At Stanton Chase, we regularly hear from clients who are struggling to attract top talent. Here’s how to do it.
1. First Impressions Last
The candidate’s experience of your recruitment process can often be a good indication of the overall experience they can expect at your organisation. There are some companies that use virtual solutions to ease the burden of recruiting. Unfortunately, a virtual application portal that requires long and time-consuming processes can result in the best talent slipping through the cracks. If the portal is particularly frustrating, they might even lose interest in applying. Others outsource the recruitment process to service providers with a limited understanding of the roles or organisations they are recruiting for.
Consider the following questions when searching for recruitment solutions:
- What are the requirements for ensuring a quality candidate experience?
- Do those representing you understand the DNA of your organisation or the current themes in your industry?
- Do they know who the best candidates are, where to find them, and what motivates them?
- Can they craft and communicate the story of your organisation to attract the best possible candidates (whether those candidates are actively looking for new roles or not)?
- How is this impacting your reputation in the market?
Creating a positive, human, and efficient experience from the outset can make all the difference.
2. The Need for Speed
This is a simple one.
Are you moving fast enough?
If you are not, one of your competitors almost certainly will be. With the right candidate, they can go from CV submission to arranging interviews and making an offer within a week.
Do not keep top talent waiting. Your competitors certainly won’t.
3. Prove That Your Leaders Care
The past few years have been a period of reflection for all of us, especially for candidates who want more from their work. Despite the importance of compensation, benefits, and flexible working arrangements, considerations such as purpose, belonging, and inclusion now play a crucial role.
Top talent can easily recognize organisations that are genuine about these defining characteristics and go above and beyond their usual Employee Value Proposition. Top talent also recognizes when companies are just using buzzwords to entice them.
Your leaders set the tone for your corporate culture. Use them during the hiring process to engage with the best candidates. Their personal, human touch—facilitated by a short meeting or follow-up message—can be enough to show they care about the candidate and their organisation’s commitment to recruiting the best talent.
Find an authentic senior leader and ask them to help!
4. Talent Attracts Talent
The best teams consist of the best talent. Having the opportunity to work with smart, inspiring, and successful colleagues can be hard to resist.
Use your very best performers and most talented team members during the recruitment process. This could be as formal interviewers or perhaps during a less formal “meet some of the team” session.
The candidate will gain insight into their potential future, their co-workers, their backgrounds, motivations, and accomplishments, and most importantly, connect with them personally and professionally.
5. Light Up the Runway
It doesn’t matter if you call it a runway, professional development opportunities, or a career development path, the best candidates always have a plan. They need you to have one too. This could be in the form of formal training, developing new skills, executive education, or next steps and future roles. If your Talent Acquisition and Learning & Development departments operate independently, now is a good time to encourage collaboration.
In order to demonstrate long-term commitment to investing in candidates, organisations should explain the opportunities for advancement to them.
Light up the runway and explain how you can help execute their plan.
6. Avoid Tunnel Vision
In the fast-paced world of talent acquisition, tunnel vision is unfortunately all too common and exploring alternative avenues for hiring is often overlooked.
Adopting an inclusive hiring strategy is your best bet. Searching in different sectors, for example, can increase your talent pool’s depth and experience. It is possible to further improve the quality of your candidate list by assessing not only experience and qualifications, but also soft skills like self-awareness, learning agility, and adaptability. When you use a broader hiring lens, you can identify high-caliber talent that you would not otherwise be able to identify.
7. Stay on Your Toes!
Organisations with a true talent-first mindset are always looking for the best talent regardless of situation, headcount, and budget.
We are entering a downturn which could be the ideal time to scour the market for talent by profiling competitors or high-performing organisations you admire.
Always stay on your toes!
“The secret of my success is that we have gone to exceptional lengths to hire the best people in the world.”
Steve Jobs
About the Authors
Russell Kalam is a Partner at Stanton Chase London.
Eva Kingston is a Partner at Stanton Chase London and the Global Sector Leader of our Fintech and Digital Sector.
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