Being Unique in the War for Talent

In a time where finding qualified, experienced and excellent resources is like panning for gold in your local river you need to give your company every fighting chance to be the one to get the nuggets. Whether you are competing in a small industry with a small pool of talent or up in the Big guns with a large pool but where most ideal candidates are being looked after by their current employers, standing out for the right reasons and being heard is essential.

Marketing your uniqueness and employer USP's has to to start before the job descriptions get posted on your career portal, Linked In and other social media. Just looking to market yourself as a decent employer at the time of hiring is not going to cut the mustard. A proactive approach is needed and a creeping approach that seeps into your target markets awareness before they even see a job description is essential so that they want to work for you already and the job description is their passport in.

When I worked at KPMG, as head of experienced resourcing, I was up against 3 other Big 4 firms in the war for talent, at the start all I heard from candidates was, 'You Big 4 are all the same, what sets you apart?' I was new and had no idea. So I sat down with people from the Partners down to the mail room assistant and I asked them what they liked about working in KPMG. I got stories, memories and direction and built up a unique sense of the place and got my selling messages from the people not from my imagination. When I sold these stories to the world, and to the candidates, it was unique and genuine and I got their buy in because, through this new messaging, people thought of KPMG as a great place to work and then I got their signature on a contract, even when they had been offered by other Big 4 firms. I was headhunted by Deloitte after they worked out who was winning the 'war for talent' and why they were losing and I went to them with the same approach 'discovery'. Using 'discovery' as a route to fact finding is essential, not just coming up with a recruitment marketing campaign that sounds great but lacks substance. When you know what you are selling is true you get buy in easily and you get the contracts signed.

Using your unique selling messages in strategically imaginative ways is going to make attracting talent a breeze, waiting for the job description stage to deliver these is not. We have the proactive approaches you need to help your business succeed in its resourcing targets. At Talent Optics we always use a bespoke approach and come up with creative employer brand solutions, using discovery, to get your company noticed, our role is to help you become unique, no longer blending in with your competition but standing out from them in the right way as a first choice employer and making your company a winner.

For more information contact Clare Reed, MD at Talent Optics or book in a call.