By Ai-Mei Zhu

Alex Her is a team of one and leads the Global Employer Branding and Recruitment Marketing at Informatica across 26 countries. He was recently named as one of “15 Inspiring Employer Brand Leaders in the Southwest”, and is a proud member of the Talent Brand Alliance, working directly on the Marketing Committee.

 

How did you get into Employer Branding and what made you continue down this path? 

“I honestly got into EB/RM by accident. I was working at an agency, not enjoying the changes happening at the agency, and wanted to leave. I took a contract role at Cox Enterprises, handling their Cox Automotive brands, fell in love with EB/RM, and then got recruited to run the show at Informatica after 2 years.

I decided to stay in EB/RM, as it just really spoke to me. I’m passionate about helping out job seekers, telling a story, and finding different ways to promote a brand. All of those things, amongst many, are what you need to do to be successful in EB/RM, which is what I love doing.”

 

Would you consider this a “new” division HR/ Recruitment Teams are rolling out?

“I think at bigger companies you can push for EB to be its own division. At smaller companies, it makes sense to tuck EB under TA and/or HR.”

 

What actions does your company take on Internal Branding vs External branding?

“On the EB front, I’m a strong advocate for EB across the board. Internally, I educate our teams on EB, and provide them with an intranet page to talk share more information about how we go to market as talent attraction ambassadors (ways to showcase on LI). Externally, aside from the EB work that I do to help up show up to market (career page, social networks, candidate experience), I have a group of employee’s that I call my Talent Attraction Ambassadors. The Talent Attraction Ambassadors are members of our TAA (Employee Advocacy Program), that use Bambu to share EB specific content that I curate/create and generate for our team members.”

 

How are you measuring success?

“To measure success, I am looking at a few different things. Here’s a list of things:

• CPH
• CPA
• Quality of candidate/talent
• Career Page Traffic
• Talent Community Numbers
• Source of Talent
• Clicks, Impressions, Engagement, and Conversions “

 

When talking about diversity and inclusion, how do you feel this ties to EB?

“I feel very strongly that D&I goes hand and hand with your EB. If I’m a job seeker who values D&I, but your EB doesn’t talk about D&I or showcase it, I’m looking elsewhere. Your EB will simply not be relevant to me, as you’re showing that you don’t care about D&I.”

 

What advice would you give to the people reading the newsletter who aspire to move into EB like you?

“My advice to anyone who’s looking to move into EB is that it’s a whole lot more than sharing stuff on social media. Here’s what you’ll need to succeed:

Be Proactive, Be Creative and Think Outside of the Box (challenge the norm), you have to love Project Mgmt and working with internal stakeholders, and you don’t need a traditional marketing or recruitment background to move into EB. EB really requires someone who has a variety of skills, that can be a jack of all trades.”