalue look like in practice?
(44:17):
What's hard, what's easy?
What's the reality of workingthere?
What are the challenges ofworking there?
They have a designatedconversation to make sure they
really understand the culture.
That's purposeful.
I think the honesty goes a longway in making the experience
real.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
I think this has been great.
I think this is the logicalplace to put a pin in this
episode, susan.
But I'll speak from Martyalready and say we've got to
figure out a way to get you backfor a second episode, because
we barely scratched the surfaceand what we wanted to cover.
Let's end with a super easyquestion when can people find
you online?
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Any time that anyone wants to find us.
We are online at exactlyocomthat's exaqeocom For me
personally, please connect withme online at LinkedIn.
I spend a lot of time sharingpersonal stories about work and
home.
I'm really proud of being notonly a female entrepreneur, but
also a working mom.
(45:17):
I know a lot of folks out therethat are working parents
struggle with a lot of thosechallenges, as I do too.
I just love talking about howpeople are managing those things
.
I'm always looking for adviceand guidance.
I'm getting ready to enter thetween years with my older
daughter, looking forward to anyadvice that anyone has there
and any ideas.
(45:39):
We'll gladly take all adviceand guidance in and outside of
work.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
That's fantastic.
We'll link everything in theshow notes, of course.
Again, Susan, this has beenfantastic.
Thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
Thank you both so much.
What a pleasure.
Thanks, Susan.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
All right, thanks for tuning in.
As always, head on over tochangestateio or shoot us a note
on all of the social media.
We'd love to hear from you andwe'll check you guys next week.
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