Redefining employer branding

To think critically about employer branding, we first need to discard the most common illusions[1]  that dominate the field. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll focus on just one for now: the belief that each employer is different. Different in how they hire, how they work, in their “culture,” employee value propositions, candidate experience, and similar aspects.

Experience shows a very different picture – one of uniformity across all domains, with only minor and largely insignificant variations. The common denominator across all companies, regardless of size or stage in the life cycle, is mechanization in their modus operandi and an asymmetrical power relationship between the employer (often a perceived as a faceless, semi-mystical abstraction ) and the employees where the former enjoys most benefit and control.

When it comes to employer branding in talent acquisition, this has led to the same manipulation techniques that the advertising industry has developed over the last 150 years – only with much smaller budgets and much less thought and efficiency. When it comes to employees, the goal of the employer is to ensure full control over them, minimize legal risks and maximize profits on a balance sheet where employees constitute a major cost factor. Employer branding’s only raison d’être is to make employees feel good about this.

When we strip away the illusions surrounding employer branding, including the illusion of differentiation, it becomes clear that all major KPIs serve only to sustain those very illusions. “Candidates” (a term that is fully inappropriate in many cases) are acutely aware of this, while employees tend to be less so.

So how do we redefine employer branding? By tearing it down and rebuilding it – not around the machine (the company), where differentiation is dead, but around the organization, where it can still exist.

Want to explore the difference, discuss questions, explore further? Feel free to reach out!

[1] Illusions are incomplete realities: they are real in that they’re perceivable and provide real experience (this is why they’re dangerous), but their stated purpose can’t be achieved: this is the missing part. When people are not aware of this or pretend or rationalize this void, we have an illusion on our hand. Etymologically (illūsiō, illūsiōnis), illusion implies conscious deceit in a playful manner (illudere). It’s easy to see that the original meaning is quite relevant here, and playful deceit has deteriorated to cynicism.