Scale the Summit: Why Talent Attraction is Your Golden Ticket to Business Growth
Feel like you're trekking up a mountain of CVs? Time to slip on some climbing boots! Here's why talent attraction is your ultimate gear to scale the growth summit effortlessly.
What is talent attraction and why it’s so important for you to scale and grow your business?
I remember when I was recruiting for companies and I was lost in the myriad of candidates, CVs, and various platforms. It was frustrating and time-consuming and often didn’t result in the ideal talent for the role.
In this straightforward guide, I’ll explain what talent attraction means, why it’s so crucial, and what you need to do TODAY to start attracting top talent.
So what is talent attraction and why do you need to care about it?
Talent attraction is a term used to describe enticing the most desirable of passive candidates and incentivizing them to apply for a role in a company.
So that seems clear and straightforward. But, many companies, especially SMEs, feel that they don’t have the time or the know-how to attract the right people, and that results in them settling for candidates that were rejected by the competition. Hiring an unsuitable employee can have serious consequences for your company’s finances, reputation, and growth.
Talent attraction should be a critical component in any growing company’s strategy but it’s often seen as a high-cost, time-consuming activity. Because of this perspective, new hires are often only thought about as a knee-jerk reaction to needing a position filled.
We’ve all heard the phrase — “people are your greatest asset”. Attracting the right talent is what makes your business scale and grow.
For example, you need the best finance person to manage the company’s books, a perfectly placed marketer to get the product or service in front of an audience, and the most experienced product or service team to create the very thing that you sell.
Having a proactive and strategic plan for talent attraction is what positions you to grow a company with employees who are proud to work there, care about the organization and have the skills to scale the company to its full potential.
Now that you understand what talent attraction is and why it’s so essential, it’s time for me to explain more about how to get started with it.
Your first step is to create awareness about your company so that you can engage potential talent.
Step 1: Build your brand
Your brand is how people recognize your company and its character. It goes far beyond your logo or the product or service that you sell. It’s your reputation. It’s how you’re represented online and on social media platforms. A desirable and consistent brand will entice great talent to want to come and work with you.
It’s about developing and nurturing relationships with people who sincerely care about what you do as a company.
Ask yourself these questions…
What are your core mission and values?
How do you uphold them?
How do you look after your current employee’s well-being?
How did you support and motivate your employees during the lockdown?
What reputation do you want to achieve? Check what a Glassdoor search will reveal about your company.
According to a survey on allbusiness.com, 86% of women and 67% of men said they would not join a company with a bad reputation, even if they were unemployed. So, creating and promoting a positive brand experience is the first step in getting noticed for all the right reasons. As Steve Ward put it “Recruit fans, not candidates”
When you have a strategy that is consistently informing, cultivating, and communicating with your audience, you’re creating fans of your company and building a talent pool of your own!
At this point, you have full clarity on your brand and reputation. Next, we’ll focus on what you can offer to your potential employees.
Step 2: Highlight employee development
The top talent that you want to attract is the type of people who want to grow and develop. Not the type who is doing the bare minimum and waiting for their paycheck. At SMEs, employees have the opportunity to get their fingers in several pies, take the business from the ground up and grow their skillset.
This is a huge opportunity to pique the interest of the talent you need. 87% of millennials consider growth and development to be of extreme importance when searching for a job. Moreover, 69% of non-millennials felt the same
Bearing this huge statistic in mind, make sure you focus on development opportunities in your job ad for example.
Talk about the chance for progression and mentoring or reference courses that can be taken within the company to improve skill sets. Take it a step further and focus on personal development as well as professional — then you have a winning formula!
Now you have highlighted the development on offer you can take it to the next step and work on your value proposition.
Step 3: Assess and Promote your Employee Value Proposition
This is your chance to offer something that sets you apart from big businesses. Although you may not be able to extend the traditional benefits, you have other things to offer that are equally important to the talent you’re trying to draw in.
Being a smaller business means that you can dedicate more time and attention to your employees. You can give them extra responsibilities and help them develop and grow to make their mark. Not everyone wants to work for a huge corporation - many people would like to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond.
You can offer benefits such as flexible working or remote working. A survey by Fractl stated that over 85% of people would consider a flexible set-up over a high-paid job. So, that in itself is a very attractive prospect.
You can focus on team-building activities and social events. You can highlight the company culture (maybe it’s less corporate?) so that you attract the right persona.
As you can see, you have lots that you can offer that will hold great appeal to today’s workforce who are looking for more than just money. They are looking to develop personally and professionally in a flexible environment that increases their productivity and overall happiness.
Step 4: Bonus
Now that you know your brand it’s time to take that online and promote it so you can raise awareness, build a brand message and create a ‘fanbase’ that is waiting in the wings for when you need them.
Stay tuned for our future blogs that will go into more detail on promoting your brand online and on Social Media.
Thanks to ‘Scale the Summit: Why Talent Attraction is Your Golden Ticket to Business Growth’, you don’t need to settle for just any candidate who's just looking for a job there and then. You have everything you need to get started on appealing to top talent to rapidly improve the functioning of your organization.
As you saw in the guide, a talent attraction strategy can make or break the future success of a company. Without it you’re reactive and hasty; with it, you’re strategic, intentional, and successful. Job. Done.
Who wants to trudge up a mountain when you can glide up?
Talent attraction is your personal helicopter ride to the peak of success! 🚁
If you're dreaming of scaling business growth, it's time to slip on those climbing boots.
I've got a golden ticket waiting just for you.
Ready to conquer those heights together? Let's chat!