Organisations want to win. It’s not enough to build a nice, sustainable, moderately profitable business. We want to achieve our highest potential and let’s face it, we want to beat our competitors. Here are four simple strategies to assist you in hiring the best quality talent, consistently and easily:
- Build your company’s “employer of choice” brand and your executive’s “leader/s of choice” brands
Most organisations websites speak volumes about the great quality of products and services they provide to their customers. Very few however have any real focus of the great environment and leadership they provide for their employees. What does your website and other collateral say about you as an employer? Simple things like a dedicated page for prospective employees to look at, which could include content about the quality of your leadership team, specific employee-centred initiatives, case studies of the success of some of your team members, etcetera will go a long way to promoting you as an employer of choice.
Likewise, what do the LinkedIn profiles of your senior executives say about them as “leaders of choice”? Most people’s LinkedIn profiles are just a summary of their career history to date, without selling their key achievements as an excellent boss. Again, spending some time (but virtually no money) on enhancing their LinkedIn profiles will really set you apart.
- Clearly determine and communicate what success looks like in the role
People love to do what they are good at, plus you want to employ people who “have done it before, have done it well, and are motivated to do it again”. So you need to clearly define what the key deliverables are for the first three months, six months and 12 months, especially if you are delegating the recruitment to either your in-house team or external recruiters. How can they find and present the best candidates unless they know exactly what you want? Most recruiters are poorly briefed and as a result deliver underwhelming shortlists.
- Always put somebody’s name and phone number on your advertisements
Nothing frustrates great candidates more than not having someone to call and ask questions prior to applying. Unless the advertisement specifically answers all of their questions (which it rarely if ever does), they will want to ring and speak with someone. If there is no one to ring, most high quality candidates just won’t apply. If your recruiter (in-house or external) won’t put their name and phone number on the advertisement, then they are the wrong person for the job. Candidates are human beings, they are not a commodity, and need to be treated as such.
- For leadership and mission critical roles, you must headhunt
The best candidates are not actively looking for a new role. They are happy in their work, like their boss, and are relatively well paid. So if you want to attract the best talent, you must headhunt them. The challenge for in-house recruiters is that they can’t do this whilst maintaining the confidentiality of the employer, which significantly impacts the success of a headhunting exercise. Plus, most in-house recruiters are often working on a high volume of vacancies, so they don’t have the time (or desire) to undertake proactive headhunting.
Engaging an external headhunter used to be expensive and would take a long time. Fortunately there are now specialist headhunters that are able to offer much lower fees and deliver shortlists incredibly quickly. For these types of roles, I strongly encourage you to identify and partner with a firm that you trust to bring you excellent results.
Implementing these four simple strategies will greatly assist you in attracting the best quality talent, beating your competitors, and achieving your highest potential.
Richard Triggs is the author of Winning the War for Talent
