Welcome to the Employer Bland show, where we discuss all things employer branding, tackling issues such as diversity and inclusion, changes in the world of work, and what it takes to create a thriving company culture.
Hosted by entrepreneur and co-founder of Voyse, Chris Murdoch.
Why the truth is the one thing AI can't fake - A conversation with Steve Ward
Steve Ward, founder of the Employer Brand Club, joins Chris for a proper journey through a career that started with a painfully shy kid doing teacher impressions in a Nottingham school panto and ended up reshaping how he thinks about branding, recruitment and trust.
We go right back to the beginning. A first recruitment job built on fear and cold calling that he came to despise. Three redundancies in a single year. A mentor who spotted his strategic mind. And the hand-drawn A3 CV that flipped a switch and pushed him toward creative, personal outreach over scripted selling.
From there it's the founding of Cloud9, the move into social recruiting before anyone took it seriously, and the build of a community-first agency where people were hired to create trust rather than chase placements.
The second half gets into where the industry is heading. Steve makes the case that young people have grown up so surrounded by fake, AI-generated content that anything too polished now reads as a warning sign. His answer is to shift from a sell mindset to a trust mindset, show the real story, warts and all, and protect the human voice that AI can't replicate. He shares a story from an AstraZeneca shoot that sums it all up.
A brilliant conversation about authenticity, reputation and why the truth is the one thing automation can't fake.
18 Jun 2026
Comfortable conversations don't build great employer brands - A conversation with Emily Firth
Emily Firth, co-founder of The Truth Works. From a decade in advertising to building an award-winning employer brand team at Booking.com, she's now tearing up the agency model with a platform that connects companies directly with verified fractional EB experts. We get into gatekeeping in the industry, why your uncomfortable truths are the gift, and how lean teams can get senior thinking on tap without the six-month retainer.
6 May 2026
17 Years shaping the industry - The story of Google Dave Hazlehurst
Dave Hazlehurst spent 17 years at PH Creative, which later became Human Magic, helping build employer brand into the discipline it is today. He's worked with some of the biggest brands on the planet, spoken at LinkedIn Talent Connect, and trained more people in this space than most would care to count.
This episode is a proper debrief. Dave recently left the agency world after nearly two decades (who knows for how long), which made for a conversation with very little to protect and a lot worth saying.
We cover the origin story — four people in a Liverpool office doing websites for solicitors, a career site pitch at Nationwide that changed everything, and a chance Peroni in a Dublin hotel bar that led to a LinkedIn keynote. Then we get into the stuff that actually matters.
Why EVPs are broken by design. Why employer brand is too focused on the outside and not enough on the inside. Why the function needs to stop expressing culture and start driving it. And why AI is quietly making most LinkedIn content look the same.
If you've worked in employer brand for five minutes or fifteen years, there's something in this one for you.
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