We were excited to attend and honored to sponsor the 2020 Talent Brand Summit, held virtually July 7-9. Using a 1980’s video game theme, the 2020 summit focused on knowledge sharing and “leveling up” your talent branding game. There were interesting speakers, informative breakout sessions and yes, some “totally awesome” throwback photos. Here’s our Talent Brand Summit recap and some of our main takeaways. 

Employee story best practices

#TBSummit attendees from companies big and small, from teams of one to many, and across industries agreed: employee stories are critical to effective recruitment marketing and employer branding. 

Talent brand leaders and practitioners know that even when story content creators and employees are working remotely, creating compelling recruitment marketing content can’t stop.

So, we were excited to present on key elements of a story, and ways employee stories can be captured virtually. Stories Inc.’s Lauryn Sargent broke down the important differences between an employee story and an employee testimonial. To illustrate, she shared one of our favorite stories, captured for BAE Systems.

Lauryn also outlined tips for uncovering stories virtually and ways employer branding and talent attraction professionals can develop content that communicates the virtual team experience. 

Activate your content 

David Ige, former Employer Brand Manager of Alaska Airlines, was speaking our language when he took the Zoom stage. He inspired attendees to use their content in innovative ways, and repurpose and reinvent their content pieces across their channels. He shared data about the importance of talent brand pros building and fully using “content vaults.”

Get creative with content 

Camille Richardson, Head of the Global Employment Brand Creative Team at Facebook, spoke on the importance of using content in creative ways, especially on a limited budget. She shared a recruitment marketing video Facebook crafted using footage they already had in-house. In a very short period of time and with resources already in their content library, they created this video communicating the remote work culture and open remote positions at Facebook: 

Salesforce’s Senior Manager of Employer Brand and Recruitment Marketing, Chrissy Thornhill, spoke on the importance of empowering your recruitment team with content. She shared tips on how to keep the employer brand content flowing, and how Salesforce’s recruitment marketing content has fueled their teams. Learn more in Chrissy’s episode of the TBA podcast. 

Tailor your EVPs

Rian Finnegan, Senior Manager of Employer Brand and Recruitment Marketing at Instacart, is revolutionizing candidate persona work. They shared how companies are developing candidate personas as intentionally and data-driven as their consumer marketing teams develop buyer personas. Rian talked about creating multiple EVPs to match up with and target those candidate personas. 

Improve the candidate experience 

The ideal candidate experience often varies greatly with what job seekers actually encounter. Julia Bonaventure, Senior Manager of Talent at Vital Farms, explained that today’s candidates are holding employer brands and organizations accountable to positive candidate experiences. She advised on ways employer brand teams can work with their recruiting and marketing colleagues to streamline applications, improve communications and increase conversions. Julia brought home the great importance of striving for the ideal. 

Thanks #TBSummit! 

All in all, #TBSummit was packed with learning and networking opportunities. We would have loved to have been in Austin with the organizers and attendees, but connecting with everyone via Zoom was a great way to spend two days. Thanks Talent Brand Alliance for having us! 

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