Partner spotlight: Stories Inc - Inspiring careers and workplace culture

For this month’s Partner Spotlight, we spoke to Lauryn Sargeant, Cofounder and Partner of Stories Inc: a global content leader in authentic storytelling for employees, candidates, and customers. Stories Inc. is trusted by some of the world’s biggest brands, from Pepsi-Cola to AstraZeneca, helping them uncover and share their true culture.

Lauryn’s favorite thing about her role? Sharing amazing content with happy customers.

Our best work is not only beautiful and engaging, but useful to candidates. It helps them understand the reality of the environment and provides the clarity they’re searching for on a careers site. We’re also helping to raise the bar on what quality employee storytelling looks like across the industry.

Here are two examples of Lauryn’s personal favorites from The Craft at Stellantis and Caring Culture at the Knot Worldwide; these examples show the impact of storytelling done right.  

What’s one trend that’s reshaping employer branding right now, and how are you seeing it play out in your customers’ strategies?  

There’s been a shift in how DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) is being communicated.

In the past, DEI statements were clearly highlighted on careers websites, supported by stories that share the real-world experience of that statement.

The experience has always spoken volumes, but especially now.

Companies today still want to show their commitment to DEI, but due to changes in funding and political landscapes, they now need to do it differently. Today, the sole focus is on authentic stories in place of corporate DEI goals or initiatives. This has always been our approach, but now it’s more essential than ever.

What’s the most common gap you see in careers site content, and how do you help your customers to bridge it?

Many of our customers struggle to create a careers site that truly reflects their culture and delivers a great candidate experience.

Often the focus is on the tech, data, features, and analytics, which are all really important. But there’s less focus on content and storytelling, so customers don’t have enough content to populate their careers site and explain what they do in a compelling, personalized way.

We help fill that gap by creating tailored, meaningful content that's highly personalized to both the company and candidates.

The second part of this challenge is actually that we capture more brilliant employee stories than the site can hold, so we help clients squeeze as much value as possible from each asset and maximize their investment by repurposing content across all channels.

You’ve seen firsthand how data drives smarter storytelling. What insights have helped shape your strategy?   

Two key stats come to mind:

1. One of our early clients found that employee stories gained 4x the social-media engagement compared to regular marketing content
2.  Another discovered that candidates who watched employee videos were 4x more likely to be hired
   These insights helped to reaffirm what we already know to be true: that employee stories drive better engagement and produce better candidates. At Stories Inc., we create the best version of the highest performing content, so these insights really keep us focused on our beliefs: that the content we make not only helps candidates self-select in or opt out, but actually makes them better, more successful candidates in the process.

What innovation or evolution are you most excited about right now?  

 
I would have to say the continuous evolution of content creation.

I’ve been in TA for 13 years now, so I’ve seen how employee-generated content revolutionized the industry a few years ago. EGC quickly outperformed corporate content, and as its popularity grew, we wondered if there’d still be a place for our content, which there definitely is.

A similar shift is happening with AI right now. Companies are creating a lot of content quickly, but candidates still want to uncover the real employee experience: stories that are authentic and compelling.

At Stories Inc., we create genuine, compelling content in an effective, efficient and professional way, connecting employee stories with the branding concept the company wants to convey.

So, I would say I’m excited about AI, because it’s going to further differentiate real employee stories from AI-generated content, and further differentiate what we do at Stories Inc.

Can you share a defining moment in your career that taught you an invaluable lesson?   

One really important lesson I learned was to take talent acquisition seriously.

Clearly, as we’re in the TA industry, we do take it very seriously. We’ve built businesses in this space because we know how important it is. But not everyone shares this belief.

Early in my career, I interviewed for a Head of TA role at a large public company. During the first interview, they gave me a detailed business report, which I read thoroughly. Then, at the second interview, I asked some questions about the report, and the interviewer said to me, ‘You actually read that?’.

Turns out I was the only candidate that read the report, which made me realize how uncommon it was for TA professionals to approach hiring through a business lens. How can you recruit the right talent if you don’t understand the business?  How can you sell the culture? How do you know if people will thrive there?

This moment really solidified my belief that talent acquisition is a strategic business function and not just an operational one.

I got the job and made a lasting impact over many years. But the experience showed me that we, as TA and EB leaders, have a lot of work to do to make sure our work is understood as intrinsic to business strategy and outcomes.

Transform your careers site and employer brand with authentic storytelling

Discover how Stories Inc and Happydance work together to deliver the feature-rich careers site you need, powered by real, compelling stories that connect and convert.

Get in touch today.

Or to learn more about Stories Inc., head to their website and connect with Lauryn on LinkedIn