James Ellis

Employer Brand Nerd.

More than a decade of employer brand and talent strategy experience

I am the Employer Branding Nerd 🧪, an authority on employer branding, focusing on companies who think they have no choice but to post and pray for talent. Over the past decade, I have built the brands for more than a dozen of companies and supported the development and activation of dozens more. I've authored what’s been called the bible of employer branding, managed the number one employer brand newsletter in the world, and helped companies globally establish and develop their ability to hire talent.

You may have seen/heard/read me at:

✍️ Branding Mag
✍️ RecruitingDaily
🎙️ Chad and Cheese Podcast
🎙️ Recruitment Flex Podcast
🎙️ Duct Tape Marketing Podcast
🎙️ Employer Branding Podcast
🎙️ Talking Talent
🎙️ Talk Talent To Me Podcast
🎙️ Recruiting Trailblazers
🎤 RecFest
🎤 ERE
🎤 SHRM Talent
🎤 Transform
And many more.

I do my thinking in public

✍️ Employer Brand Headlines newsletter (in it's fifth year)
🎙️ The Talent Cast (220 episodes)
🎙️ The Brand Plan (10 episodes in season one with Marcus Body)
🎙️ The Definition of Insanity
📺 Employer Brand Breakdown
📺 Employer Brand Minute
📺 The Laws of Employer Branding

Pushing the industry forward

I have spent the last decade pushing the boundaries and advancing the field of employer branding to help companies hire better talent more effectively. Take a look at some of the frameworks, approaches and books that have changed the way companies around the world think about their employer brand:
🧪 Hierarchy of Recruiting Content (2015)
🧬 Recruiting Content Framework (2016)
⚗️ Comprehensive Talent Funnel (2018)
🧪 Employer Brand Maturity Model (with Richard Mosley 2019)
⚗️ Comprehensive Employer Brand Architecture (2019)
🧬 Work Motivations Framework (2019)
📕 Book: Talent Chooses You (2020)
🧪 The Specific, Attractive, Different & Real Model for Effective Brand Messages (2022)
📙 Book: Employer Branding for Small Business (2023)
📘 Book: 18 Laws of Employer Branding (2024)
🧪 Minimum Effective Employer Brand Process (2024)

Passionate about solving recruiting problems

Look, I love employer branding. I fell in love with it and haven't looked back. And while I've developed brands for Fortune1000 companies, 125-person startup, and everything in between, what I do best is teach people how to use employer branding, how to turn it into a force multiplier for recruiting, how to leverage it as the human side of their corporate brand, how to tell a story that great talent will fall in love with (even when there's no job to apply for).

After 220+ episodes of The Talent Cast podcast, 150+ editions of Employer Brand Headlines newsletter, three books, countless presentations and webinars, I've come to accept the label someone gave me as the "Alton Brown of Employer Brand."

Having invented the Recruiting Content Framework, the Employer Brand Manifesto and the first comprehensive Employer Brand Architecture, co-authored the Employer Brand Maturity Model, been the first person to prove content positively impacts applications, and turned a failing brand activation department into a multi-million dollar growth engine, I'm ready to help businesses who thought they couldn't afford it take advantage of the power of employer brand.

How can you work with me?

Bringing someone in to create results via employer branding isn't a simple decision, for you or me. This process works best with companies with 200-1,200 employees, generally in biotech, life science, technology or fields where new hires are expensive and time-consuming.

So the best way to start is with a conversation. Let's chat about your situation and see if it makes sense for us to make more solid plans.

Let's take the next step!

Talent strategy is never "off the rack." It is about uncovering and leveraging your unique advantages to hire better. So here are a few ways we can get to know each other.

Book time so we can define a scope and solution that suits your company best

Need to get your company excited about employer brand and strategy? Let me talk to them!

A directory of employer brand agencies and consultants to help you choose

If you're not ready to chat, but want to stay in touch, I offer a free weekly newsletter focused on talent strategy and employer brand. It's the largest of its kind with more than 3,700 TA professionals subscribing to stay sharp.

Subscribe here in 10 seconds.

Otherwise, email me at James@EmployerBrandLabs.com and we'll find some time.

-James Ellis