Talagy Blog

Can Your Firm Really Attract the Best and Brightest Through the Upturn?

The recession has officially ended.  Your company, if it’s like most, has budgeted for an increase in headcount in anticipation of accelerated customer demand for your product or service over the next year.  Time to dust off your recruiting manual and renew contracts with the job boards.  Nothing’s changed since the last wave of hiring a couple of years ago, right?

Wrong.

The recruitment landscape has evolved significantly, and employers face different kinds of challenges in the post-recession environment attracting “A” players.  Social networking, for starters, is revolutionalizing brand awareness.  Forward-looking companies are creating Facebook pages and inviting the public to follow them on Twitter.  These firms understand that not only is it critical to leverage technology to enhance your brand today, but that in fact if you don’t, you risk losing market share to those who do. 

Having a strong brand is highly correlated with becoming – and remaining – an employer of choice. 

The business case for building a strong employer brand is a powerful one, with significant potential impact on shareholder value.  According to GTG Consulting, a University of Michigan study found the average share value of the 58 publicly traded firms on the F100 Best Companies to Work For increased 12% more than the F500 average over a 3-year period.  Further, just a 5% increase in employee loyalty leads to a 2% increase in customer loyalty which translates into a 1.8% increase in share price.  Hiring great people and keeping them happy seems so simple, yet it’s so elusive for many. 

The fact is, to attract top performers over the next year you’ll have to work deliberately to enhance your firm’s brand – and that starts with ensuring your organization provides applicants with an end-to-end candidate experience that surpasses what they encounter elsewhere. 

Achieving this nirvana starts with shoring up your recruitment process end-to-end, from how you source candidates, to your selection process, to how you onboard and retain employees.  Because that’s not an easy feat, most companies turn to third parties with the expertise to make it happen for them.

Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) has exploded in popularity over the last decade and will continue to gain traction as the solution of choice for companies that understand the war for talent will resume after the recessionary pause.  But it’s not enough to hire a staffing company to take over recruiting for you.  The ideal partner will work with you to create a candidate courting model that attracts people who want to work in a specific role for your firm.  That’s very different from simply putting together a 360 degree recruiting plan designed to cast a wide net to capture the attention of prospective candidates then selling them on working for you. 

Act now, before it’s too late.  Find a partner capable of enhancing your brand awareness by creating a superior candidate experience that leaves your competition breathless as they try to catch you in the coming race for talent.

-Gabe Navarro, Vice President of National Sales

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