ABSTRACT
Companies now must embrace themselves as "talent brands" that are known not only for their products and services but, as importantly, for their ability to hire and develop exceptional people who are proud to be associated with their employers. Valuable personal brands are the hallmark of helpful people. A talent brand is the sum of what current and former employees—the talent—feel, say, and share publicly about their employers. Strong talent brands attract employees with strong personal brands that highly align with their corporate brand attributes. With the highly public nature of branding—advertising, social media, reporting, sponsorship, and so on—talent brands create halos for corporate and product branding with more power than the reverse. If employees are the first audience for product success, they are the drivers of a company's success in recruiting and retaining the best employees.
