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Shawn Kessler shares nearly 25 years of recruitment marketing and employer branding insights in new book—available at Amazon.com.

WILMINGTON, Del. (June 3, 2025) — Aloysius Butler & Clark (AB&C), one of the largest independent full-service marketing communications agencies on the East Coast, is pleased to announce the upcoming release of Built to Attract, a book written by Shawn Kessler, the firm’s managing director of recruitment marketing. The book, which draws on Kessler’s 16 years of experience at AB&C and over two decades in the field, explores the transformative idea that effective employer brands are built through empowered employees who believe in and advocate for the organization. Built to Attract is currently available on Amazon’s Kindle platform as well as paperback and hardcover.

“What Shawn and the recruitment marketing team he leads at AB&C have done for our clients is nothing short of revolutionary, and their work is a key part of what sets us apart as a full-service agency,” said Paul Pomeroy, CEO. “In Built to Attract, Shawn does a stellar job of driving home the philosophy behind building powerful employer brands by supporting employees in being the best recruitment resource. He allows readers to see what can be achieved with the right set of skilled professionals developing and implementing customized talent attraction and retention strategies.”

The 200-page Built to Attract guide provides readers with a comprehensive overview of successful recruitment and retention strategies for today’s workforce. It offers insights into universally applicable employer brand concepts while emphasizing the importance of developing individualized approaches based on unique needs, industry, company and target audiences. Throughout the book, Kessler integrates professional insights and real-world examples to illustrate best practices as well as common pitfalls to avoid. Topics covered include optimizing recruitment marketing, maintaining momentum after making a hire, implementing strategies like the Rule of 3/9/27 and leveraging professional highlights such as the launch of the HireControl™ recruitment marketing platform developed by AB&C.

“The concepts in this book are ones I have the opportunity and privilege of putting into practice daily for our clients,” said Kessler. “It’s not just about filling a position but about how even the smallest changes in the way businesses handle talent attraction can positively impact their business, their employees and culture, and the communities they serve. My hope with this book is to provide my own learning in a way that helps businesses—from executives and HR people to marketing teams and others—start the conversations that I know can make a real difference.”

In addition to his book launch, Kessler will share some of his insights during a speaking engagement at the Mid-Atlantic Physician Recruiter Alliance (MAPRA) Annual Educational Conference, behind held June 9 and 10 in Atlantic City. Built to Attract is currently available for sale on Amazon’s Kindle platform as well as paperback and hardcover and at ShawnKessler.com.

About AB&C

Aloysius Butler & Clark (AB&C) is one of the largest independent full-service marketing communications agencies on the East Coast. AB&C has offices in Philadelphia and Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, as well as Wilmington, Delaware, and operates remotely across the globe. The agency’s remarkable 54-year growth is a byproduct of our unique client-centric business structure. Our clients are regional, national and international in scope—and concentrated in five core market segments: healthcare, behavior change, recruitment marketing, consumer and specialty B2B. We combine deep business expertise in these five key industry segments with a robust team of omnichannel experts. The result is the best of everything. Always deeply strategic. Always creatively breaking through. Never the same.

Insights from:

Built to Attract
The Evolution of Hiring:
Moving from Recruitment to Attraction

Kindle edition, paperback and hardcover are available now at Amazon.com.

Employer branding and recruitment marketing are often positioned as the secret weapon in talent acquisition—but too often, they are built on a shaky foundation of flawed assumptions. In Chapter 9 of Built to Attract, I call out a few of the most dangerous fallacies that hold back recruiters, HR teams and even marketing departments from attracting the right talent.

What are some fallacies you should be on the lookout for?

The “We Can Just Repurpose Our Consumer Marketing” Fallacy

“We’ve got a great brand campaign—let’s just adapt it for recruiting!” Wrong. While your consumer brand may sell cars, software or medical services, recruitment is about selling purpose, belonging and identity. Candidates need to see how they will fit in—not how you sell. “Building to attract” means being open to completely rethinking your messaging strategy for talent.

The “Employer Brand Is HR’s Job Alone” Fallacy

Too many organizations treat employer branding like a side hustle for HR. In reality, it’s a cross-functional effort. Recruitment marketing sits at the intersection of communications, brand, operations and talent strategy. Successful collaboration requires respecting and embracing the value associated with shared ownership across teams—and knowing how to structure that collaboration.

The “If We Post It, They Will Come” Fallacy

Job boards. Social ads. Landing pages. All are sometimes necessary but also insufficient. Talent attraction doesn’t work like the movie Field of Dreams. The importance of a well-crafted messaging strategy rooted in authentic differentiators cannot be underestimated. After all, if you’re not focused on attracting—you’re just broadcasting. Organizations need to move away from random (or reactionary) acts of marketing and toward a cohesive candidate journey.

The “We Can’t Market What We Can’t Fix” Fallacy

Here’s the truth: Every organization has flaws. Don’t let internal imperfection paralyze your external storytelling. Almost daily, I help organizations understand the importance of being honest about the work-in-progress nature of their culture. This approach builds more trust than a polished employer brand ever could. Vulnerability, framed strategically, is a strength.

The “We Have to Say What Everyone Else Says” Fallacy

Phrases and words like “part of a family,” “innovative” and “collaborative” are so overused, they’ve become white noise. If you’re serious about “building to attract” you’ll accept—eagerly—the challenge to break away from industry cliches and define what’s unique about working within your organization.

As the competition for talent heats up again (and it’s going to heat up!), defaulting to outdated recruitment marketing tactics is a recipe for irrelevance. Whether you’re hiring nurses, engineers or retail managers, your message needs to do more than inform—it needs to attract. 

If you’re ready to rewrite the way your organization attracts candidates, I hope you’ll look to Built to Attract as your field guide.

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the Mid-Atlantic Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development (MASHSMD) Conference in Dewey Beach, Delaware—and what an energizing few days! From thought-provoking sessions to meaningful connections (and yes, a few too many orange crushes), this year’s gathering was truly one to remember.

I was fortunate to be part of a panel discussion on “Unlocking the Power of AI to Supercharge Your Marketing Efforts.” We explored how healthcare marketers can harness AI to streamline content creation, personalize outreach, and drive better patient engagement—without losing the human touch that makes our work matter. I hope that attendees found our tips helpful.

My colleague Jean Hitchcock led a standout session titled, “At the Intersection of Marketing and Patient Experience: What to Take to Market That Enhances Patient Care.” Jean brought her signature insight and clarity to a discussion that’s more important than ever: how our brand narratives and marketing messages must align with—and elevate—the patient experience.

In addition to all the great content shared in each session, AB&C co-hosted a fantastic happy hour with our partners Doctivity and the Baird Group, where clients and friends gathered for good drinks, tasty munchies, great conversation and lots of laughs. The famous Dewey Beach “crushes” flowed freely, and so did the conversation. It was the perfect way to unwind and build relationships outside the conference space.

The quality of this year’s programming truly stood out. The senior-level thought leadership was impressive, but it was the emotional honesty of certain sessions that made the biggest impact on me. Two sessions particularly resonated:

• Stacy Beers and Andrea Becker shared a deeply personal session on how their experiences with trauma and tragedy have shaped their leadership styles. Their vulnerability and strength sparked important conversations about authenticity, resilience and showing up for your team in meaningful ways.
• Ryan Moran, DrPH, MHSA, Deputy Secretary, Healthcare Financing and Medicaid Directory, Maryland Department of Health, delivered a powerful talk on the implications of Medicaid funding cuts. He broke down what those cuts could mean not just for Maryland, but for healthcare systems across the mid-Atlantic and the country. His message was clear: Medicaid is not just a policy issue—it’s a lifeline for millions, and we need to advocate for its protection.

MASHSMD 2025 reminded me why I love working in healthcare marketing. It’s not just about strategy—it’s about people. I left Dewey Beach feeling inspired, recharged and ready to bring fresh thinking into the work we do each day.

Already counting down to next year’s conference in Baltimore. Hope to see you there!

A brand promise isn’t just a tagline. It’s a commitment that must hold strong even when times are tough. In healthcare, that means staying true to your mission, not just during routine care but also in the face of crisis.

Why Brand Integrity Matters in Healthcare

Healthcare professionals are naturally mission-driven. They enter the field to help and heal. But during high-pressure situations—pandemics, staffing shortages, financial challenges—even the most committed teams can lose sight of the brand promise.

Yet these moments are when your brand’s integrity matters most. Patients, families and employees are watching. They need to see that your organization stands by its values—not just when it’s easy, but when it’s hard.

Supporting Staff to Uphold the Brand Promise

Leadership plays a crucial role in reinforcing brand values during tough times. Consider these questions:

• Are you actively communicating your brand promise to staff?
• Are you recognizing and celebrating the sacrifices and dedication of your team?
• Are you providing resources to help employees navigate challenges while upholding quality care?
• Are you fostering a culture that prioritizes well-being for both staff and patients?

The True Test of Your Brand

Living your brand promise during a crisis is the ultimate proof of its strength. It’s not just about external marketing—it’s about internal culture, leadership and consistency. When the dust settles, how your organization upholds its brand promise will define its reputation for years to come.

Are you reinforcing your brand promise in ways that matter? Let’s talk about how to build a brand that stands strong, no matter the circumstances.

If you know us, you know we believe that steady growth isn’t just about numbers—it’s about people. That’s why we’re thrilled to announce exciting leadership promotions and strategic hires that will help us serve our clients more effectively and creatively than ever before.

First, we’re proud to welcome Alex Parkowski to the ownership team. As a new owner and the managing director of our Government Division, Alex joins chief executive officer Paul Pomeroy, chief creative officer Steve Merino and chief communications officer Joanna Ford at the helm of the agency.

Shawn Kessler has been named partner/managing director of Recruitment Marketing. With more than 15 years at the agency, Shawn has helped shape our recruitment division into a dynamic, results-driven offering. His fresh tools, insights and opportunities help clients find and keep the talent they need.

Colleen Masters has been promoted to executive creative director. Formerly our group creative director, Colleen will now lead the entire creative department, ensuring everything we make—whether it’s a campaign, video, website or brand—meets the high standards we’ve become known for.

Strategic Strengths, Multiplied

We’re also growing our strategic bench with two powerhouse hires:

• Alex Wittchen joins as managing director of strategy, where she’ll oversee AB&C’s entire strategic offering. An award-winning strategist (yes, she’s got both gold and silver Clios), Alex brings a global perspective and a track record of building brands across verticals—from sports and entertainment to healthcare and higher ed.

• Annette DeHaven is our new associate director of employer brand strategy, bringing more than two decades of experience helping companies articulate and amplify their employer brands.

From behavior change and healthcare to recruitment marketing and brand strategy, we’re investing in the people and expertise that help our clients thrive.

Read more about our new roles, and our new hires.

WILMINGTON, Del. (May 15, 2025) — Aloysius Butler & Clark (AB&C), one of the largest independent full-service marketing communications agencies on the East Coast, recently named Alex Parkowski an additional owner of the company. AB&C has also made leadership changes in its creative and recruitment departments. The expanded roles of these team members support the agency’s strategies to drive steady annual growth across multiple divisions.  

Parkowski, previously division director, has taken on a larger leadership role as owner and the managing director of our Government Division. She joins Paul Pomeroy, chief executive officer; Steve Merino, chief creative officer; and Joanna Ford, chief communications officer, as an owner. Since joining AB&C nearly 19 years ago, Parkowski has been instrumental in establishing and growing the agency’s behavior change division. She will continue to oversee government clients with needs ranging from increasing statewide vaccines and health screenings to improving outcomes for at-risk mothers and infants.   

In addition, Shawn Kessler now fulfills responsibilities for the agency as partner/managing director of recruitment marketing. Kessler, who joined AB&C more than 15 years ago, most recently served as managing director of recruitment marketing before assuming his new role. He will continue to oversee the recruitment marketing division, leading division growth and expanding resources to ensure client needs are met with the most up-to-date tools and opportunities. 

Colleen Masters, previously group creative director, has been promoted to executive creative director. In her new position, Masters is responsible for overseeing the entire creative department and ensuring the quality of the creative work that leaves the agency. She will help direct new creative strategies, support new business initiatives and ensure the creative department is a successful partner across all our full-service disciplines. “I’m proud and excited to turn the agency’s creative reins over to Colleen. No one deserves it more,” said Merino.  

“These three individuals have shown extraordinary dedication to the agency as well as our clients—earning the respect of their coworkers, the teams they manage and our clients,” said Pomeroy. “In their time with AB&C, they have contributed to agency growth by expanding and honing their professional specialties and have proven their ability to take on leadership roles that exceed expectations for our clients. We are excited to have Alex, Shawn and Colleen in these elevated roles.” 

About AB&C

Aloysius Butler & Clark (AB&C) is one of the largest independent full-service marketing communications agencies on the East Coast. AB&C has offices in Philadelphia and Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, as well as Wilmington, Delaware, and operates remotely across the globe. The agency’s remarkable 54-year growth is a byproduct of a unique, client-centric business structure. Our clients are regional, national and international in scope—and concentrated in five core market segments: healthcare, behavior change, recruitment marketing, consumer and specialty B2B. We combine deep business expertise in these five key industry segments with a robust team of omnichannel experts. The result is the best of everything. Always deeply strategic. Always creatively breaking through. Never the same.

Agency welcomes Alex Wittchen as managing director of strategy and Annette DeHaven as associate director of employer brand strategy. 

WILMINGTON, Del. (May 15, 2025) — Aloysius Butler & Clark (AB&C), one of the largest independent full-service marketing communications agencies on the East Coast, has expanded their strategy team with the addition of two key hires. Alex Wittchen, managing director of strategy, will oversee the entire agency’s strategic offering. Meanwhile, Annette DeHaven joins the agency’s recruitment marketing team as associate director of employer brand strategy. These additions are part of a multiyear strategic structuring to better meet the growing need for integrated strategies among AB&C’s expanding roster of B2B and B2C clients.

“We’ve been carefully seeking the right professionals to enrich current client relationships—and secure new ones—by being strategic problem-solvers,” said Paul Pomeroy, AB&C’s chief executive officer. “Clients are looking to us not to just ‘make great work’ but to also take a more comprehensive, strategic approach, and then be the very best executors of all the tactics that support that strategy. The addition of Alex and Annette further elevates AB&C’s ability to do this in two areas of consistent growth for our agency.”

Before joining AB&C as managing director of strategy, Wittchen spent seven years with 160/90, building and running the brand strategy practice, winning a gold and silver Clio Award in the process. Her experience spans multiple verticals—from professional sports and entertainment to higher education, healthcare and more—and has taken her to Belgium and Rome to develop brands.

DeHaven, associate director of employer brand strategy, brings more than 20 years of experience partnering with global organizations to develop and activate employer brands, internal communications and recruitment marketing strategies, as well as high-performance career sites. Most recently, she served as account director with Ph.Creative, where she led the management of the agency’s top global accounts, resulting in a silver Transform Award (North America) for Best Employer Brand in 2023. 

Over the past several years, annual growth at AB&C has been steady, encompassing multiple divisions, including healthcare, behavior change, recruitment marketing, B2B and B2C. AB&C projects continued, consistent growth through and beyond its 54th year in the industry, as the agency remains true to its Delaware roots while expanding its community footprint in and around the Philadelphia metro area.

About AB&C

Aloysius Butler & Clark (AB&C) is one of the largest independent full-service marketing communications agencies on the East Coast. AB&C has offices in Philadelphia and Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, as well as Wilmington, Delaware, and operates remotely across the globe. The agency’s remarkable 54-year growth is a byproduct of a unique, client-centric business structure. Our clients are regional, national and international in scope—and concentrated in five core market segments: healthcare, behavior change, recruitment marketing, consumer and specialty B2B. We combine deep business expertise in these five key industry segments with a robust team of omnichannel experts. The result is the best of everything. Always deeply strategic. Always creatively breaking through. Never the same.

Branding isn’t just about marketing; it’s about consistency. A strong brand is built on a well-defined message platform—a strategic foundation that ensures every interaction, from marketing to HR to clinical care, reinforces your brand identity.

More Than Marketing: A Brand’s Strategic Backbone

Branding is often misunderstood. It’s not just a logo, a tagline or an ad campaign. It’s the DNA of your organization—the essence of who you are and what you stand for. A message platform provides the framework for this truth. It defines key messaging pillars, tone and positioning, ensuring every department communicates a unified story. Without it, you risk creating fragmented messaging that confuses your audience and weakens your brand.

Aligning Messaging Across Departments

Your message platform isn’t just for the marketing team. It should guide communication across HR, patient billing, clinical teams and leadership. Every touchpoint shapes your brand perception, from a patient’s first call to a financial-assistance discussion to a follow-up appointment

While different service lines may have unique messaging nuances, they should all be consistent with the overarching brand narrative. Whether speaking to pediatric patients or orthopedic surgery candidates, the messaging should feel cohesive, intentional and aligned with your brand promise.

The Bottom Line

Without a well-defined message platform, your brand risks being diluted or misunderstood. A clear, strategic messaging framework ensures every communication reinforces your brand identity and resonates with your audience.

Is your brand messaging aligned? If not, let’s build a platform that ensures consistency, clarity and impact.

Let’s set the stage for a story that is becoming increasingly more common in recruiting.

You’re a talent acquisition leader who has invested in crafting and refining a compelling employer brand. You’ve carefully articulated an employee value proposition (EVP) that is crystal clear at every candidate touchpoint. Your current team members boast about your innovative work environment, team-based culture and their high employee satisfaction on social media.

At this point, you’ve got a great pool of talent, but you just don’t have the bandwidth to handle the volume. So, you decide to streamline hiring by introducing agentic AI—an advanced form of artificial intelligence capable of acting autonomously to complete complex tasks without human intervention. You do your research and find a promising solution. With a little tinkering to the programming, you’re sure that it can be an engaging and friendly first touchpoint for candidate outreach and screening.

In theory, everything seems great. Even the first candidate who uses it is initially impressed—not just by the speed of the company’s response, but also by the ingenious use of AI. They may even think, “Wow, this company is ahead of the curve. This kind of efficiency must make it an incredible place to work. This is exactly what I would expect from a place known for innovation.”

But then things take a turn

The agentic AI solution starts getting into more in-depth interview questions than the candidate was prepared for in an automated screening. Instead of expected questions like “Do you have eight years of experience?” or “When would you be available for a call with a recruiter?”, the candidate is asked something far more complex, like “Tell me about a time you worked with a cross-functional team to solve a challenging problem.” The candidate pauses to collect their thoughts—but before they can respond fully, the bot chirps, “Got it! Great answer!” and moves on. The moment is gone. The candidate is left wondering, “Did it even register what I said? Who will review my response? Did I just blow my chance at this job?

This scenario isn’t just a hypothetical; it’s playing out right now in the marketplace. And frustrated job seekers are sharing real experiences like this on LinkedIn and Reddit. Hilke Schellmann, the author of The Algorithm, recently walked through a similar case that is worth a watch, highlighting how AI can create unintended roadblocks for candidates. And while candidates are tacitly receptive to the speed and efficiencies AI offers, they are leery about AI playing the role of human agent, or worst yet, a gatekeeper to their employment.

The Future of AI in Recruitment

We know that Agentic AI is projected to reshape HR and recruitment with the market expected to grow significantly in the coming years. Data from the Academy to Innovate HR (AIHR) suggests that 92% of HR leaders are planning to ramp up their AI usage. Additional projections indicate that 80% of Forbes’ Global 2000 are expected to expand the use of AI for training, onboarding and hiring by the end of 2025. The potential benefits in efficiency, data-driven decision-making and scalability are immense. But the risks of a poorly implemented AI strategy are equally concerning.

Striking the Right Balance

This is where an organization’s employer brand comes into play. AI can be used to reinforce components of an employer brand (particularly innovation), but if it fails at capturing the human essence of your brand, it can erode trust and engagement—two critical factors in attracting and retaining top talent. Companies that rely too heavily on AI-driven recruiting tasks without considering the candidate experience may unknowingly create a cold, transactional hiring process that contradicts their EVP.

The Takeaway

AI is not inherently good or bad for an employer brand—it all depends on how it’s used. If AI is your first touchpoint with candidates, ensure it reflects your EVP and balances efficiency with human connection. Otherwise, the very technology designed to help may end up harming your reputation in ways you never anticipated.

Hours after the Eagles’ stunning NFC championship win, chants of “E-A-G-L-E-S” were still echoing along Broad Street. Fans were furiously booking trips to New Orleans. Meanwhile, a small team at AB&C was quietly and quickly plotting their next move. Ahead of the Eagles’ return to the “big game,” AB&C set out to give our Philly faithful a unique way to shout our team pride from the rooftops and take a fun jab at KC fans along the way.

We strategically placed a billboard outside Arrowhead Stadium, and in just one week, we made headlines around the country and raised money for two great causes.

Here’s how things played out:

Several days before the big game in New Orleans, AB&C went live with a billboard on I-435. It featured a local Kansas City area code and a compelling message: “816-323-GO KC—call for a pep rally in your pocket.” Callers were greeted not by a KC message, but a rousing version of the “Fly, Eagles, Fly!” fight song instead. In a press release posted 24 hours later, AB&C took credit for the stunt. But our campaign wasn’t just about making some noise—it was also about making an impact. In our release, we explained our pledge to donate $1 per call to a designated charity in both Kansas City and Philadelphia, with a total donation maximum of $2,500 to the Hunt Family Foundation and the Eagles Autism Foundation.

The response was overwhelming. While maybe not as fast as a Saquon Barkley sprint into the endzone, our billboard quickly went viral, gaining the attention and engagement of not only the people driving by but also millions of people across the country—thanks to a little (tush) push from our social and PR teams. Over seven days, engagement metrics exceeded expectations:

• Total social media impressions: 639,050

• Total number of news stories: 107

• Calls to the board’s phone number: 333,487

The day of the Eagles’ big win, we replaced the original billboard with a new message: “Hey, KC, Thanks for Answering the Call. Donations made to the Hunt Family Foundation and Eagles Autism Foundation.” We also placed a corresponding “Thanks, Philly” board near Lincoln Financial Field.

Everything came together to generate these numbers. We saw activity on our own social channels as well as posts from other people and organizations, ranging from news outlets and sports influencers to fans in both cities and beyond. Major media outlets also covered the story, including network affiliates in Philadelphia and Kansas City, USA TODAY Sports, Yahoo! Sports, MSN, Vice, DraftKings, Reddit and many others.

The Eagles’ return to the big game gave AB&C a unique opportunity to put our agency resources and expertise to work, showing our Philadelphia spirit, engaging fans from both cities in a fun rivalry and giving back to both communities in a meaningful way. In true AB&C fashion, we pushed ourselves to see just “how high” we could fly with the Eagles. We are incredibly happy to show the country what the City of Brotherly Love is all about. And we appreciate all who joined in to show their team spirit.

Candidates expect more than a one-size-fits-all experience that doesn’t reflect their unique needs and motivations during the hiring process. And if they do get what feels like a generic candidate journey, they just might move on. This can be especially true for top talent who know their worth. Persona-led candidate journeys can play an essential part in helping your organization stand out and help build stronger connections with the people you hope to hire.

What Are Persona-Led Candidate Journeys?

A persona-led candidate journey is a strategic approach to recruitment that moves beyond demographics and a job description to tap into what truly drives candidates for a specific role or job type—their motivations, challenges and career aspirations.

The power of persona-led journeys lies in their ability to reinforce your employee value proposition (EVP) to ensure that every touchpoint—whether a job description, career site, social media content or recruiter conversation—feels personal, relevant and compelling to the right candidate.

Key Benefits of Persona-Led Candidate Journeys

1. Personalized Candidate Experience: Customizing content, job recommendations and messaging according to a candidate’s persona enriches the recruitment experience, making it more relevant and engaging to convert the candidate into your pipeline.
2. Increased Candidate Engagement: By presenting information and opportunities that align with a candidate’s career aspirations and stage in the hiring funnel, persona-led journeys foster deeper engagement with your organization.
3. Improved Job Matches: Personalized job recommendations ensure that candidates encounter roles that more closely match their skills, experience and career goals for a more positive—and less frustrating— candidate experience.
4. Strengthened Employer Brand: A recruitment process that acknowledges and addresses the individual needs of candidates strengthens the employer brand, showcasing the company as one that values and understands its applicants.

How to Craft Candidate Personas

Collect Insights and Information: Start the process by gathering data. This step involves delving into the backgrounds of past successful hires, engaging with current employees through surveys or interviews, and keeping an eye on prevailing industry trends. Aim to collect diverse details, such as demographic information, job preferences, motivations and aspirations related to their careers.

Create Segments: Organize your potential candidates into clear segments that share common attributes. These segments will serve as the groundwork for developing your candidate personas. Typical segments might encompass categories, such as recent college graduates, or be role-based, like a nurse specializing in critical care.

Highlight Challenges: Pinpoint the specific challenges and obstacles faced by candidates within each segment as they navigate their job search or seek career progression. These challenges could range from achieving a satisfactory work-life balance to meeting salary expectations to finding opportunities for career advancement.

Understand Aspirations and Drivers: Get to the heart of what propels candidates forward in each segment. Is it the pursuit of a rewarding career, the desire for swift professional growth, or the search for an employer whose values resonate with their own? Clarify their underlying motivations and objectives.

Build Rich Personas: Using the insights from your research and segmentation, construct comprehensive candidate personas. Assign each persona a name and a visual identity to bring them to life. Flesh out each persona with critical details, including their job title, educational background, career ambitions, key challenges, where they go for news and entertainment, and what motivates them. This step transforms abstract data into tangible, relatable profiles that can guide your recruitment strategy.

Implementing Persona-Led Candidate Journeys on Your Career Website

Implementing persona-led candidate journeys on your career site involves identifying key candidate personas, mapping out their typical journey from job discovery to application to conversion into a talent community, and pinpointing where personalization can have the most impact. Think about:

• Improving ways to streamline navigation by creating easy pathways by persona.
• Removing friction by tailoring the apply process to different experience levels and job types. Develop and deliver content that caters to each persona’s needs, whether through personalized job recommendations, company insights, testimonials or storytelling,
• Adding rich content to job postings, such as a day in the life video, and authentic job expectations to encourage self-selection from candidates who might not be the right fit.

Utilizing analytics to track interactions across the journey will help you continuously optimize your persona-led journeys too.

The ROI of Persona-Led Candidate Journeys

In a recent Candidate Experience Report by Career Plug, 36% of job seekers said they have declined an offer because of a negative experience while 66% of candidates said that a positive experience influenced their decision to accept an offer. Adopting persona-led journeys yields significant improvements in recruitment outcomes, including higher application completion rates, improved candidate quality, reduced time-to-hire and stronger employer branding.

As an employer brander, you’re sold on storytelling. You know deep down in your heart that the people you want to hire aren’t going to be satisfied by reading a list of your company’s values on the career site. They want to see them in action. What does growth look like? How do coworkers collaborate and celebrate successes? What’s the reality of a day in the life for someone in the same role?  

When these questions are answered by your people, the effect is powerful not only for attracting and engaging new talent but also for inspiring pride and advocacy in employees. And with every story, your EVP, personas and messaging framework collectively serve as your strategy’s north star — guiding your approach to storytelling in ways that will connect with the right audience, stir emotion and leave a lasting impression.

Budget, resources and time can challenge even the most “sold” employer brand leader to get a working plan off their vision board. How to begin can seem daunting, but when mapped across the entire talent lifecycle, the incredible possibilities of such stories are endless, too. So, let’s think about a realistic and very doable plan in the forever classic crawl, walk, run approach.

Crawl: Start with the Basics

Oh, where to begin? A great way to start is by developing content in the form of an employee Q&A blog series. Create a standard set of persona-led questionnaires to make the process scalable, easier to produce and focused on connecting with your target audiences internally and externally. Think of the resulting blogs as storytelling snapshots with bite-sized insights perfectly tailored to specific talent groups. For example, if your target persona is a group known to be ambitious problem-solvers, include a question that invites them to share a memorable challenge they successfully tackled or learned a ton from.

Add some at-work or at-play photos to the mix (bonus points if they’re candid) and you’ve got yourself the start of some very clickable and sharable content. Across relevant career site pages, job descriptions, social posts, nurture campaigns and even your company’s intranet or newsletter, a blog series can be the gift that keeps on giving when integrated into a wide variety of activations.

Walk: Take It up a Notch

Next, consider stepping it up to UGC (user-generated content) videos. Get employees and leadership excited and comfortable with the idea. Frame the exercise as a way to share authentic stories about being part of the team because an employee’s point of view is the ultimate job description. Provide clear guidelines and a prompt for each video request, such as “What’s your favorite thing about working here?” Even better, share an example or two of great UGC videos to inspire employees. While you can also offer optional training or tools to help with audio and video quality, like phone stands or ring lights, the camera on their phone or laptop is likely all that they’ll need. We really want to keep these real.

YouTube UGC videos versus brand-produced videos receive 10 times more views. As a dynamic element to your many talent touchpoints, imagine the impact on generating very meaningful engagement and quality conversions. And don’t forget to acknowledge and celebrate the employees who participate. Shining a spotlight on their stories company-wide helps build trust and jump-starts advocacy.

Run: Invest in Production

Moving right along, give serious consideration to investing in a professionally produced video series. Now, don’t worry. “Produced” doesn’t mean polished to the point of perfection. Authenticity still reigns supreme, but a little cinematic flair can go a very long way. Produced videos can creatively highlight key stories, showcase leadership or bring your EVP to life in a way that’s consistent with the look and feel of your employer brand that adds yet another level of credibility. Plus, the footage, including the bloopers, can be cut and recut into all sorts of applications to motivate and retain top talent.

The ROI of Storytelling

Investing in storytelling isn’t just a feel-good exercise; it’s also a business decision. According to LinkedIn, candidates are 3x more likely to trust a company’s employees over the company itself. By sharing real employee stories, you’re building trust, shaping perceptions, engaging candidates and fostering a sense of belonging before a candidate hits the “apply now” button or a new hire fires up their brand-new laptop on day one.

When tenured employees see their stories valued and shared, it deepens their connection to your organization. They can become your most authentic ambassadors, amplifying your brand to their networks and expanding your organic reach exponentially all by genuinely wanting to share this type of content.

So, whether you’re crawling, walking or running, the key is to start somewhere and make authentic storytelling an ongoing and highly rewarding journey.

Hospitals and Sporting Events: A Winning Partnership

Healthcare marketing is evolving. As patients become more informed and discerning, healthcare organizations must rethink their approach to brand visibility and engagement. Enter sports sponsorship. It’s a strategic move that positions healthcare brands in front of passionate, engaged audiences, especially when high-profile FIFA and MLB events are headed our way.

The Shift to Healthcare Consumerism

The traditional patient-provider dynamic has changed. Today, consumers expect more from their healthcare experience, weighing quality, cost and convenience like any other major purchase. Rising deductibles and out-of-pocket costs are driving consumers to make more deliberate choices about their care. Healthcare organizations must compete for attention and trust—and sports sponsorships offer a powerful way to do just that.

Why Sports Sponsorships Make Sense

For decades, beverage brands, fast-food chains and tech companies have capitalized on sports sponsorships. Now hospitals and insurance companies are catching up. The connection is natural: Sports embody physical health, wellness and peak performance—values that align seamlessly with healthcare.

In 2023, NewYork-Presbyterian became the first health system to put its logo on an MLB uniform, through a partnership with the New York Mets. Currently, there are healthcare organizations that are patch partners with the MLB, WNBA, NBA, MLS and National Women’s Soccer League. The NBA patch deals are estimated to be worth $7 million to $10 million annually, according to The Athletic. Health systems are using varying levels of partnership to promote initiatives like Breast Cancer Awareness Day and youth wellness programs, and to reinforce their commitment to community health. These partnerships go beyond logo placement; they engage audiences through meaningful activations that drive awareness, trust and even patient acquisition.

The Competitive Advantage

A well-executed sports sponsorship does more than boost brand recognition. It fosters community engagement, reinforces a commitment to wellness and differentiates your brand in a crowded market. As healthcare consumerism grows, strategic partnerships like these can enhance brand affinity and influence patient decisions.

Is your healthcare brand ready to step onto the field? Let’s talk about how the right sponsorship strategy can elevate your brand and create lasting impact.

In this time of economic uncertainty and job insecurity, power has swung back from the job seeker to the employer in the hiring process. Combine this with possible lingering resentment from employers being “ghosted” by candidates and the job hopping of the last few years, hiring companies may be less invested in the candidate experience. Eight in ten hiring managers admit to “ghosting” candidates, and Kevin Grossman of ERE Media, Inc. predicts the “candidate experience will be in a free fall in 2025.” This is the time to positively differentiate yourself from your competitors and foster good will among job seekers.

A poor candidate experience can cause damage to your company’s reputation. According to Lisa Shuster in Forbes, “Not responding to candidates who take the time to apply or express interest in an open position can lead potential hires to believe your company doesn’t treat job seekers well or value its people. This sentiment can spread and harm your employer brand because applicants you’ve ‘ghosted’ won’t hesitate to leave poor online reviews and tell everyone in their networks.” While you may see a minimal impact upon your company’s reputation in the current economic climate, good candidates may still “ghost” you in favor of another job offer or may not apply at all. Those negative online reviews also don’t disappear so they can cause long-lasting damage to your company’s reputation and, when the pendulum swings back in favor of job seekers, your company may be on the outside looking in.

One consequence of a poor candidate experience you may not consider is damage to your overall business. As Lisa Shuster notes, “When my company iHire surveyed a Qualtrics panel of 600 U.S. job seekers this past March, we found that nearly 40% of candidates would be less likely to interact with a brand in the future (buy their products, follow them on social media, etc.) if they applied and didn’t hear back from the employer.” If job seekers feel slighted, the impact can go far beyond considering any future openings and affect the bottom line of your business. On the other hand, cultivating a positive job candidate experience can help your overall business. According to Kevin Grossman, a positive candidate experience can result in “more referrals, more revenue, and more brand advocacy.” As you can see, how you treat job candidates can reverberate across your whole company.

Here are some suggestions:

1. Ensure that there is an automated message confirming that the application has been received, and, if possible, an estimated timeline of the review process. The less mystery, the better!
2. If the job opening is for a hard-to-fill position (physicians, nurses, etc.), personal outreach from a recruiter will make a difference. A generic and/or automated response just won’t cut it.
3. Notify candidates in a timely manner if they are not being considered for the opening. They will appreciate the respect instead of silence.
4. For those no longer being considered for an opening, offer to add them to your company’s “talent community” (if you don’t have one, now is a good time to create one) so they may receive notifications of future openings they may be interested in and insights into what’s happening at your organization to keep them engaged.
5. For those you are considering for an open position, send regular updates at every stage of the hiring process, especially if the steps are taking longer than expected following an interview.

Job candidates have always valued genuine contact and honest feedback in the recruitment process and this is especially true now, when they feel less empowered and more vulnerable. Timely and genuine communication with a candidate will not only affect your ability to recruit the best candidates, but also can generate good will that helps your company in the long run.