For the latest feature in our Employer Branding Profile series, we’re excited to spotlight Nicole Coffey, Talent Brand + Experience Lead at Floor & Decor.

Nicole’s path into EB started with a simple email, a sharp eye for content gaps, and the kind of scrappy curiosity that turns “supporting TA on social” into managing a million-dollar strategy.

In this interview, she shares her take on the biggest challenges facing the function today, why employee-generated content is the future, and the projects she’s most proud of leading across a fast-moving retail organization.

How did you first get started in Employer Branding?

I started supporting the Talent Acquisition team on social media while working at a large global bank, seeing a gap in the content.

I literally just emailed the person managing the work and asked if I could help them, then spent about a month making the support official. (I then took over the work and moved onto that team, going from $0 to a $1MM social media budget.)

Then I expanded in my next roles into internal work, which is my favorite part: focus groups, trainings, playbooks, onboarding, etc.

What do you think is the biggest challenge facing Employer Brand teams right now?

The lack of standardization in EB.

Everyone has a rough idea of what a dentist does all day, or an accountant. Nobody seems to realize exactly what EB does.

In some companies it’s a strategic role with a team and a Director-level leading it, while at others it’s left up to a Coordinator to just manage recruitment marketing via social media.

They’re both called Employer Branding.

How can we advance the function if we can’t agree, at a high level, on the scope of the work?

Nicole’s thoughts on the future of employer branding.

How do you measure success in Employer Brand at your organization?

I sit in TA, so I contribute to reduced time to fill, and we are working on cost per application, defining quality of hire for our org, and also starting to measure things like hiring manager satisfaction after instituting more standardization, automation, and a playbook for them.

Retention is key for us as a retail company, so we are looking at an automated dashboard/scorecard to track key metrics that matter.

We also track referral rate and standard things like review site scores.

You may recognize Nicole from our Employer Brand Minute series! Here she is breaking down the metrics Employer Brand teams should be tracking. 

What role do you see employee-generated content playing in Employer Brand efforts?

Huge.

I hope more companies see that control is very 2015.

We live in a TikTok world, like it or not, and especially as the younger generations come up through the workforce, we have to adapt.

Day in the life videos, quick behind the scenes, building in public, etc. are hopefully going to be increasingly normalized and promoted.

I’d love to see employees as the primary distributors of info.

What have been your favorite campaigns, projects or initiatives you’ve worked on 2025?

My favorite work this year has been getting job ads (vs job descriptions) live, creating a hiring manager playbook and recruiter templates, creating branded social media gifs that are automatically sent to new hires & employees on their work anniversaries, and a talent toolkit that includes LinkedIn posts, images, sometimes videos, etc. for hiring managers.

If you had unlimited time and budget, what would be your Employer Brand “dream project”?

I have 3.

One: partnering with Talent Management to create an Internal Mobility campaign and really look at how we are supporting internal candidates.

Two: a month-long takeover on social media where every single brand post is an employee photo or video.

If it’s a new product launch, it’s an employee sharing the backstory of how it came to fruition or why it’s a great product.

If it’s an event, it’s an employee video inviting viewers, etc. There is no content that can’t be EGC-led.

Third: redoing the employee handbook. (Valve and Posthog have incredible examples.) Why? It’s the first touchpoint for new hires, and the first chance to prove and/or reinforce the culture we sold them.

What advice would you give to someone who is just entering the Employer Branding field?

Find a mentor!

Talk to people who have done the work you hope to, and read/listen to as much as possible.

There are so many generous leaders with free content, webinars, podcasts, articles, etc. to get you started.

Look outside your industry, too – if you’re in retail, look at tech. If you’re in the US, look at the UK. If you’re at a large org, look into startup work. Etc. There’s so much to learn from others who have different resources and constraints.

How do you think Employer Branding will evolve in 2026?

I hope it continues to get more data-driven and strategic, (“People As A Product” thinking seems to be a growing movement) and that we incorporate more listening.

Doing is great, and necessary, but effective strategies start with listening to the people powering the business.

Doing this and incorporating business metrics and explanations (moving from “time to fill” to “potential lost revenue” for example) will move it from a nice-to-have to essential function.

Nicole’s perspective shines a light on what modern Employer Branding really needs: clearer definitions, smarter use of data, and a much bigger role for employee voices.

Her focus on listening, standardization, and treating “people as a product” offers a roadmap for where the function is headed.

This wraps our final EB Profile of 2025, but we’re just getting started.

Stay connected with EditMate to catch more Industry Profiles — and plenty of fresh Employer Brand insights, coming your way in 2026.