The space between the work

If there is one thing that has helped me at every stage of my career in employer branding, it’s the people. I’ve been in this industry for nearly a decade now. Over the years, I’ve seen strategies evolve, platforms change, and new voices emerge. The work has constantly shifted. New platforms. New trends. New debates. New “future of employer branding” conversations every six months.

But the one constant? The people.

I remember admiring people in this space from a distance, learning from them quietly and then, years later, finding myself sat across from them trading war stories over a glass (okay, a bottle) of wine. That shift doesn’t happen by accident.

If you think about the people you connect with purely as your network, it will always feel transactional. But if you see them as your community - the people you learn from, lean on, vent to, and grow alongside - everything changes.

The more you put yourself out there, the stronger that community becomes. And when you hit those inevitable moments in your career where something feels impossible, overwhelming or just plain messy, it’s often the people around you who help you cut through it.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve faced a challenge at work and a conversation with someone in this industry has completely reframed how I saw it. Not because they handed me the answer, but because they helped me think differently. As I’ve grown in my career, I’ve tried to pay that forward too.

When people reach out asking for advice, I’m always happy to jump on a coffee chat, share perspective or just listen. Because I know how much those conversations mattered to me earlier in my career. What I’ve realised over time is that community doesn’t just support your work. It expands what feels possible.

Over the years, opportunities have appeared in my life because of the relationships I’ve built in this industry. Podcasts. Talks. Writing. Collaborations. Contributing to books. Creating spaces and events. Most of those things weren’t part of some master plan. They came from conversations, relationships and people believing in each other.

Where the real conversations happen

Ultimately, that’s what led to The EB Space. Not just the platform itself, but the idea behind it. Creating a space where people could have the kinds of conversations that often happen in the in-between moments - the honest chats before a session starts, the “this didn’t actually work” conversations after a talk ends, or the moments where someone quietly admits they’re figuring it out too.

The reality is, some of the most valuable conversations in this industry rarely happen in the polished version. They happen all the time. That’s what eventually became Uncut. Not a traditional event series built around polished presentations, performative networking or perfectly packaged stories, but spaces designed for real conversation.

The Connect. The Table. The Hack. The Unconference.

Different formats, but all built around the same principle: honest conversations, shared experiences and work that holds up beyond the room. The best moments at those events are rarely the planned ones. They’re the moments where someone admits something didn’t work. Where people openly challenge ideas. Where someone says the thing everyone else has been quietly thinking. Where strangers become the people you message three months later because you need advice, perspective or simply someone who gets it.

Employer branding is an odd industry in that way.

It’s small enough that people know each other by reputation, but big enough that your peers are spread across the world. Somehow, despite that, you keep finding your people.

Sometimes through events. Sometimes through LinkedIn. Sometimes through slightly awkward virtual coffee chats.

Finding your people

I still remember walking into my first employer branding conference and feeling like I had found my tribe. I was early in my career and completely overthinking whether I should send an initial LinkedIn request to someone I admired, who was speaking there.

I did.... and she ignored me.

I then found myself sat at her table during a session feeling quietly mortified that she hadn’t replied to my message. (awkward)

Now? She’s one of my closest go to people in this space. Someone I admire enormously. She never ignored me intentionally. She was busy. Just like I am now when messages occasionally pile up faster than I can answer them.

And I think that’s important to remember. The worst thing someone can do is not reply. Or say no. And if that happens? You try again. Or you connect with someone else. Because you genuinely never know where a conversation might lead.

That’s why I always come back to the same principle when it comes to building relationships in this industry: invest in people as much as they invest in you. Celebrate people’s wins. Support their wobbles. Share what you know. Make introductions. Be generous where you can. Not because you expect something in return, but because strong communities are built through people showing up for one another consistently over time.

And no, you don’t need to know everyone. You don’t need thousands of connections or a perfectly polished online presence.

But you do need to participate. This industry can feel noisy sometimes. There are endless opinions, strong personalities and people constantly trying to position themselves as experts (sometimes, they are). It can make it easy to feel like everyone else has it figured out before you do.

Someone once told me something that stuck with me: no one is better at being yourself than you. Your perspective counts. Your opinions matter. Even when you’re still figuring things out - especially then.

So engage in conversations. Share ideas. Challenge things you disagree with. Go to events. Start the conversation. Send the message. Build the relationships.

This industry may be a small world, but it’s also one built on generosity, shared challenges and collective growth. We spend our careers building communities for organisations every day. Internally. Externally. Helping companies create connection, belonging and advocacy.

It only makes sense that we build that for ourselves too.

Beyond the polish

This is where Un/Edit comes in. While Uncut captures what happens in the room, Un/Edit is about continuing those conversations beyond it. The reflections. The disagreements. The lessons learned. The stories behind the work. Not the polished version.

It is part original thinking, part curated industry conversation, and it is designed to bring together perspectives, experiences and ideas from across the employer branding community - creating space for honest discussion, thoughtful challenge and work that genuinely holds up.

While the employer branding space has evolved enormously over the last few years, alongside that evolution has come more noise, more performance and more pressure to package everything into neat success stories. Sometimes the most valuable thing we can do is just talk honestly about the journey and what we do. The bits that worked. The bits that didn’t. The things we’re still figuring out. The questions we still haven't figured out yet.

That’s what this space is for. It's not recycled thinking or surface-level content created purely for visibility. It' s curated perspectives, stories and conversations from the community that genuinely add something - whether that comes from lived experience, experimentation, challenge or simply telling the truth about the reality of the work.

A true peer network isn’t about collecting contacts.It’s about building a circle. And if you’re reading this thinking you might have something to say - a perspective, a lesson learned, a strong opinion, a war story or simply a reflection from your own experience in this industry - or maybe you have said it already and want us to spotlight it - this is your invitation to contribute.

The EB Space has always been built on the voices of the community. This is simply the next conversation.