Authentic Recruiting Practices - Talent Director

Career Advice from People & Talent Director

Author

Joe Atkinson
December 20, 2024

Welcome! Today we're looking at 5 key ideas on authentic recruitment and career development from Brandon Jeffs.

Currently People & Talent Director at TLDR, Brandon has built talent functions from scratch at multiple companies and loves solving people and talent problems.

Each quote offers a practical perspective on recruitment and career development with some tied to setting your own goals (just in time for New Year…)

If you’d like to hear the full interview, it’s available on YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Before we dive in I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has supported us at Purpl this year.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, as a Christmas present from Purpl here’s a free course on us:

Available to everyone, for free, HERE.

Onto the wisdom…

1. Communication

"If you say the words 'A players’ or ‘top talent', if you're not at a conference and you're not on stage, you just sound weird."

Authentic candidate communication is a massive focus for Brando. He spends a lot of time making sure all written communication matches how he communicates with candidates face to face.

Instead of buzzwords he focuses on specific skills, experience and what success looks like within the role.

2. Personal Mission Statement

"My personal mission statement is to empower the employee-employer relationship in the future of work."

Brandon is the first recruiter I've met with a personal mission statement. This might sound a bit crazy at first, but this acts as his north start to guide his career decision and professional development.

I also love it because recruitment can be tough at times, this acts as a reminder for how impactful the role it is.

Let me know if you have your own mission statement!

3. Consistency

"If your website says one thing, but your interviewers' behaviours say another, you're going to see candidate drop off."

This was a great call out, your job ads and your interview panel are likely to be disconnected. Dissonance here can only impact the candidate experience negatively.

A couple of key takeaways here might be 1.) investing time aligning upfront will nearly always pay you back, and 2.) being honest about the challenges in your marketing will attract the people you actually need.

4. Skills

"Take it a step further from T-shaped to pie shaped or comb shaped being able to go deep on a few areas of the business."

I’m a massive fan of building T-shaped skillsets in talent acquisition, with an area of specialism paired with broad knowledge in other areas.

Brando takes this a step further by developing multiple areas of specialism (for example HR and marketing) to create more value in every role but also more varied career opportunities.

What’s your top skill to develop next year? (Mine is copywriting!)

5. Peer Learning

"Spend a third of your time with those 10 years ahead of you, a third of your time with your peers, and a third of your time with the emerging generation.”

You might call me biased for supporting peer-to-peer learning…

Brando’s framework makes a tone of sense to help you learn from experience, collaborate with peers, and stay connected to new perspectives all at once. It's a simple framework but incredibly effective for career development.

The Common Thread

What stood out for me from talking to Brando was his emphasis on being intentional and authentic. Whether it's writing job descriptions, building employer brands, or developing your career, the focus is always on being genuine and strategic rather than following conventional wisdom.

✅ That's it for this week! We hope these practical tips help, please reply to this email with any feedback - we'd love to hear it.

💜 If you’re interested in learning more from TA leaders, check out PURPL. We have courses on ALL areas of operational talent acquisition within a single subscription.