A New Era for Employer Branding

From the Shaker Green Room at RecFest USA, Chad & Cheese sit down with Ashten Fizer, a powerhouse in talent branding, to uncover the secrets of authentic employer branding. 🌟

Ashten breaks down:

• Why authenticity trumps polished videos in employer branding

• The surprising geographical differences in recruitment platforms (Spoiler: LinkedIn isn’t always king!)

• How collaboration across departments fuels effective branding

• The critical role of DEI in expanding talent pools and enhancing product innovation

Whether you’re a talent acquisition pro or an employer brand enthusiast, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss!

👉 Listen now and learn more at www.HeyAshten.com!

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Podcast Intro: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion, and loads of snark. Buckle up, boys and girls. It's time for The Chad and Cheese Podcast.

[music]

Joel: Who are you and why are you here?

Ashten Fizer: Well, I am Ashten Fizer. I am a talent brand creative. Didn't even know that was a job until I got it. But I am here because I found out about RecFest UK about three years ago, and I have been the biggest fan ever since. As talent acquisition professionals, employer brand professionals, we're constantly going to conferences for everybody else...

Joel: Yep.

Ashten Fizer: Watching them have a great time learning about their industry...

Joel: Why should they have all the fun, right?

Ashten Fizer: Why should they? So, I love that RecFest has given us this space so that we can learn from our own peers...

Joel: Yeah.

Ashten Fizer: But then also throw in a little party. Okay? Because who wants a stiff conference?

Joel: If you're not having fun, what's the point, right?

Ashten Fizer: What's the point?

Joel: What's the point?

Ashten Fizer: So, yeah, that's why I'm here.

Joel: "Employment brand creator." Say more about that.

Ashten Fizer: Well, so, as we know, employer brand is branding, marketing, the whole shebang. It's 23 different departments rolled into one and usually a small team that's expected to do it all. Well, I enjoy the creative parts. So, creating design systems for the employer brand, digging into the EVP process, especially when, after the research part, which probably nobody really likes the research part, but once you have that information, then using that data to create branding and marketing and visuals, and things that will really make people think and feel and do things.

Joel: Okay. So, what works? What platforms are the most effective? What kind of messaging is the most effective? You're in the trenches. What works?

Ashten Fizer: I am in the trenches. So, as far as platforms go, it's always going to be regional. So, while we here in the US are very LinkedIn-focused, and we know that that is our job board, our Facebook of jobs, it's not in every country. So, we really do have to stop being so US-focused sometimes, and actually start buying into these other platforms in these other countries if that's where we're recruiting, to ensure that we are hitting those markets as well. Because LinkedIn isn't for everyone. If you look at China, they have their own platforms for everything.

Joel: Yep.

Ashten Fizer: So, yes, LinkedIn is great for here. Indeed is fantastic. Glassdoor for your reviews. But if you're a global company, you have to start branching out to those other job boards. In China you have BiliBili. There's another one called Red, which is like their Twitter. And then other countries did the same thing.

Joel: So, if we're talking about messaging, I assume that it's not a cookie cutter. Our message in the US is the same...

[overlapping conversation]

Ashten Fizer: It should never.

Joel: So, talk about how you...

[overlapping conversation]

Ashten Fizer: And even your US messaging should be different based on your US audience.

[overlapping conversation]

Joel: Okay. Talk about that. How is it different, and how did you come to that conclusion?

Ashten Fizer: Well, when you look at people, everyone is different. And you really have to start thinking about what are people's needs. And it can be a wide array. So, then you have to start drilling down to your own niche, but you really have to be focused on what people want, learning what they're asking. There's a whole website out there, it's called Ask the Public.

Joel: Yep.

Ashten Fizer: If you really want to know what people are looking for, asking for, type it in. You can get the answers. But that's what you need to focus on. What are their pain points? What are they looking for from employers? What are their everyday issues that they're having? And how could being employed at your company solve that for them?

Joel: Yeah, right.

Ashten Fizer: So, you have to drill down to that because also it's going to be different for different people, different communities, different regions, different localities.

Joel: Yeah.

Ashten Fizer: So, you're going to have to drill down, figure out what that specific group needs that you're trying to attract. And truly, just like we tell candidates to tailor their resume for the individual job, do the same for your messaging, for that individual community, for that individual skill set. You have to drill down and speak their language, and meet them where they are.

Joel: Yep. So, you were on a panel or you oversaw a discussion here earlier at the conference, which I assume was sort of forward-looking in what the future look like. What does your organization look like as you turn to 2025? What does branding look like? Is it more of the same? Is it changing? Talk to us about that.

Ashten Fizer: It is absolutely changing. Branding is absolutely changing as we move forward. What we're seeing is another shift in the market. During the pandemic, we went through the "great resignation" or the "great migration" or whatever people want to call it. And now we're getting to a point where it's still... The market is still in the candidate's hands. It hasn't gone back to the employer. But now the candidate wants more. They want more of an inside look. They want more of an honest look. And those high-production-value videos that we're spending thousands of thousands of dollars on in casting and writing scripts, they don't believe it.

Joel: Yeah.

Ashten Fizer: It's a waste of money now. They want low production. They want it directly from the employee. They want it from the employee's account. They want that very real, reality-TV-esque, inside view of the company before they choose an employer. They want to see that culture firsthand. So, we have to start figuring out what are the ways outside of just "a day in the life" post on social media to give it to them. And that's where you're seeing a lot of brands come to conferences, and not just have a booth, but have an entire brand activation like a consumer brand would. But now we're doing it for recruiting.

Joel: Okay. You mentioned Glassdoor earlier. And when you talk about throwing the... Let's see what's going on. Is there a wizard back there? What am I seeing? I have a viewpoint that Glassdoor and expecting people to write paragraphs about a company is a little bit antiquated. I see more and more TikToks about people don't care about anonymity. They're going to trash a company. They're going to record a corporate call about layoffs. How do you look at that brave new world of, I guess, courage and just throwing aside the social norms of talking about a company?

Ashten Fizer: I absolutely applaud it.

Joel: Yeah.

Ashten Fizer: I hope it forces companies to lean into more transparency, because that's what people want. Like I said, they're tired of the scripted, paid actors, stock photography, production that we continue to give them. They want the real. And if we're not gonna give it to them in a space where we can control it, they're gonna go find it someplace else. So, you might as well get into it so that you can get ahead of that messaging before your detractors, or someone who has a bad experience gets out there and creates the brand for you. Because if you don't tell your story, somebody else will.

Joel: Yeah. I love your comment about stock footage and stock photos. When you look at Diversity, Equity, Inclusion in your organization, what is your strategy around that and some of the tactics you utilize to make sure you're casting as wide a net as possible?

Ashten Fizer: Absolutely. I know for us, it's all about absolutely widening the net. And that's why I love working for companies that have decided to either go hybrid or remote, because that gives us more space to look for more talent in places where we normally wouldn't look. So, if we're just restricted to San Jose, Sunnyvale, New York, these major cities that I can barely afford, we're missing out on talent that's out there in Nebraska, in Iowa. Just because they're in Middle America doesn't mean they don't have the skill set. So, I think it's great. I think the pandemic did us a favor, because it allowed us to open up, to really look at everyone out there instead of those that have just concentrated into those major tech hub cities. So, when I think about DEI, it's really not just about race and those boxes you check; it's about diversity of thought. It's about, okay, we have someone from San Jose, probably grew up in San Francisco, has that city mindset, but now we brought somebody in that grew up in the plains of Nebraska, and they're coming from a totally different mindset. And now we can make better tools, because now we have more people with more perspectives to give us that input that we need to make things for everyone.

Joel: Yeah. You're such a ray of sunlight. Thanks for sitting down with me today.

Ashten Fizer: Absolutely. Thanks for inviting me.

Joel: You bet, you bet. For any listeners, viewers out there that want to connect with you, learn more about your company, where do you send them?

Ashten Fizer: Heyashten.com or @heyashten on every social platform you can find. That's me.

Joel: All right. Enjoy the rest of the day.

Ashten Fizer: Oh, you too.

Joel: Thanks.

Podcast Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast-forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. But save some soap, because you'll be back like an awful train wreck you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite western, you can't quit them either. We out.