Last week I took a poll of ERE Weekly email subscribers to cut through the noise and get a clearer sense of how concerned talent acquisition professionals really are about candidate fraud.

The results were interesting. There was a fairly even split between talent acquisition professionals who said candidate fraud is a major concern and those who said it is not a major focus or not even on their radar. 

That said, more than half of respondents said they are actively taking steps to address this. Candidate fraud is not just another overhyped talking point from vendors. It is clearly becoming a real operational issue for a growing share of TA teams.

This week, I want to highlight the recent launch of the People Brand Collective, a new association for employer branding, internal communications, and recruitment marketing professionals.

Its founders, Bryan Chaney, Crystal Lay, and Allison Kruse, are trying to build the association around a broader and more ambitious view of employer brand. In their telling, employer brand is not just a recruiting support tool that gets turned on when a company needs more applicants. It is a strategic role that helps organizations align what they say with what employees and candidates are actually experiencing.

Chaney will be digging into those ideas in more detail at the ERE Recruiting Innovation Summit, where he is leading an interactive workshop on the state of employer branding and recruitment marketing. He is also leading a panel on the connection between employer brand and experience brand with Camille Richardson, head of Global Employer Brand at Meta, and Holland McCue, who leads Cox’s continuous listening program.

I spoke with Richardson last week about her work at Meta. She strongly believes employer brand should have a voice in decisions about programs, flexibility, and onboarding, because those teams have some of the clearest insight into what talent wants and how that aligns with the reality employees experience every day. The job is not simply to put the best possible spin on the company. It is to actively shape an experience that can live up to the promises being made.

One thing that came up repeatedly in my conversations with both Chaney and Richardson is just how research-based the process is. Richardson described a mix of external quantitative and qualitative research, internal interviews and focus groups, social listening, and feedback from places like Glassdoor and LinkedIn. Chaney framed the work similarly, saying the job is to pull together feedback from referrals, reviews, and online platforms in order to “stitch the story together” about what the market is saying and what the company needs to respond to.

The Meta team brought that research into the design of the engineering boot camp that new hires go through when they join the company. They observed the onboarding experience, looked at which themes were resonating, and worked with program owners to revise the agenda, the script, and the communications based on what technical talent actually values.

“It almost immediately impacted the experience that all of the engineers who are joining Meta have,” Richardson said.

I’ll be on vacation for the next couple of weeks, but former ERE Editor Vadim Liberman has agreed to step in and keep you up to date on the latest in talent acquisition while I’m away. You’re in good hands.

— David

P.S. If you found this newsletter valuable, chances are your colleagues will too. Feel free to forward it along—and if it landed in your inbox by way of a friend, you can subscribe here to get the next one directly.

Featured Story

The Rise of Experience Intelligence: Why Human Connection Is the New Leadership Advantage

Drawing on Marcus Buckingham’s concept of “Experience Intelligence,” Ron Thomas contends that the most effective leaders will be those who create trust, belonging, emotional alignment, and meaningful day-to-day experiences for employees. The article makes the case that human connection is becoming the most durable competitive advantage an organization can have. (ERE)

Conferences

ERE Recruiting Innovation Summit

Atlanta, GA
May 5-6, 2025

The ERE Recruiting Innovation Summit is a practitioner-led event built for talent acquisition leaders who want real answers, not hype. Now that the updated agenda is live, this is your chance to explore the sessions, speakers, and conversations shaping the future of recruiting.

Join us for practical sessions, meaningful peer connection, and live Ask Me Anything office hours with speakers. If you care about where recruiting is headed and want ideas you can put to work immediately, you belong in this room.

(ERE Recruiting Innovation Summit)