What do we have to sell to prospective engineering hires?

Given the recent "Event" that happened today I honestly don't
know how I can convince any engineers to come to this company.

At first the sell to the company was that we were an innovative
startup who worked on ideas that would push the boundaires of
our industry and that was fine. At that point people were
willing to join based off the idea that they would work on
something innovative.

But then we stopped being innovative. We started focusing our
efforts on things that would make us money (which is understandable),
but the allure of innovation was no longer there, we are enterprise
engineers working on an enterprise product.

One thing about working on innovative technology is that people are
willing to get paid less in order to work on the next big thing. But
that's not where were at anymore and our Companies refusal to even try
to compete with the bigger companies in terms of salary has left us in
in a position where we have to hire senior engineers based off of culture
alone. Which actually wasn't a hard thing, our company operated in very
much the same manner as it had when it was a startup and the culture
stemmed around an inclusive environment that allowed engineers to start
from basically nothing and grow into senior engineers.

But then we stopped having a great culture.

Today we've decided that no matter how well you perform, no matter how
well you fill the companies goals, and no matter how much you contribute
you are not safe. We have been subjected to a blind layoff, a layoff
that is akin to a consultant looking at an org chart and trimming off
the lowest branches without knowing the burden those branches may hold.

I honestly don't know how to sell this company to engineering hires
anymore, we're not innovative, we work on things that don't make any
sense from a business perspective, and even if we do our job we're fired
at the drop of a hat.

Culture isn't what the top tells us, it's the attitudes of the people
who actually do the work.

When you lose the people, you lose the culture.