I have a feeling that Employment Branding has jumped the shark.  This probably happened around the same time we stopped really caring about what our employment brand truly was, and we started designing the brochure about what we wished our employment brand was – and started selling the “idea” as the “brand”.  When it isn’t.

I’m a true believer in HR Pros having Marketing Chops – I’m no a true believer in HR trying to be marketing.  Marketing sells the “idea” of your organizations product or service – not the reality.  No one wants to buy reality – they want to buy the dream, the vision.  That’s why we have marketing.  They sell the crap that no one would buy if they really knew what they were buying – there’s a reason your sales and marketing folks get paid more than you – besides the fact they’re better looking.

We buy the brochure.  It’s pretty, the sun is always shining, the people are always smiling and there is a perfect ratio of white, black, male, female, wheelchairs and tattoos – and everyone is pretty. We buy the idea.

I think this is where employment branding went to die.  It just walked out and laid down next to authenticity and closed it’s eyes.

I guess I need to go back and sit down next to the coffee breath, pit stained, loud mouth, but he writes good code, reality. He’s annoying, but I can count on him to do good work – plus he’s loyal.  It’s not much of a brand – but it’s the truth…

(this all makes me think of the Jay-Z song Forever Young:

So we live a life like a video
When the sun is always out and you never get old
and the champagne’s always cold
and the music is always good
and the pretty girls just happen to stop by in the hood
and they hop their pretty ass up on the hood of dat pretty ass car
without a wrinkle in today
cuz there is no tomorrow
just some picture perfect day
to last a whole lifetime
and it never ends
cos all we have to do is hit rewind)