Your Reputation – Online forums such as Glassdoor and others are notorious for giving disgruntled employees or ex-employees, a stage to air their biased opinions, HOWEVER, (a) if there exists an large enough number of negative reviews echoing the same themes, your online reputation is to some extent damaged; and (b) the manner in which your company responds to these complaints speaks volumes about the attitude and treatment of employees in your charge. There is an option to respond as a company to each negative post; do not underestimate the value and impact on your culture reputation that can be made by taking the time to address each post. Actions scream louder than marketing campaigns – walk the walk: it is worth it.
Your Interview Process – Candidates are reviewing multiple opportunities at a given time. Do not make the mistake of mismanaging your interview process – interviewees are evaluating you as well. Research and know your competitors’ processes and offerings in order to offer a truly competitive opportunity.
Your Talent Search Strategy – Do not underestimate the value of your job search strategy. You should be utilizing a mixture of inbound marketing efforts, employee referrals, external recruiting agencies and outbound recruiting efforts.
Do not just rely on inbound job applications; these are the resumes most highly circulated in the market with a higher concentration of unemployed or frequently transitioning candidates and
Do not utilize too many external recruiting agencies as they serve as an extension of your field marketing team; they are a reflection of how you do business; they are selling you and your company to candidates in the market; they are confronted with misconceptions and rumors about your company that the recruiter will be relied on to address and attempt to turn these obstacles into an opportunity to improve your reputation in the market and these recruiters need to have the ability to accomplish that; a good recruiter can mean the difference between elite talent taking your call or rejecting it.
Your Lack of Talent Search Strategy – Strategy, as in business is everything. Each detail should be planned, such as the first point of contact in the company; this can make or break an interview. If the first point of contact does not realize their job of selling the company among others, this will result in a low number of candidates opting to continue past the first interview. Each stage of the interview process is nuanced and there is a right and wrong way to approach them all, from choosing interviewers, questions asked, information offered, testing requirements, timing and approach, cadence, reference checks, negotiations/ offer techniques, and many others. Love is in the details.
Your Attitude – Elite talent is often lost due to a one-sided attitude by the interviewer believing that the candidate should always be the one selling themselves to the company. Know the status of the candidate you are interviewing. Candidates actively looking for employment (often unemployed) have a vastly different attitude and methodology than passive candidates who were approached for their specific experience in the market and/or with competitor companies in the industry, perhaps even their reputation as the expert in the market or those your company has lost sales to in the market.
Your Competition – Know your place in the market and how you stack up against other opportunities being considered by your candidates. Many factors come into play when candidates consider your company: culture, compensation, job title, future growth opportunity, leadership, location and more.
Culture is among the most important factors for job seekers – poor reputations and industry rumors are enough to drive many away without question. This is why reputation management and thorough vetting is so important. It is extremely challenging to turn around a negative reputation once in place.
Leadership is another top factor for potential employees. Candidates often follow great managers or remain at a company longer than they would have without them. Alternatively, a poor manager can drive away talent in droves and birds of feather flock together: the best talent talks and sticks together in the know.
Compensation is important but typically not as important as most employers perceive it to be. It is most important to know what is competitive.
Startups (the little guy) must pay more for their lack of stability through actual salaries, advanced job titles, and equity offerings to stay competitive and receive the level of skill and experience required for their stage of development.
Enterprise organizations are not expected to offer as much if any equity packages, are known for slower growth trajectories and smaller job titles but make up for it in resources, stability, an established culture, more robust training programs, and an established name in the market that equals an easier sale, more inbound business, and name recognition, however they must compete with the perception of less exciting and innovative products and relevance, which could mean offering above market salaries and added benefits.
Job titles are inherently bigger at smaller companies and smaller at bigger companies: it is relative. Often inflated job titles are used by startups to entice talent.
Location is a factor that can seem unimportant at first and then quickly become a thorn in your side. Often a candidate will take a position despite a long commute, but the distance inevitably wears on the employee, recruiters come calling and jobs are abandoned for new opportunities in relatively short timeframes.
Relocation is most often not considered due to the rate of failure: candidates change plans or life changes it for them.
Your Recruiters can be hindering your placements when: Recruiting for Hiring Managers they do not know or worse, have never spoken to. Attempting to fill positions they are unfamiliar with. They do not have the ability to pitch the company’s value proposition. They do not have the ability to overcome candidate obstacles and objections or answer key questions. They are unorganized, late, or ill-informed. They have poor reputations in the market (often talent will not speak with certain recruiters due to their reputation in the market). They eliminate an entire source of the best candidates because they are unskilled at active recruiting techniques to gain the attention of those not currently in the job market. Internal recruiters are used to focusing on screening inbound resumes and relying entirely on job board posting applications. They can spend countless hours screening candidates that are a long shot from the start. Have a targeted strategy to avoid this time suck.
Your Employees reflect your company and top talent want to work with other top talent at all levels. Birds of a feather…
Your Marketing or lack of marketing may be hurting your hiring. Great candidates must be sold to and shown why this is a great opportunity. Job searches require targeting marketing campaigns aimed at the talent pool you hope to recruit from. Do not put yourself at the mercy of inbound applications from online job boards, have a Talent marketing plan.
Your Timing is everything: interview cadence can make or break hiring. More often than not, interviewees mirror your sense of urgency. In addition, you are competing with other companies at sending the same talent pool job offers, timing can mean beating your competitor to the punch. Countless opportunities have been lost when companies drag out the interview process with large gaps of time in between steps, unnecessary steps of testing, interviewers, demonstrations, extraordinarily long processes for offer approvals, information validations and internal processes.
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