AMA with Katrina Honer, Twilio’s Employer Brand & Recruitment Marketing Specialist
Jimmy Daly
August 12, 2022
Welcome to our AMA with Katrina Honer, Employer Brand & Recruitment Marketing Specialist at Twilio.
Katrina is a jack of all trades and master of many. After working five years in the pharmaceutical translation and localization industry, she learned how to slide into DMs professionally and land interviews creatively to pivot into ed-tech event marketing and again into tech employer brand & recruitment marketing at the height of the pandemic. Outside of her day job, she teaches others how to accelerate their job search.
Today’s AMA is all about employer branding/recruitment marketing, resume tips, networking, and pitching yourself. Let's go!
What are your best tips for creating a personal brand and consistently posting on LinkedIn?
Katrina: I suggest leaning into
What you actually like (on a personal level) and coupling that with/highlighting your skills as a “fill in the blank here.”
Your authentic self (what you enjoy doing, your likes/pet peeves, your interests) and how that shines through your work.
LinkedIn is obviously home to so many amazing professionals. My hot take is people want to know more about the actual person behind the job title. You're more than your title and the work you do. You're a real person who has hobbies and interests likely others want to know more about.
Ideas for more genuine content
How does your job/line of work allow you to live the life you want OUTSIDE of the “office?”
Wins AND losses—diving deeper into why that win matters to you and the struggles you faced and how to overcome them.
How do your personal interests make you a better “fill in the blank here?”
How can you tie all these ideas together back to a piece of advice another professional can put into action?
For example, I talk A LOT about anime and how I transform my nerdy interests into tactical marketing strategies and life lessons. (Yes, I have an employee ambassador program at Twilio that was influenced by Attack on Titan and it’s a big hit).
Sometimes I simply talk about things I’ve learned as a professional and how that applies to my personal relationships. Content doesn’t necessarily need to be expert tips; it can simply be things other professionals can relate to you on a personal level. What is considered “professional?” Simply put—don’t be a jerk! Everything else should be fair game.
If I've done content marketing in one industry but am looking to move into another, how do I pitch myself and navigate that career transition?
Katrina: When pivoting careers, the one thing I often like to tell folks is that oftentimes, you don’t need a new resume, you need a better story.
Hot take: Not all experience is relevant experience so it's really about taking your experience you do have and painting a picture that the hiring manager/recruiters in the other industry can easily understand.
If you can’t make your current experience relevant for the new role, it’s best not to include/reference it. For example, if you are a writer and you want to move to a strategist role, the hiring manager is going to care less about how many pieces of content you wrote and more about the HOW you decided what content to create. The job description is your roadmap—take that, have it up next to your current resume and start updating your bullet points and skills to reflect what it is asking for.
Pitching yourself
Additionally, I have found having an objective statement to “bridge the gap” of how you can use your existing skillset to elevate the needs in a different industry is helpful.
Being very clear about how you can use your skills in X to do x,y,z elsewhere.
What you have done as a content marketer and how those skills/outcomes will help you excel in the new role and why they need you.
and proving you actually do it
When I’ve moved into roles where I had zero or little experience, I used a validation project to get noticed. For example, when I moved from PMing to events marketing, the first thing I did was go on a company’s website, took a look at their list of events, and created a marketing deck with other ideas, how I would redesign their booth, etc. and submitted that in my application/outreach. Shows you understand the market, what they are looking for, and how you use your skills. I got the job every time.
What's the best advice you can have for someone looking to pivot into an adjacent role? Like demand gen or community?
Katrina: Everything I mentioned above is something to keep in mind.
But I also want to add, can you get that experience on the job, at your current company right now before you make the job?
Generally, managers are usually pretty cool about allowing their employees to complete “stretch projects” and helping them in their professional goals.
For example, if there is a demand gen or community team at your current place of work, reach out to that team and see how you can help—can you shadow someone? Can you assist on a one-off project? Can you get a mentor?
When you get visibility from others teams, you now have an advocate on your side which should make it easier for you to pivot because you’re doing that work.
If you are freelance—again using a validation project is a great way to get your foot in the door ahead of others.
What are the best ways to make genuine connections/network with others in a mostly-remote setting?
Katrina: Making time out of your day (or week), to spark a connection—big or small.
For example, going into different Slack channels and initiating a conversation and following up personally with those who you had a great chat with for a coffee chat to learn more about them.
Even setting up a reoccurring “meeting” just to chat with someone you hit off with. (And I have quite a few of those on my calendar).
Simply commenting on a post that someone made letting them know how great it was, etc.
You’ll be surprised when you’re a little more honest/vulnerable how many folks are eager to meet others as well. I usually say something like “hey I’ve been at the company for X years, I’ve noticed you do x,y,z, and I’m really looking to meet new people. Are you up for a quick chat?”
What do companies get wrong about recruiting and hiring? Seems like companies don't invest much in it, then get frustrated when hiring is hard. Do you have any tips for what companies should be doing to attract talent?
Katrina: A good place to start is understanding and generating candidate personas so companies actually know where the hell to look. Every company has specific talent they need—you shouldn’t try to attract everyone.
Overall, working on your employer brand. Candidates have so much sway in where they choose to work so getting a sense of what people are saying about the company on things like Glassdoor, Blind, and Fishbowl to name a few can signal red flags that may need to be addressed internally. In this remote setting, candidates flock to social media to get a good understanding of a company’s reputation so working with your content team to create and highlight employee stories is a great way to showcase what it’s like to work at X company and will naturally bring in applicants.
Ensure the application process isn’t a shit show. Career sites are usually the first touch point a candidate has with your company so ensuring its UX is top-notch and the application is easy to follow will help you get that lead.
Look at how your job descriptions are written; great opportunity to highlight culture. You can lose candidates there simply with language. Textio is a great tool to utilize to write impact descriptions.
Build pipeline—implement a referral program so you have a list of leads you can always source from + reward your employees who bring in diverse talent.
I recently started being active on LinkedIn but my biggest obstacle is connecting with others. How do you find people and send them the right message to keep the conversation going and create a great impression?
Katrina: I just did a Tiktok about this! This will definitely answer your questions.
I'm in the midst of a job search and I have EXTENSIVE experience as a content marketing writer, strategist, and editor in creative agencies. I've been the editorial lead on content strategy for companies in the top 10 of the Fortune 500 and done so much else that is really unique and valuable—skills that you can't build in-house. But some hiring managers don't understand that value and choose people who have more in-house experience. How do I communicate the value of my skill set better? Some managers get it but they're usually ones with agency experience themselves.
Katrina: Honestly this is really tough—In reading this, I can tell you’re an asset people would be crazy not to hire for. (Like holy moly please join my team!)
Not many companies have hiring down pat so I can only imagine the folks you’ve spoken to aren’t ones I would want to work with anyway.
HOWEVER, something I learned when I read “Make Your Moment” by Dion Lim was “tone matching.”
Unfortunately, there will always be people who don’t get it and I’ve found getting on “their level” (speaking in their tone or terms and even mimicking some of the exact things they say in my responses in an interview or even an outreach) helps bridge that gap and make it so you’re on a more even playing field.
Or focus more on why you’re looking for in-house instead and the benefits for the said company (As someone who has extensive knowledge via agencies, I want to use my skill in X to do this for Y company because…). I feel this approach focuses more on what you can do for them and likely will capture their attention more
A lot of our clients need our marketing help with recruiting, so much so that I just planned to create an article for our blog around this. What are the first steps an SMB should take to market their job openings? Particularly companies that are recruiting for non-office jobs? Do you have any best practices you stick to, that are maybe unique to recruiting marketing (aka aren’t just marketing best practices)?
Katrina: Marketing comes in at a very specific point in the candidate journey (attract and goes all the way to employee retention) but those marketing efforts are wasted/least effective if said company does not have a solid recruiting foundation to work with.
For SMBs, especially for non-office jobs, those candidates are likely going to be very selective when it comes to choosing their employer of choice. If possible, start by defining a clear and strong Employee Value Proposition (EVP), which is a statement/group of pillars that provide current and future employees with clear reasons to choose and stay with the company. Candidates want stability, flexibility, and growth opportunities, so any company should be ready to address what they offer to entice candidates. For example, having a talk track for your recruiters or an FAQ doc is helpful.
Leverage the right job boards or partnerships—if you’re looking to attract the right persona for the job, you need to post in areas where those personas will be. (The goal isn’t to attract everyone).
If a company can invest in an employee advocacy tool (Such as Smarp), it makes sharing approved company content easy for employees. A one-click button and a job posting that can be shared across all your employees’ networks helps increase reach and drive applications.
Lean into employer brand. Candidates trust what current employees have to say more than what a CEO posts online so use marketing to showcase stories of your employees, what they do, and what your company is like and you’ll drive organic applications.
When structuring an online portfolio as a content marketer, what should we keep in mind? A big one I hear often is context: Who worked on the project, what was the goal, what were the results, etc. Would love to know what else you would suggest to make your content portfolio stand out?
Katrina: There are so many different viewpoints on portfolios and I am too lazy to create one from scratch again. (I have one that I haven’t updated in 4 years).
The best thing I can share is
Don’t treat it like a kitchen sink. You only want to showcase your best work and use section headers to help break out/differentiate your work (Content writing vs. strategy). Every hiring manager will be looking for specific things in your portfolio so you want to help guide them to what’s most relevant.
And actually as you said. I like to keep things brief with the client name (when applicable), purpose, and outcome. And of course images or a copy of the piece of content so they can visually see what you created. You can reduce or add more based on what you are trying to showcase.
I saw in another question that you launched an employee ambassador program at Twilio, would love to hear all about that! I want to launch one but it feels like pulling teeth to get people involved, especially those who feel they don't have anything interesting to say or don't know how to format it.
Katrina: You’d be surprised how many people are willing to participate! It’s about finding those hidden content creators and keeping them engaged.
I first created a proposal.
Purpose of the program, benefits for ambassadors, and benefits for the company (increase applications, referrals, and organic content the marketing team can leverage).
Determined what ambassadors would do and for how long: Participate in two branding challenges every month for a duration of six months. You may create a post from scratch on social, reshare a piece of approved content, or participate in content our larger marketing team is creating.
Create a training (what is an ambassador, benefits, social media best practices, how to promote the company, etc). This is KEY if you want them to create quality content.
Sent out a campaign to collect sign-ups (people answered a series of questions about why they are interested AND had to provide an example of content they created before). People were selected based on their standing with the company (not on a Performance Improvement Plan).
They take the training, we meet every month virtually and I give them a theme so they can create content on their own. (Theme is aligned to a business need/initiative + they are required to use specific tags).
They report how many likes, comments, etc. in a spreadsheet so I can track the effectiveness of organic content
I found six months is a good time frame because people do start getting “tired” and you can always cycle out ambassadors with other folks who join your company!
Welcome to our AMA with Katrina Honer, Employer Brand & Recruitment Marketing Specialist at Twilio.
Katrina is a jack of all trades and master of many. After working five years in the pharmaceutical translation and localization industry, she learned how to slide into DMs professionally and land interviews creatively to pivot into ed-tech event marketing and again into tech employer brand & recruitment marketing at the height of the pandemic. Outside of her day job, she teaches others how to accelerate their job search.
Today’s AMA is all about employer branding/recruitment marketing, resume tips, networking, and pitching yourself. Let's go!
What are your best tips for creating a personal brand and consistently posting on LinkedIn?
Katrina: I suggest leaning into
What you actually like (on a personal level) and coupling that with/highlighting your skills as a “fill in the blank here.”
Your authentic self (what you enjoy doing, your likes/pet peeves, your interests) and how that shines through your work.
LinkedIn is obviously home to so many amazing professionals. My hot take is people want to know more about the actual person behind the job title. You're more than your title and the work you do. You're a real person who has hobbies and interests likely others want to know more about.
Ideas for more genuine content
How does your job/line of work allow you to live the life you want OUTSIDE of the “office?”
Wins AND losses—diving deeper into why that win matters to you and the struggles you faced and how to overcome them.
How do your personal interests make you a better “fill in the blank here?”
How can you tie all these ideas together back to a piece of advice another professional can put into action?
For example, I talk A LOT about anime and how I transform my nerdy interests into tactical marketing strategies and life lessons. (Yes, I have an employee ambassador program at Twilio that was influenced by Attack on Titan and it’s a big hit).
Sometimes I simply talk about things I’ve learned as a professional and how that applies to my personal relationships. Content doesn’t necessarily need to be expert tips; it can simply be things other professionals can relate to you on a personal level. What is considered “professional?” Simply put—don’t be a jerk! Everything else should be fair game.
If I've done content marketing in one industry but am looking to move into another, how do I pitch myself and navigate that career transition?
Katrina: When pivoting careers, the one thing I often like to tell folks is that oftentimes, you don’t need a new resume, you need a better story.
Hot take: Not all experience is relevant experience so it's really about taking your experience you do have and painting a picture that the hiring manager/recruiters in the other industry can easily understand.
If you can’t make your current experience relevant for the new role, it’s best not to include/reference it. For example, if you are a writer and you want to move to a strategist role, the hiring manager is going to care less about how many pieces of content you wrote and more about the HOW you decided what content to create. The job description is your roadmap—take that, have it up next to your current resume and start updating your bullet points and skills to reflect what it is asking for.
Pitching yourself
Additionally, I have found having an objective statement to “bridge the gap” of how you can use your existing skillset to elevate the needs in a different industry is helpful.
Being very clear about how you can use your skills in X to do x,y,z elsewhere.
What you have done as a content marketer and how those skills/outcomes will help you excel in the new role and why they need you.
and proving you actually do it
When I’ve moved into roles where I had zero or little experience, I used a validation project to get noticed. For example, when I moved from PMing to events marketing, the first thing I did was go on a company’s website, took a look at their list of events, and created a marketing deck with other ideas, how I would redesign their booth, etc. and submitted that in my application/outreach. Shows you understand the market, what they are looking for, and how you use your skills. I got the job every time.
What's the best advice you can have for someone looking to pivot into an adjacent role? Like demand gen or community?
Katrina: Everything I mentioned above is something to keep in mind.
But I also want to add, can you get that experience on the job, at your current company right now before you make the job?
Generally, managers are usually pretty cool about allowing their employees to complete “stretch projects” and helping them in their professional goals.
For example, if there is a demand gen or community team at your current place of work, reach out to that team and see how you can help—can you shadow someone? Can you assist on a one-off project? Can you get a mentor?
When you get visibility from others teams, you now have an advocate on your side which should make it easier for you to pivot because you’re doing that work.
If you are freelance—again using a validation project is a great way to get your foot in the door ahead of others.
What are the best ways to make genuine connections/network with others in a mostly-remote setting?
Katrina: Making time out of your day (or week), to spark a connection—big or small.
For example, going into different Slack channels and initiating a conversation and following up personally with those who you had a great chat with for a coffee chat to learn more about them.
Even setting up a reoccurring “meeting” just to chat with someone you hit off with. (And I have quite a few of those on my calendar).
Simply commenting on a post that someone made letting them know how great it was, etc.
You’ll be surprised when you’re a little more honest/vulnerable how many folks are eager to meet others as well. I usually say something like “hey I’ve been at the company for X years, I’ve noticed you do x,y,z, and I’m really looking to meet new people. Are you up for a quick chat?”
What do companies get wrong about recruiting and hiring? Seems like companies don't invest much in it, then get frustrated when hiring is hard. Do you have any tips for what companies should be doing to attract talent?
Katrina: A good place to start is understanding and generating candidate personas so companies actually know where the hell to look. Every company has specific talent they need—you shouldn’t try to attract everyone.
Overall, working on your employer brand. Candidates have so much sway in where they choose to work so getting a sense of what people are saying about the company on things like Glassdoor, Blind, and Fishbowl to name a few can signal red flags that may need to be addressed internally. In this remote setting, candidates flock to social media to get a good understanding of a company’s reputation so working with your content team to create and highlight employee stories is a great way to showcase what it’s like to work at X company and will naturally bring in applicants.
Ensure the application process isn’t a shit show. Career sites are usually the first touch point a candidate has with your company so ensuring its UX is top-notch and the application is easy to follow will help you get that lead.
Look at how your job descriptions are written; great opportunity to highlight culture. You can lose candidates there simply with language. Textio is a great tool to utilize to write impact descriptions.
Build pipeline—implement a referral program so you have a list of leads you can always source from + reward your employees who bring in diverse talent.
I recently started being active on LinkedIn but my biggest obstacle is connecting with others. How do you find people and send them the right message to keep the conversation going and create a great impression?
Katrina: I just did a Tiktok about this! This will definitely answer your questions.
I'm in the midst of a job search and I have EXTENSIVE experience as a content marketing writer, strategist, and editor in creative agencies. I've been the editorial lead on content strategy for companies in the top 10 of the Fortune 500 and done so much else that is really unique and valuable—skills that you can't build in-house. But some hiring managers don't understand that value and choose people who have more in-house experience. How do I communicate the value of my skill set better? Some managers get it but they're usually ones with agency experience themselves.
Katrina: Honestly this is really tough—In reading this, I can tell you’re an asset people would be crazy not to hire for. (Like holy moly please join my team!)
Not many companies have hiring down pat so I can only imagine the folks you’ve spoken to aren’t ones I would want to work with anyway.
HOWEVER, something I learned when I read “Make Your Moment” by Dion Lim was “tone matching.”
Unfortunately, there will always be people who don’t get it and I’ve found getting on “their level” (speaking in their tone or terms and even mimicking some of the exact things they say in my responses in an interview or even an outreach) helps bridge that gap and make it so you’re on a more even playing field.
Or focus more on why you’re looking for in-house instead and the benefits for the said company (As someone who has extensive knowledge via agencies, I want to use my skill in X to do this for Y company because…). I feel this approach focuses more on what you can do for them and likely will capture their attention more
A lot of our clients need our marketing help with recruiting, so much so that I just planned to create an article for our blog around this. What are the first steps an SMB should take to market their job openings? Particularly companies that are recruiting for non-office jobs? Do you have any best practices you stick to, that are maybe unique to recruiting marketing (aka aren’t just marketing best practices)?
Katrina: Marketing comes in at a very specific point in the candidate journey (attract and goes all the way to employee retention) but those marketing efforts are wasted/least effective if said company does not have a solid recruiting foundation to work with.
For SMBs, especially for non-office jobs, those candidates are likely going to be very selective when it comes to choosing their employer of choice. If possible, start by defining a clear and strong Employee Value Proposition (EVP), which is a statement/group of pillars that provide current and future employees with clear reasons to choose and stay with the company. Candidates want stability, flexibility, and growth opportunities, so any company should be ready to address what they offer to entice candidates. For example, having a talk track for your recruiters or an FAQ doc is helpful.
Leverage the right job boards or partnerships—if you’re looking to attract the right persona for the job, you need to post in areas where those personas will be. (The goal isn’t to attract everyone).
If a company can invest in an employee advocacy tool (Such as Smarp), it makes sharing approved company content easy for employees. A one-click button and a job posting that can be shared across all your employees’ networks helps increase reach and drive applications.
Lean into employer brand. Candidates trust what current employees have to say more than what a CEO posts online so use marketing to showcase stories of your employees, what they do, and what your company is like and you’ll drive organic applications.
When structuring an online portfolio as a content marketer, what should we keep in mind? A big one I hear often is context: Who worked on the project, what was the goal, what were the results, etc. Would love to know what else you would suggest to make your content portfolio stand out?
Katrina: There are so many different viewpoints on portfolios and I am too lazy to create one from scratch again. (I have one that I haven’t updated in 4 years).
The best thing I can share is
Don’t treat it like a kitchen sink. You only want to showcase your best work and use section headers to help break out/differentiate your work (Content writing vs. strategy). Every hiring manager will be looking for specific things in your portfolio so you want to help guide them to what’s most relevant.
And actually as you said. I like to keep things brief with the client name (when applicable), purpose, and outcome. And of course images or a copy of the piece of content so they can visually see what you created. You can reduce or add more based on what you are trying to showcase.
I saw in another question that you launched an employee ambassador program at Twilio, would love to hear all about that! I want to launch one but it feels like pulling teeth to get people involved, especially those who feel they don't have anything interesting to say or don't know how to format it.
Katrina: You’d be surprised how many people are willing to participate! It’s about finding those hidden content creators and keeping them engaged.
I first created a proposal.
Purpose of the program, benefits for ambassadors, and benefits for the company (increase applications, referrals, and organic content the marketing team can leverage).
Determined what ambassadors would do and for how long: Participate in two branding challenges every month for a duration of six months. You may create a post from scratch on social, reshare a piece of approved content, or participate in content our larger marketing team is creating.
Create a training (what is an ambassador, benefits, social media best practices, how to promote the company, etc). This is KEY if you want them to create quality content.
Sent out a campaign to collect sign-ups (people answered a series of questions about why they are interested AND had to provide an example of content they created before). People were selected based on their standing with the company (not on a Performance Improvement Plan).
They take the training, we meet every month virtually and I give them a theme so they can create content on their own. (Theme is aligned to a business need/initiative + they are required to use specific tags).
They report how many likes, comments, etc. in a spreadsheet so I can track the effectiveness of organic content
I found six months is a good time frame because people do start getting “tired” and you can always cycle out ambassadors with other folks who join your company!
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