There has probably never been a more difficult time to work in employer branding. Survey after survey shows that employers consider it vitally important to have an effective employer branding strategy; however, employer brand functions and budgets have been scaled back significantly in the last two years.
So, how can employer brand professionals navigate this challenging landscape? What does it take to build meaningful strategies with limited resources, and how can failure and authenticity become tools for growth rather than obstacles?
My guest this week is Claire de Souza, co-founder of The EB Space and head of Employer Branding at a major UK retailer. Claire emphasizes the importance of learning from failure and why embracing vulnerability is critical to success. She also shares practical advice on demonstrating ROI, building strong stakeholder relationships, and aligning employer branding with business strategy.
In the interview, we discuss:
• The biggest challenges in employer branding at the moment
• Demonstrating ROI
• Being part of the puzzle
• Aligning goals and strategy with the company’s needs and vision
• The importance of talking about failure
• Why technology is often used as a scapegoat
• Do employers have the fundamentals in place to innovate
• Building stakeholder relationships
• What does the future look like
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Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
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Matt Alder [00:01:04]:
Hi there. Welcome to episode 664 of Recruiting Future with me, Matt Alder. There’s probably never been a more difficult time to work in employer branding. Survey after survey shows that employers consider it vitally important to have an effective employer branding strategy. However, employer branding functions and budgets have been scaled back significantly in the last two years. So how can employer brand professionals navigate this challenging landscape? What does it take to build meaningful strategies with limited resources? And how can failure and authenticity become tools for growth rather than obstacles? My guest this week is Claire de Souza, co founder of the EB Space and head of employer branding at a major UK retailer. Claire emphasizes the importance of learning from failure and and why embracing vulnerability is critical to success. She also shares practical advice on demonstrating roi, building stakeholder relationships, and aligning employer branding with business strategy. Hi Claire, and welcome to the podcast.
Claire de Souza [00:02:14]:
Thanks Matt. It’s so great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Matt Alder [00:02:17]:
An absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Please could you introduce yourself and tell us what you do?
Claire de Souza [00:02:22]:
Sure. So I am Claire D’Souza. I’m the co founder of the EB Space, which is a global community for employ brand is. And when I’m not doing that, I lead employer branding at a big retailer in the uk.
Matt Alder [00:02:36]:
Cool. Fantastic stuff. So I suppose there’s a kind of a first question. Employer branding has had an interesting couple of years to say the least. What are the, what are the biggest challenges that you’re seeing in employer branding at the moment?
Claire de Souza [00:02:51]:
I think it’s, I think it’s a challenge that’s ever present, but I think it’s really demonstrating the ROI of the function at the moment. We’re in such a difficult time with recruiting really being hit by redundancies. It’s a really difficult talent landscape at the moment. And more and more you see companies really wanting to hone in on, okay, what are the skills that we need to enable great recruitment, what do we need to do? And what we’re also seeing is that there’s an influx of employer brand. It’s sort of being let go of jobs, and then you see the jobs coming up again. And it’s sometimes shortsighted, I think, from companies not to think ahead in terms of what their future needs might be. I think also, though, from an employer brand industry, there’s a couple of pieces where actually, how do people truly demonstrate the value of roi? So I’ve been in places where the ROI is not necessarily easily tangible, so it’s really hard to demonstrate, okay, this is how I’m truly making an impact versus working in retail now. And I can really understand the roi. I’ve got the numbers in front of me. I can understand exactly what I’m doing and how it’s impacting things. But there is a commonality between different industries. So I think the ROI piece is really important. I think there’s also a piece around tying what you’re doing to what the business needs. And I think sometimes an employer brand person or team might go in and they can almost be a bit of an island, whether they’re an island in recruitment, whether they’re an island in the business. And yes, usually it’s more common than not to have an employer brander who is solo and that’s got its own challenges, have been there quite a few times. But equally, it’s making sure that when you’re working on projects and programs within the business, you are part of the puzzle. And you’re a part of the puzzle that, simply put, if your bit’s not completed, the puzzle doesn’t work. Um, and it’s understanding how you truly get to be that part of it, how, how you truly make your impact, understanding where you fit in to the whole, the whole process, the whole piece. And when you have that, I think things become much clearer. And ROI is all part of it because you’re, you’re showing and demonstrating the impact and the part you play in much wide, wider projects. The other piece, I think is around tying in what you do and keeping your goals and strategy aligned with what the company needs and the company vision. So you might go in and you might say, right, colleague, advocacy, evp. They’re the two big things I need to do. Maybe a website, but they might be the things that you want to do. Are they the things that your company needs and there’s, I think a lot more listening has to be done and actually understanding. Okay, Jo blogs over there might have done a great colleague advocacy program, but over here there’s no appetite for it or we’re not ready for it. It’s saying, okay, an EVP might be great to do. Is it really necessary? And it’s understanding actually what do you fundamentally need to do? What are your big ticket items and what are your small ticket items? Where do you need to really think about prioritizing your resource? And whilst it’s, you know, you go onto LinkedIn and it’s a little bit like shiny magpies where everyone’s doing something and everything is brilliant, what is it that you need to go after and what’s important to your business? And if you don’t know your company purpose, your goals almost off by heart, as similar as you would know good values, that’s what you need to really verse yourself on to really understand and get into the nuts and bolts of your business and then leverage and create your employer brand on that.
Matt Alder [00:06:40]:
Just a kind of a quick follow up on that. From what you said about roi, obviously being in a retail organization, you know, that’s the kind of environment that is driven by data roi, you know, that, that kind of stuff. Do you think it’s a lot of this is down to the sort of the DNA of the, of the organizations that people work in in terms of how things are measured or how easy it is to measure something?
Claire de Souza [00:07:03]:
I think so, but I think it also depends on what, what’s the fundamental goals you’re trying to achieve? It’s a bit like when you’re working and doing a project and if you’re talking to a, to a finance person, they’re really not going to care about how many impressions that you’ve got or the number of likes you have, because these are just numbers that would go over their head. They’re going to care about, I’ve given you money to do a campaign. Have you given me a hire? You might talk to, you know, you might have another project which is working with a marketing person and they might really care about the brand awareness of their team. They might, they might really want to know about, you know, okay, how many people are seeing the work that we’re doing, what’s the impression that we’re making in the market? But I think it’s understanding what is it that you, what is it that your business wants. And some businesses will be very data driven. Sometimes somebody won’t know what they want until you put it in front of them. And it’s saying, hey, I can measure all of these things, but what is most relevant to you? And if you have something that measures your fundamental things, your social media brand sentiment, your perception in the market, all the things that you can find yourself, so you don’t need to go and pay someone to do it, you can go onto Glassdoor, for example, and see your company rating. And it might not be indicative of your whole company, but at least it’s an indicator and a starting point. But you can find out your basic measurements of things. And when you’re going into something saying, hey, what’s most important to you? Is it this bit over here or is it that but over there?
Matt Alder [00:08:41]:
No, absolutely. That makes perfect sense. You mentioned seeing what other people were doing as they sort of Showcased it on LinkedIn just a little bit earlier there. And you know, certainly in our industry, people are very good at telling good news stories about how, you know, stuff has, stuff has worked and you know, the wonderful partnerships they have and things that have really come off. But I think we kind of all realize that that’s not necessarily representative of the, of the real situation and the real world. Do you think we talk enough about failure in TA and employer branding?
Claire de Souza [00:09:18]:
No, that’s my, my, my answer in a nutshell is, is no. I think shiny magpies, I think that’s, that’s how I term LinkedIn. And whenever I go on there and it’s great, you see lots of people, you know, celebrating their big projects and their programs and brilliant. You know, I put a post out when I, when I had a career milestone earlier on in the year, but when I did it, I knew how much work had gone into it and I wanted to acknowledge that. And when you do a colleague advocacy program, you know, if you’ve, if this has gone plain sailing for someone, I’ll eat my hat. But they’re so difficult. There’s so much to get off the ground when you’re doing a program. When you get to the end point, fantastic, you’ve launched it. But it’s the journey that actually really matters and the journey that people resonate more with. Like if I look at when I doom scroll on TikTok as an example and you see individuals who go through a body transformation and it’s great, they show their after picture, but they will get loads of followers and people wanting to be part of their journey because they share the really high highs, but they also show those really low lows and the vulnerable moments and the Bits are actually. It’s really hard and it’s hard to go on that journey. And I think doing an employer branding role is. Is no joke. It’s not an easy job to do. You’re constantly having to spin many plates and wear many hats and drop things at a moment’s notice and, you know, one minute you’re being really operational, the next minute you’re having to think in. In the future, you’re having to think about what you want to do whilst dealing with people thinking, the world’s on fire today. And everyone I know that does it, loves it. It’s a job that I think really is. I don’t like the word, but passion personified in a way, because you have to love it to do it. It’s not an easy job to do. So anyone who’s got an employer branding role, I have a level of respect for them because it’s tough and you’re doing so much. But equally, it’s the only. Celebrating your wins, it doesn’t get you anywhere. It’s like, how do you look back and actually say, what’s my Jo? And personal, personally for me. So I have a book of. A book of failure and, and ideas. And so every time I’ve got a mad idea that it may not be great, I scribble it in there. And every time I fail at something and I’ve had some, you know, some really interesting failures of my career, I write it in. And whenever I just, you know, need a look back moment, I look through that book because that really helps me learn and it takes me into that mind, that mindset I had at the time, especially the failure, mom, what did I do wrong? How did I feel? How did I make it better? And. And in those moments, you feel, you know, like the world has ended because something you’re doing and you’re working so hard for has just gone so disastrously wrong. And yes, I’m one of those people that will say, well, you’re not saving the world, it’s employer branding. But equally, you really care about what you do. And the more you care about something you do, when something doesn’t quite go right, it hurts. You know, it’s personal and you want to make sure that everything’s great all the time. But equally, there’s also the logic that you learn from failure and you get better because of it. So I think, you know, I’d love to go on LinkedIn and see more about people’s stories, about the things they haven’t done. Well, you know, opening Up a little bit more vulnerability about. This is the journey that we went on to get there, go to conferences where actually you’re talking about, you know, this, this was a disaster. And that’s great. But it’s the. I think sometimes it’s, you know, we’re so keen on celebrating the, the best stuff and showing our side all the time that we fundamentally forget that we’re promoting being authentic. Like, you know, fundamentally we’re saying to our organizations, be authentic. Show your. Show your authentic side of your business. Show people in their most authentic way. But we’re not doing that. We are, you know, we’re not embracing those that authenticity ourselves and we’re not learning from each other either. It’s like any award submissions, as an example. Everybody wants to get into your board submissions and that’s fantastic. And you get a shortlisted done, that’s great. But if you haven’t made it, no one gives you feedback as to why. And it’s. You’ve put in all this work and all this effort and you want to do it. But okay, someone says, we can’t give you feedback because we’ve got too many and you’re like, well, but I put the work in. I, I want to learn how I can get better. But it’s almost like we’re only going to celebrate the ones that are winning and anyone that didn’t quite make it, sorry, we’re not even going to give you the bits that you can improve on. So any, any way you look, we’re not really embracing like the art of failure or the art of continuous improvement, because we’re saying, no, no, we only celebrating the wins. And I would love it if you could submit just as an example, like award submissions and someone goes, here’s feedback as to why it didn’t work. Well, this is what you can do next time. That for me is embracing failure through everything because you then want to try again. But I think just as an industry, we don’t do it and we make time for the things that we want to make time for, but equally, this person’s winning all the time. So that’s why they’re going to be on this, that and the other. And this person’s really great and they’ve done that, this. But I want to know about the things you’ve done wrong. I want to know why a leader is so great and has got there and what’s made them fail. Because it’s the bits that they failed at, which is why they’re a leader today.
Matt Alder [00:15:03]:
Exactly. The kind of the real sort of learning, learning points on that journey. And you’re right, it is kind of endemic in the industry to only talk about success. And I suppose a part of that, or you know, one thing that maybe we could kind of explore is around technology because, you know, very often technology sort of seen as this silver bullet that’s going to, that’s going to fix things. The flip side of that is it’s very often used as a scapegoat when things go wrong. I think most of the conversations I’ve had with people about failure have been linked to technology and it allegedly not doing what they thought it would or what, what it was sold to do. Well, why do you think that is?
Claire de Souza [00:15:45]:
Well, I think when you buy technology, when you get it, you fundamentally forget to change behavior. And I think behavior and behavior change is such an important thing to do. Technology is not going to solve your problem. It’s going to be there as a tool to help you and it could help make a process better. But you still have towards the technology and actually use it correctly to make that process better. It’s not going to happen overnight. It’s not a magic wand that’s going to fix things. The innovation in talent acquisition, in recruiting and employer branding, I think it’s phenomenal. I think it’s incredible that people want to keep coming up with ways and ideas to innovate. But as an example, if you have technology that says you can kill the TV and it can do this, you’re not really addressing why somebody at a certain level wants a CV in the first place, why they want to understand why someone’s gone to university, why that university is important to them and you have to understand those behaviors and then you can walk towards change. And equally, when you use a platform, whatever it might be, you have to be using it properly. Like you have to adopt a mindset approach and say, look, if we want this to work, we have to work together. But you can’t just say it’s not working because nobody’s using it. You have to, there has to be, you know, a two way, it’s almost a two way conversation saying, okay, if we get this tech in, what’s going to change? How do we change the way that we operate? It’s a little bit like, you know, responding to candidates and people who have applied for roles or had interviews and they don’t get feedback. And you know, it’s like, well, we’ve got so many applications, we can’t give you feedback and you might have a technology Platform that can give automatic feedback or something like that, but you have to feed in what the notes are to give that automatic feedback or to give feedback. But if you’re not doing that fundamentally, then you’re not really changing your behavior. So I think it’s. Tech can be great, but you have to use it properly. You have to use it in the way that it’s intended. And you also have to look at tech with a view to say, okay, this is great, but how can we make it even better? If everyone’s using this the right way, then is there something we can do more with it and collectively make things better? And you’ll find that vendors and stuff are. Because. Hate the word vendors, but, you know, technology partners and those who come up with these, these ideas are always willing to work with clients who are actively going to make their product better. But I think fundamentally it’s behavior change. I think you said technology is not a silver bullet. It’s not something that fixes everything. You have to fundamentally change how you’re using it. Your own ways of working in your systems to make sure that technology then works for you.
Matt Alder [00:18:49]:
You mentioned the amount of innovation that’s sort of going on at the moment. And it, it’s kind of clear that actually we’re only really at the start of where we, where we might be going. And there’s, you know, some dramatic changes coming in. Talent acquisition, employer branding, and people are already kind of feeling, feeling the start of that already. Do you think employers have got the sort of fundamentals in place to kind of build on, to sort of, kind of embrace this change and innovate and move forward?
Claire de Souza [00:19:47]:
I’d say yes and no. I think you have to define what the fundamentals are. And sometimes it’s not easy to do that because you’ll have teams of different sizes, of different maturity, of different skill sets. And I think it comes back to what I was saying earlier about really understanding your business strategy. If you know your business strategy, you can then build the fundamentals of, okay, what does talent acquisition here look like? What, you know, what are we trying to achieve here? What does employer branding look like? What do we need to do here? And set your fundamentals from that. And if you know how to do it and you build a strong foundation, then everything else will just be built on, will be built on top of it. But I don’t think there is a one size fits all approach. I think sometimes, and more often than not, you’ll go into an organization and you’ll be hit with 100 things to do. So you actually, you almost forget to build these fundamentals because you’re so busy doing and taking a step back and saying, what are the things that we have to have all the time to keep the lights on because otherwise this won’t work. That’s really important. When I’ve gone into places, I’ve set up processes and things before where actually I’ve gone, okay, I am one person here and there is one of me and so many requests. And I need to set up a process and have a fundamental, because I keep getting these requests and I can’t manage my time. I can’t prioritize what I’m doing. And so all I’m doing at the moment is running around like a hamster in a wheel because it’s just mental and it’s relentless. But actually if I take a minute and pause and let some projects drop, set up a process and say, right, here’s the process. If you want support from me, you’re going to tell me exactly what you need. I’ll triage it and I’ll prioritize it according to what needs to be done first or what’s the most important to the business. I’ve set up a fundamental there, but you have to understand what they are for you. And you have to understand what your business needs, what you need like as a function and as a team or, or solely contributor to be successful. And once you start doing that, then you’re able to sort of really build, to build on that and create something and a function and, and, and ROI on all of that that will be really successful.
Matt Alder [00:22:14]:
And you kind of, sort of alluded to it there, but also you mentioned earlier that you know, very often employer, brand people might be working on their own or certainly as a, as a kind of an island within the rest of the organization. What would your advice be on building relationships with stakeholders and that kind of broader business? How should people think about doing that.
Claire de Souza [00:22:34]:
Based on, you know, years now doing this. But I think always build relationships outside of a transaction. When you are only talking to a stakeholder because you both want something from each other, then you, you’re both going there because you, you’ve got a need from each other. When you Talk to somebody outside of that, a coffee chat, a quick hello, but you know, whatever that might be. You get to know somebody outside of just wanting something from them or them wanting something from you, and then you’ve got a really strong foundation to build on. I the number of people, you know, where I work today, but also in previous places where I, where I’ve gone in, I go and meet them outside of a project, check in, say, hey, how are you? Might even just be sending a random gift because, you know, it’s like a Happy Friday or I saw this and thought of you. Just something, something different that’s outside of a hey, I want something for you. Hey, can you help me? Hey, can I help you? But I think the relationship building, I think is a skill that’s never praised enough that actually is so fundamentally important to how successful you are as an employer brander. But even in any role really in recruitment because you want somebody to want to come and talk to you outside of things. You want to have someone know you, you want to have someone say, this is a trusted person and a trusted pair of hands and a voice that I really respect. So I’m going to go to this person. But I don’t just talk to them when I need something, I will talk to them, you know, other times as well. And I think that would be my biggest thing. Build, build relationships and get to know people outside of a transactional relationship.
Matt Alder [00:24:16]:
And so as a kind of a bit of a final question, what does their future look like? What do you think we’d be sort of talking about if we were having this conversation again in 5 years time?
Claire de Souza [00:24:27]:
I really hope that it will be how employer branding is now just a fundamental part of a business. I remember years ago when marketing was a nice to have and I worked in marketing roles and it was a bit of a, you know, what are you doing here? And it’s okay, we might need this, might not. And now I don’t know an organization really that doesn’t have marketing, it is so fundamental and I mean, I’m talking, you know, seven to 10 years ago, maybe so not that long ago. I do think employer branding is becoming more and more interesting. I think it’s becoming more and more important to organizations and I think more and more organizations, and I mean not just big organizations but the smaller ones are starting to see that it’s really nice kind of going on to LinkedIn and seeing the number of job openings, like increasing the number of companies that are going, we need an employer brand manager or someone to do employer branding. Now, granted, I think there needs to be a bit of an education around employer brand in terms of, you know, some of these, these job posts are insane and it’s a bit like you need to be 10 people in one. But you know, what I’d love to see is just employer brand teams. You know, like just fundamentally you don’t have just a solo employer branding. You’ve got big teams, you’ve got teams that are structured and do things. You’ve got employer branders where, you know, employer brand could even be a solo piece in the organization. I think it’s so important, you know, I. It may not always hit in talent acquisition. Sometimes it sits in marketing or comms. It may not always sit there and could it be an island on its own within the organization one day? But that’s critically important on its own, as its own, as its own function. But I’d love to see more investment. I think there is scope for it. I think it’s that I sometimes see articles, probably clickbait on LinkedIn that talk about employer branding being dead and you have to go into two different areas. But I really don’t agree with that. I think it’s an exciting time in some ways for the industry, whilst it’s hard for talent as talent acquisition as a whole, in terms of the whole talent market. But I think the industry itself is starting to grow. It’s starting to become more exciting. I think people are starting to do things that are even more sophisticated and I really hope to see, you know, just bigger, bigger teams, less the solo brand is more support given to an organization, more resource, more budget and, you know, more, more value given to it as well.
Matt Alder [00:26:59]:
So just to finish, tell us a little bit more about the EB space, what it does, what it’s for and how people can get involved.
Claire de Souza [00:27:07]:
So cool. The EB space is simply a community on. On discord. It’s for employer branders. So if you work in employer branding, it’s for you at the moment. It’s not. We haven’t opened it up to partners or vendors at the moment in terms of joining the actual space. The idea behind it was to connect employer branders around the world in the knowledge that people often are solo. Employer brand is people who actually you go into an organization, you don’t have anyone that does what you do or quite gets the nuance of it. So it’s amazing to see people just talk to each other on it and they connect with each other. Really easy to find out more about it and website is based.com and you can, you can sign up there and yeah, it’s great. We’ve got so many people around the world now from it at all parts. My favorite one is Botswana to Vietnam. Actual employer brand is doing the job there and it’d be remiss of me not to give a shout out to my co founder, Alex, because we set this up. We set this up together. But it’s very much about our community and people just connecting with each other, which is amazing.
Matt Alder [00:28:16]:
Claire, thank you very much for talking to me.
Claire de Souza [00:28:19]:
Thanks for having me.
Matt Alder [00:28:21]:
My thanks to Claire. You can follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can search all the past episodes at recruitingfuture.com on that site. You can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Recruiting Future Feast, and get the inside track on everything that’s coming up on the show. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next time and I hope you’ll join me.
