Are You Marketing Jobs or Just Posting Them? The Critical Difference

You don't win by following the playbook. You win by rewriting it. 700 episodes deep with the people who actually built something real. No theory. No fluff. No shortcuts. This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford. What's up, Nicole? Welcome to Right About Now. Thank you. Nice to see you. Good to see you. We have mutual friends. I like what I've read. I love storytelling. So I'm hoping we get into all that today. Okay, I'm ready. Let's do it. Where are we at today, Nicole? West Hollywood, California. There we go. Hollywood. Hollywood. What's happening in West Hollywood in 2026?

Goodness me. You know, I just moved here. I was in the I was affected by the Eaton fire in January of 25. So I've been in Pasadena for a really long time and just thought, you know, I'm going to I'm going to go right into the belly of the beast. I'm going to go right in the center of the city and see how it is. It's good. The roads are not as good as Pasadena, I will say. But there's a lot more to do. Yeah. Yeah. So where do we grow up? Do we grow up in California? Mostly Houston, Texas. All right. Texas. There we go. Now you're getting towards our territory. We're in South Carolina. I saw that. I saw that. Yeah. My accent gives at least half of it away.

Workforce development can be very complicated. There's a lot of steps in it. Recovery when you're coming back out of a fire or disaster is really complicated. So we really have specialized in finding ways to simplify the messaging for the people who need to find the solutions around whatever the subject is, whether it's jobs or getting back into their home after a fire or any other disaster. We figure out sort of where they need to see things and simplify the messages and just make sure they see them. So I hear the DNA agency and I was like, this is a really creative like HR company. Like someone's finally figured out how to market HR, you know? Yeah. Well, you know, and our, our website has, you know, all sorts of DNA kind of, you know, we definitely, people are like, are you the science company?

We are a little, like, I like to say we're a little science, a little art, you know? I like, I think, um, you know, you've been in marketing a long time. If any, anybody that's been in digital advertising for any amount of time, it's, you know, there's a lot of, there's a, there's number crunching, but, um, but my heart is always in story. So. Yeah, I spent the first half, first half of my first half of my career of in the on the brand and analog side. And then the second half and it's, you know, it was more of the art for sure. And then it got into, you know, the storytelling was always there. But then with digital and digital marketing certainly became more data, technical focused.

Where do you fall in that camp? You know, I found a data point that was from well before the Internet that said it takes 21 times for somebody to see something before they'll do something. And that data came from before the 1900s. So well before we got inundated with all of the amount of dog videos that I see on my feed, just that alone. And so I think it is, you know, when you think about where people are seeing and what they're seeing, I think you're right. I think people really need to see something that means something to them and sort of takes them through a journey because, you know, It is going to take them a lot of times, especially when they're not familiar with whatever the thing is.

And when I talk about workforce development, I talk about the fact that we've had maybe a 70-year bad PR campaign around work. You know, it's always been how quickly can you retire? How quickly can you not work? You know, how quickly can you get rich and be done with work? And I think we've lost the idea of the value of work. The joy that can come from doing something you're really good at, doing something that gives you a sense of accomplishment. I saw a TED Talk. It was, gosh, I think like mid-2000s, Mike Rowe about work. And, you know, he was talking about like a trash collector can sometimes be happier than the guy in the corner office. Yeah. And it's an interesting conundrum. You know, he was doing these shows with people doing these really dirty jobs.

And so he had these data points from having worked with people. And so I'm really interested from a story standpoint in like the value of work. It's something that's, gotten me very like jazzed as of late. Like, how do you make job sexy is really the conversation I have with my team. How do you make welding sexy? How do you make engineering sexy? How do you make IT sexy? How do you make construction sexy? You know, my team will be like, oh, right, we want to make it sexy. I'm like, just make it fun. Make it cool. You know, make it something that somebody would want to do.

And they just put a long description that is what you and I like to probably call from marketing word salad. You know, it's just a big old plate of word salad that is really, you know, as uninteresting as reading the phone book that we don't have anymore. But, you know, the days of having phone books. The Rolodex. We can say these things, Nicole. We're old.

So, yeah, I mean, they put these job descriptions out, and then they're really boring. And then they are surprised that people are not interested. And then you have the converse where people are putting their information in. Then they're not hearing anything from the companies. Or they're saying, oh, these people are just putting out because they have to, but they're not really hiring. So there's this... There's this sort of latent battle that's happening in the workforce around there's people saying there's not there's not any jobs. And then the company saying, I can't find any workers. And the reality is, is both are wrong.

And what I would say is that part of the problem is the story in the middle. A big piece of the problem is a story in the middle. How often people see opportunities on the side of the worker and how well people are talking about those jobs to the people who need to see it. And so that communication gap is where the opportunity lies as a marketer, as a storyteller, as somebody who figures out kind of journeys online, journeys in person. How do you clean up a customer journey for somebody who's looking at a career, a job or whatever? And how is an employer or a company or an industry? How easy are you making it for somebody to go through that funnel? How exciting are you making that funnel?

Yeah, go do that. Go eat your own dog food. And then we'll call Nicole together. But right, Nicole? I mean, it's not that fruit. Well, you know, and also you have AI coming into the mix, right? So everyone's like, oh, AI is going to take my jobs. AI is going to take repetitive jobs. But AI can't replace creativity. It can't replace, I mean, in some, it can't replace human experience. It can't replace perspective. And those things are things that people really, really value is understanding, awareness, You know, story, being a human in the world, understanding things that a robot doesn't understand. You know, you look at when people are saying, oh, AI is going to take my job. And, you know, the trades are one industry that I work in a lot.

They're not going to be fixing that anytime. The AI is not going to be taking construction, manufacturing, healthcare jobs. in any, you know, reasonable amount of time. So the trades, physical work, the work that you do with your hands. So there's a really big opportunity for organizations. I mean, the building industry is at a labor shortage of about a million people around the country. So that's the trades. That's anybody. They call them the subs, right? So not the builders. The builders are, they hire the subs. So they hire the plumber, the electrician, the drywaller, the roofer, the The carpenter, the mason, those are all trades that require your hands and for you to be there in person. Those jobs aren't going anywhere. And, you know, when you think about the building industry, you know,

you know, two things happened to create this labor shortage. One, people that had these companies knew that they thought that it was very hard work and they didn't want their kids to do it. They wanted them to go to college and they didn't want them to take over the family business. So that happened. And then in 2008, when the market crashed, a lot of the workers went overseas, went back to their countries and didn't come back. So you have this confluence where you've got these Two situations and you have a massive gap and you've got this gray tsunami that's coming in where all of those people that have those skills are going to be retiring because physically they can't do it anymore. They just want to go hang out on a boat, which God bless.

Yeah. Why not? Yeah. But I think what's interesting is those industries, how and if, how they are talking about that industry, those jobs, how they're talking about it. I think there's a really big gap. And I've watched it happen for the last six years. And, you know, I mean, oftentimes I'll say, how are you fixing this problem? And they'll go, oh, it's a really big problem. I would say, great. Naming it is not fixing it. How are you fixing it? They'll say, oh, we have career fairs. And I will say, how do you market the career fairs? And they will say, and I'm not even joking, paper flyers. I'm like, okay, let me just get this right. You want to fix a million person labor shortage with paper flyers that you cannot track.

work with companies and bringing to life the story that you weave? Like, let's say they're a good company and they're doing some things and it is a good job, but do you help them connect the dots with like maybe the things they should be doing to make that job truly great? Yeah. What we'll do is we will back up. I, you know, I'm a data nerd. I'm a storyteller with a data. My dad was an engineer. So, you know, I come by it genetically. But I always think about how we would know if we're winning. Right. Because I like to win. I like to know when I'm winning. That's a really, you say a lot of things that are simple, Nicole, that are actually deeper than surf's level, because that's a deep statement.

It's like, I know that's important. Yeah, it is. And so I will always track back to what can we track? What can we actually track with this thing you want? How do we track it? And so I was working with a group in Iowa and they had this big, they call it Build My Future. It's a one day event. They bussed in 7,500 kids in Des Moines, all over Iowa, went to the Des Moines area fairgrounds. It's a one day career fair. They had about a hundred vendors. So ROTC was there. I crane operators and electricians and healthcare and all these different places for these kids to come and see what jobs were out there, what kind of careers they could do. And I asked the group afterwards, I said, well, how are you marketing?

I'm like, what are you doing with them afterwards? So they get excited and now what? Yeah. And so they said, well, we're not doing anything. And I said, does that seem like a problem? And they were like, it does. I said, do you want to fix that problem? He said, yeah. I said, okay. So we took the event. We geofenced it for the following year. And we, because they, as high schools, they can't market to students because it's a very, there's all these, you know, variables. And I said, well, everybody has one of these. And this is a big tracking device, all the kids do. I said, so we're going to geofence the event. And then after that event, we're going to market to them.

I said, do you have summer jobs, internships, and apprenticeships for them to go do during the summer? And they said, yeah, let's market to that. So we created a landing page and we created ads that spoke to that. And the signup was an info session to meet with these teachers and the people that were doing it. And we had in like three weeks, 90 kids sign up for a Zoom info session. That's awesome. That sounds like a success. It was, you know, I mean, there's the part of the journey, the part, the workforce journey is a complicated one because the reality was, is that they kind of had those programs ready to go, but they didn't totally. So it was a bit of a miss in that they weren't able to take them the next step of the way, right?

Well, acquisition is one thing, retention is another, right? Yeah, that's... No, they're very true. You can bring them in the front door as fast as you want, but if they're going out the back, it doesn't matter. Yeah. I mean, it's all the things that we know about any company that you've ever liked working for, you know, have it be a good place to work. Have you feeling like there's a learning, there's a, there's a, the next stage of where you can grow, what you can grow into, what you can learn, how you can expand, how you can be part of the success, how you can be part of a bigger, something bigger than you, how you can enjoy the details of that thing, how you've, you know,

mentorship, extra training, skilling up for more money, knowing what kind of certificates or things that could come and bring you more money, more stature, a path where you can see yourself growing. I mean, all of the things that we've ever had is, you know, and what's interesting is kids, when they're coming out, they think they're supposed to know it all. I feel bad for the generations behind me because they were sort of everything was sort of curated and there was this belief that you're supposed to know everything out of the gate. And the reality is, is anybody who's been in their business or career for any amount of time knows that it's, you know, it's sort of, it can be circuitous and it changes, you know?

Right. For sure. Uh, I, I'd put my lifetime earnings versus GPA, uh, against a lot of equals. Yeah. And a lot of people. Correlation has been absolutely zero. Yeah. And I think so many people who, you know, that have created successful companies didn't graduate from college or didn't, you know what I mean? There, it's so much about, um, sort of real world practical understanding of like what you learn out in the world. But I think it's, it goes to the idea of if you see somebody in one way, you're missing all of the opportunities of what they could provide. So I think it's that two-way dialogue. If you're an employer is really looking at an understanding potential and also allowing people to move based on their,

what they're good at. You know, I often, when I'm asking people when they're coming to work with me, I say, what would you do If you could do anything in a day, what would you be doing? Like magic wand. And I do it with my clients when they give me a North Star. I'm like, paint me the picture of how it's done. Right. It's done. It's completed. You get to do it exactly the way you want it. It's like you're writing the script. And it's really interesting because you get to hear what and it's sometimes things you wouldn't have even imagined. So I'm. Yeah, I think that's a long-winded answer to your question. No, it's good. We're getting into some good topics. I love it.

Is there education in that? Because I educate people all the time. I say, go work for somebody. I did it for 15 years. Like, you know, oh, it's cool to be on shore, but I worked for other people for 15 years. I cut my teeth, learned from others, you know, absorbed a lot. So I coach people that way. But I also know if I'd had the tools we have today, I might not have taken the path I did. But I digress. I think you know what I'm asking, Nicole, thoughts here. Well, you're right. Being an entrepreneur is a lot harder than it looks. What people don't realize is you are your own boss and when things have to get done, you're the only one. It definitely is not for the faint of heart.

I would say... I agree with you. Working within a company and within an organization to see how things run when there's a system is really helpful because businesses work best when there's some sort of systems in place. And if you've never worked with another system and you're not systems minded or an operations expert, then it is good to kind of have an experience of what that looks like in another company. Yeah, you know, I think what's interesting is if you have, so I'm all about niches, right? Because I think the niche is where expertise is. That's why I call the company the DNA agency. Because you and I or anybody, you know, if you were a woman and blonde, I would say this as well, which is that you and I are 98% exactly the same genetically.

It's only 2% that makes us different. And yet nobody would say that you and I look the same, are the same, sound the same or anything. So if it's that small amount that makes us different and yet it's everything, that's what I work to extract with my clients, with a company, with yourself when you're out in the job market, is like what makes you completely and utterly unique? What makes this job completely and utterly unique? What makes the product that you want to sell completely and utterly unique? I always tell this story about my big fat Greek wedding. I don't know if you saw that movie. Yeah, it's been a while. It's a cool marketing story, if you haven't heard it. It was Nia Vartalus.

She had a one-woman show. Nobody knew who she was. Tom Hanks' wife, Rita Wilson, is Greek. She thought it was awesome. They said, let's make this into a little independent movie. They go make it, and they have, despite Rita Wilson being Tom Hanks' wife, they don't have really a large marketing budget. Yeah. And so they decide to seed the movie in Greek Orthodox churches before the movie opens and get this like groundswell of support. And it was because it was brilliant. It was brilliant. And it was like all these people that understood that, yes, the best way to clean everything is Windex. And so they opened wider than any romantic comedy of its time before. And for about 30 years after, they stayed in theaters longer than Titanic.

And I use that story because it's all about finding the people that are into the thing you're into. And the great thing about digital marketing and the great thing about the tools we have is you can find those people. You can find that subset of people that are into your tennis shoes that feature comic book characters from the 1980s. You know, like people can find the thing that is that you can really find your audience. And when you focus on the thing that is the specific thing, you can then open yourself up to more. So I use that analogy for a lot of things. I use it for how you sell a product, how you sell yourself, how you sell the opportunity. You know, we're working on a project right now with a group of governments that's along two freeways.

I call it the gateway city. And we've got 42 training programs on this website called the Gateway Cities Hub that and we have narrowed down to what a day in the life of an admin assistant in government looks like. And it is specific to what they do so that I'm not just looking at like admin general. I'm seeing what an admin within government would do. And that's now it now I understand it more. And if you if you're looking to sell somebody on a job, like what makes that job different than any other job? I don't know. I mean, I keep coming back to the more we talk, the. framing of the opportunity instead of the framing of the job. And yeah, it's about the duties and the tasks and all that.

Of course, it is. Here's your list of tasks that you're going to have tasks in anything that this job or that's even not a job. Even if it's fun, if you're planting a garden or doing whatever your hobby is, there's a list of tasks that you have to do to complete it or have success or measured results. But it's all about the opportunity to have impact, right? Because that's what people want. I think when it gets down to it, they want to feel like they have, you know, a purpose and, you know, like a meaning and what they're doing will show up. And I think that's a big part of it, too. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, especially the younger generation, they're not as motivated by the money.

They're they're very motivated by a bigger cause. Like I think there's definitely people are often, you know, motivated by money. But I think definitely like Gen Z, Alpha, they're really about like, what are we doing in the big in the big stage of things, you know, in the big in the big, the big sense of things. And I think as I've started hiring people and what I see motivates people is like, oh, are we doing something cool? Are we doing something that's going to make people's lives better? Are we doing something that's going to impact community and society in a better way? Obviously, working in workforce development, we get to talk about, hey, how quickly can people see jobs and jobs? pay their bills and do the things that they want.

And that I think is a good thing. I have found that my team really is excited by that. They don't feel like they're just selling another widget, you know? So yeah, I think, I do think people want to feel like they're doing something bigger than themselves.

So oftentimes, you know, I'll ask them, what do you think you know and what do you think you what don't you know? Like if you there are things, you know, are there questions or is there insight about these people that you know? you know, the audience that you're going after that you don't know. And let's validate the things that you think you do know, because maybe you don't know at all. And I think that's the thing that I find very interesting as a storyteller, because I started as an actor and then a writer, producer, And so I think like a performer, but my customer journey, I also have a mild version of ADHD. So I get distracted real fast. So it's a combo between how well am I telling a story quickly because I get distracted.

It's just one A. One A. The DNA agency. DNA agency. DNA agency. DNA agency. Okay. Sorry. Exactly. So we have some case studies on there. We have some stories on there. Some cute FAQs and things like that. All my contact info is on there. And I also put, I have been putting more stories on LinkedIn. So we've been doing some story building on LinkedIn. There's some interesting tangential stories. You'll see the, my big fat Greek wedding story. You'll see the 21 stories, 21 times story. So I have a lot of stuff on LinkedIn. Yeah, I would say if you're thinking about, well, I guess two things. One, if you're working in workforce development, you're trying to find people for your industries, your company, I would look at how you're saying what you're saying and take it in isolation as if you were trying to explain that to somebody on an elevator between the first and the second floor.

Yeah. Right? How quickly... Would you get would you get the thing? And how quickly does somebody get what's in it for me? The with him. Right. What's in it for me? How quickly. That's everybody's favorite radio. See, we are alike. That's everybody's favorite radio station is WIFM. Yes. Well, that's in it for me, baby. Yeah, what's in it for me? Exactly. Because so many companies want to put on their site all the things about them. Half the time, it looks like it's for the people who would be giving the money. It doesn't necessarily look like it's for the people for the jobs. So how quickly would somebody know what's in it for them? That would be the thing I would have you look at with your company.

And I would say... If you had to boil down the story, is it something that you would want to listen to at a party? Is it something that would, if you were telling the story of your work, your company, is it something that if somebody wasn't in your industry, is it a story that would inspire you? I talked to a woman, a young woman, and she was in plumbing and somebody said, you know, Does it seem weird that you're doing plumbing? You know, like, do you feel out of place with all these guys? And she said, no, I saw that dude that's a dum-dum doing it. And I thought if he can do it, I can do it. And I thought that was a very funny story.

Take the idea. Make the call. Launch the thing. Fix the problem. Build what you keep talking about building. For more, follow Ryan Alford on Instagram at Ryan Alford. And watch or listen to every episode at RyanIsRight.com. This is Right About Now. Now quit waiting. Go win.