A Publicist's Guide on How to Prep Your CEO to Talk About Your Employer Brand Without Looking Stupid

An employer brand is the story of a company. It’s what potential candidates care about when deciding if a business is the right place for them. 

Members of the C-Suite, especially your CEO, need to be able to talk about your employer brand in an effective, engaging way to attract and retain top talent. This becomes especially difficult when a company is in crisis management mode after an employer brand fail. 

We talked to three PR pros on how to prep your CEO to talk about your employer brand thoughtfully, authentically, and effectively – and without looking stupid, of course. 

Define Your Employer Brand

The first step in prepping the CEO to talk about your employer brand is to communicate why employer branding is important in the first place. 

“Employer branding is a crucial element of the conversation when a prospective employee is considering an opportunity for employment,” says Ginny Horne, Senior Account Specialist for Eckel & Vaughan and M.A. graduate of the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, a top-ranked journalism school in the U.S. “Prospective employees want to understand what they can expect to get out of the deal.”

Job seekers are looking for so much more than just a list of facts about the company, and if your CEO simply recites a few talking points to describe your employer brand, they will see right through it. Ginny adds, “These days, employees are looking for information on the atmosphere they can expect from your organization in addition to the more traditional benefits information.”

Get Your Story Straight

So, how does your CEO talk about the employer brand without appearing disingenuous? The simple answer is storytelling, the narrative about the company that will attract skilled, in-demand talent. 

Ginny suggests “focusing on people by providing real and genuine anecdotes about the company’s existing employees and initiatives for the development of a positive work environment.” 

Using this people-first approach makes it easier to make a personal connection with future employees. The most important ingredient in telling your brand story is authenticity. 

“Being authentic, vulnerable, and honest is important for all leaders in a company, but particularly critical for a CEO,” says Victoria Shockley, a Senior Account Executive at Krupp Kommunications, Inc. who has worked with over 70 prominent brands “Everyone in the company is looking to you as the highest leader.”

At the same time, Victoria cautions that the CEO needs to understand what can’t or shouldn’t be shared, especially when being interviewed by a member of the media where something the CEO says could end up on the homepage of a major news outlet. “We can expect to know the subject of the interview,” says Victoria, “but we cannot expect to always have a draft of the article to review before it goes to publication.”

To build a story-centric employer branding strategy, Ginny suggests having a list of examples for the CEO to pull from. But don’t just hand it off and call it a day. Part of the publicist’s job is to prepare the CEO, and this is best accomplished through media training. 

Gather the Team

Media training is a team sport, and to be effective, you need full participation and cooperation from all your major players. 

“It's important that you have your PR team or practitioner at the table, helping to prepare the CEO,” says Michelle Garrett, a Public Relations Consultant who was named the sixth most influential PR professional by Commetric in April 2021 and a Top Digital PR Leader in 2020. “That can be overlooked at times, so that is step one in the right direction.”

Together, develop a helpful toolkit for the CEO that includes all the information needed to effectively communicate the employer brand.  

What should be included in this toolkit? Ginny recommends including the following items:

• Key messaging and boilerplate document to ensure the CEO hits on the major points

• Backgrounder memo to ensure they are aware of existing policies that speak to the company's employer brand

• FAQ document to prepare them for potential questions

According to Victoria, the first bullet point is the most essential – media training is all about helping your CEO “understand the key messages they are hoping to get across in any interview, particularly if their time with the reporter is short, such as a three-minute or six-minute TV segment.”

To accomplish this, she suggests using an inverted pyramid strategy. For this strategy, the most important messages make up the base of the pyramid. What are the most important aspects of your employer brand? Include the most effective talking points in this section. As you move up the pyramid, include the details that support the employer brand story, such as statistics, sources, and other background information. 

Remember, the base of the pyramid isn’t a general overview – first and foremost, your CEO needs to be communicating the employer brand story using real, tangible examples of employee experiences. 

Practice Makes Perfect

Once you worked together to write out talking points and key messaging, Michelle advises practicing those points out loud to help prepare the CEO. “You can do a mock interview so they can rehearse until they feel confident,” she says. “You don't want them to sound like a robot, but you do want them to feel confident in what they're saying.”

No matter how friendly your relationship is with a reporter, your CEO could always be hit with some tough questions. Take time during your media training session to make sure they are fully prepared, no matter what is thrown their way during an interview. 

“It's good to acknowledge that CEOs can be fearful of saying the wrong thing – and creating a potential crisis,” added Michelle. “If you acknowledge that and understand where they may be coming from, that can help you prepare them to say the RIGHT things (not something that will create a controversy).”

Handling a Brand Fail

Of course, sometimes controversy is unavoidable, and preparing a CEO for an interview after a brand fail is one of the toughest jobs a publicist has.

One of the more epic brand fails in recent history is the Wells Fargo diversity debacle profiled in The New York Times. The bank adopted a diversity policy in 2020 meant to increase the diversity of its staff. According to the policy, hiring managers had to meet quotas for how many women and people of color were interviewed for a job. However, in order to fill these quotas, former employees claim they were forced to conduct “fake interviews” with candidates who had no chance of getting the job. 

The diversity program was paused three weeks after The New York Times story broke with plans to relaunch it after retraining hiring managers. The CEO of Wells Fargo, Charles Scharf, likely received some serious media training after his 2020 comment that the bank lacks diversity because “there is a very limited pool of black talent” – a statement that he later apologized for.

To make sure your CEO doesn’t make a similar appalling mistake after a brand fail, Michelle suggests being aware of any tough questions and having an answer prepared. But she stresses that the CEO should address the brand frail only IF it comes up during the interview. They should not bring it up themselves. 

Victoria adds, “When doing an interview, never lie to the reporter! Be honest and real about what is going on. People appreciate and respect someone who is honest and can own up to any mistakes in a humble and open way.”

Final Thoughts 

Michelle has one final piece of advice for publicists prepping CEOs to talk about your employer brand. After an interview with the media or any time the CEO speaks publicly, “do a debrief afterward to talk about what went right and what could be improved.” 

After that, all you have to do is monitor for coverage and be ready for next time. 

Jennifer Johnson is a writer and researcher who works primarily in career services, recruiting, content development, and PR. But she's been known to take on any project that piques her interest.

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