Forces in Play: The quest for better jobs becomes a public obsession. Talent is recruited at every opportunity. It takes a finely tuned and targeted talent brand to cut through the clutter.
“NOTICE: Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.” | ||
| --Ernest Shackleton | ||
Not the kind of classified ad you see every day, is it? Although it may send a shudder down the spines of some, it inspired dreams in the minds of others. Only a specific type of person, with a specific set of desires, skills, and abilities, would respond to it. And respond they did.
The ad, which ran in the London Times in 1913, was a magnet for its target audience. Shackleton received more than 1,000 responses to it, from which he selected 28 men for his famous journey. In the end, the 1915 Endurance expedition became hopelessly stuck in the ice of Antarctica. Lost and presumed dead for months, the men eventually managed to escape the frigid continent. All 28 men made it home safely. Talk about an effective talent force.
In the modern era, there may not be a compelling ideal like “honor” to bring a stream of Q-Talent to your doorstep, but there are other ways to tap into the hopes and desires of your ideal candidates.
As the trends described in Chapter 2, “Talent Market Demands,” continue to unfold, new opportunities will arise for many, leading to more exciting and, in some cases, difficult career decisions. New types of careers will emerge as the information economy continues to evolve. Changes in demographics will put new pressures on many industries to hire the right talent to meet new opportunities critical to the industries' success—or even to their survival. In developing nations moving to a manufacturing economy, new talent markets will continue to emerge as their working cultures and needs evolve.
In countries affected by the dot-com bust, there will be pent-up demand for job changes as the situation improves, resulting in increased labor market “churn”—a business term coined in the world of magazine subscriptions, where new subscribers must be found at a rate that matches or exceeds the rate at which subscriptions expire to maintain the existing level of revenue. This churn will add complexity to the already-shifting talent market, creating even more openings and signaling that more already-employed individuals are looking for new opportunities.
Another talent market trend, which is building with seismic-like pressure, is the willingness of already-employed individuals—in some cases, happily employed individuals—to consider new opportunities. In the recruiting industry, these individuals are called “passive candidates,” an oxymoron describing those who are currently working, who do not have a resumé, and are not actively job searching, but for whom the right opportunity is still attractive.
And there is a subset of “passive candidates” who are inching toward active candidate status. These are the ones reading the Sunday classifieds, surfing Monster.com on their lunch breaks, and casually networking with their friends. These so-called “passive” candidates are only one phone call, informational interview, or invitation to interview away from becoming active candidates.
The constant quest for Q-Talent is seeping into our lives. Job sites, such as Monster.com, HotJobs, Seek.com, and StepStone.com, have succeeded in the challenging dot-com world. Escapeartist.com, Asia-net.com, JM Enterprises (jmep.com), and others provide a clearinghouse for international opportunities. Ads for Monster.com and HotJobs have aired during the Super Bowl, the highest-rated and most expensive advertising forum in the world. Job links are often highlighted on the front page of newspaper Web sites. If you do not think that the talent market is big business, think again.
Even Hollywood has caught on. How many television shows worldwide depict doctors, police, firefighters, teachers, lifeguards, soldiers, private eyes, office workers, and the challenges (not to mention shenanigans) they face at work every day? Award-winning sitcoms, such as the BBC's The Office, and reality series, such as A&E's Airline and NBC's The Apprentice, continue the tradition.
All of these factors—changing demographics, economic upturn, people's appetite for opportunity, broad-reach media—create demand for better opportunities. And this demand is not only driven by MBAs, actors, athletes, engineers, and salespeople anymore. Media and technology bring the concept of ambition—of seeking new opportunities, new careers, and new jobs—to the popular culture.
The result? Attention to work and career opportunities is becoming a new cultural obsession. People are rapidly gaining confidence and spending more time and energy on the lookout, even if it is only casual flirtation. Employees can become bolder in asking for raises or promotions because they know their worth and value. Many will also develop the confidence and ability to market themselves efficiently, resulting in continued job mobility as workers leave their current positions for greener pastures.
Chapter 7, “Talent Goes on Offense,” discusses this phenomenon of talent empowerment more completely, but for now, this is a fundamental shift in the talent landscape: It is not that only the employees have power or only the employers have power. It is that knowledge is power. Strategy is power. From now on, more and more people will look at what is happening around them, think ahead, and do what is right for themselves, their families, and their companies.
Companies, facing a persistent need for Q-Talent at every level, need savvy and careful planning to tap into and harness the power and passion behind this new obsession. Unprepared companies will lose their best people to those with a plan for acquiring Q-Talent. Do not count on old-fashioned loyalty to see you through. Too many workers in generations X and Y have seen their parents make huge sacrifices for their careers, spending years, even decades, at a company, only to be laid off. If a cultural institution, such as Japan's concept of “lifetime employment,” can die off, then there are no guarantees anywhere anymore.
Just as employees are expected to show up on time every day and produce day in and day out—to continually prove themselves—so will companies find they must continually work to attract and keep their best people. If you take away nothing else from this book, take this hiring and retention imperative seriously and start to plan your talent needs now. The window is closing fast for those who want to be forerunners.
One of the most immediate results of the phenomenon we have been describing is that the marketplace for talent is “noisy”—cluttered with an abundance of employment messages. Some highly desirable candidates might even feel bombarded, chased, or spammed. And with all of the great capabilities afforded by new technology, there will be new generations of technological annoyances, à la the Web browser “pop-up window,” for job searchers to overcome. As a result, companies need to find a way to cut through the clutter and do so in a way that helps build a mutually respectful relationship with candidates.
The challenge to attract attention by differentiating yourself is not a new one, of course.
When it comes to their product or service brands, organizations, especially large companies, generally “get it.” In hotly competitive industries, such as retail, companies spend millions establishing their name and creating a strong brand image that compels consumers to reach for their products. A strong brand sets expectations and engenders loyalty. It can overcome price differences, distribution problems, economic turmoil, and public relations debacles. A strong brand influences people. It creates an emotional bond.
Companies with strong brands know who their customers are and how the brand appeals to each group of constituents. They have strategies and messages built around the brand from top to bottom. Strict guidelines determine how the brand is portrayed, reproduced, placed, and talked about. And they make sure the brand is conveyed in all of the organization's communications.
Or do they? Many times, because of the arrogance of supply discussed earlier, companies have not put the same effort into making sure the overall brand is carried through in their efforts to communicate with Q-Talent. They have not defined what makes their organization a unique place to work. They have not mapped out the type of person they want to attract and go after. They have not built messages and programs to go out and get those people. In short, they have not identified or put any work into their “talent brand.”
If the reputation of a company's products or services is its face, the talent brand is its heart and soul. It represents the collective goodwill of the people who make the company go. The talent brand is about service, positive interaction, and mutual respect, but it is also about livelihoods, hopes, and aspirations. These qualities are the essence of the talent brand.
Just like a product brand, a company's talent brand builds over time. It can engender the same feelings of desire, the same dreams that a compelling product message brings to life. It can bring tremendous loyalty and, through word of mouth, more traffic to your doorstep.
Over time, the talent brand has persuasive power that the company might not even realize. That is because the biggest single influence on perception has always been word of mouth. If someone has a great experience—or a terrible experience—working for a company, then all of his or her friends will know about it. Then, when the same company comes up in other conversations, those friends will share the experiences they have heard secondhand. Average companies might not feel the results of this phenomenon as much, but companies with great talent-management practices or terrible ones can be sure they are being talked about.
As with a product brand, creating the right talent brand requires creativity and hard work.
First, recruiting needs to be a strategic imperative for the company, alongside marketing. Whoever is charged with creating your talent brand should collaborate with your marketing team to determine the compelling link between the company, its philosophies, goals, principles, and its talent. What is the essence of the company, and what is it about that essence that makes candidates feel like they want to be a part of it all?
Second, who is your ideal candidate? Find out in as much detail as possible who your target employee is—what she likes to do, what she likes to think about. What special skills and knowledge does she possess? What are her aspirations, her dreams? Take your time with this. Do your homework. Remember, there is growing popular interest in career opportunities. Do you want to spend all your time sifting through unqualified talent? It will be exponentially faster and easier to find your ideal candidates if you know, in detail, exactly who they are.
Third, create a message that speaks to your ideal candidate and, as much as possible, only her. Those of you with marketing expertise may recognize the outlines of a positioning framework in the steps we are describing. If your organization has a positioning framework for its products or services, modify it to serve your talent acquisition purposes. Refer to the list of questions provided in the previous chapter, where we discussed the importance of aligning with marketing to create compelling talent messages.
Some companies have created and communicated an effective talent brand for years. U.S. outdoor equipment outfitter REI has long enjoyed a reputation of providing an engaging work environment and comprehensive benefits. Beyond that, REI also projects an image that automatically attracts the kind of employees the company wants. REI has tapped into the essential appeal of the outdoors and brought that appeal to its talent force as well as its customers. The company's employees buy into REI and its mission because the brand represents them and, in the words of brand guru Scott Bedbury, “provides an emotional context for their lives.”
This example reveals another benefit of a talent brand—it is also a screening tool, because applicants will invariably gravitate to talent brands that align with their identities.
Clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch is a striking example of this type of candidate/brand alignment. It is tough to imagine many senior citizens applying for work at Abercrombie & Fitch. The company's brand is focused, targeted, and applied with consistency to its recruiting efforts. Look at the company's Web site. Continually updated, it will invariably show you a beautiful, young person on the front page. Enter the site and you'll see another smiling, fit, handsome young face. Enter the job opportunities section and there it is again. By now, the site has shown you three times what you should look like if you want to work at Abercrombie & Fitch.
When used in this way, talent branding images can simultaneously attract your target candidates while dissuading those who might not be as good a fit. For Abercrombie's recruiting, not to mention sales, this finely honed messaging is an undeniable asset. It causes their target employees to want to be a part of it all. They just get it. As a result, walk into any Abercrombie & Fitch store, and you can see the talent brand at work.
Alongside your talent brand imagery, words have the same power to attract the right kind of talent. We started this chapter with a powerful example, the job description that Ernest Shackleton wrote seeking men to join his Endurance expedition to Antarctica. A recent example is the message greeting visitors at Nike's career site as of Spring 2004 (italic added for emphasis):
Nike does more than outfit the world's athletes. We are a place to explore potential, obliterate boundaries, and push the edges of what can be. We are not looking for workers. We're looking for people who can contribute, grow, think, dream and create. We thrive in a culture that embraces diversity and rewards imagination. We seek out achievers, leaders, visionaries. We love winners. At Nike, it is about bringing what you have to a challenging and constantly evolving game.
Talk about a “swoosh” statement. Copy like this gives people something to dream about—an ideal brand experience. It shows prospective candidates why Nike needs them, how they fit in, and the opportunities they will have to better themselves if they work there. More importantly, it reflects something that is fundamentally “Nike.”
If you are Avis, maybe you write about what it means to “try harder.” If you are State Farm Insurance, you might examine how someone can embody the value of truly being there—“like a good neighbor.” There is no right or wrong, only what works best to attract the right talent to your company. And to be right for your company, the employment messages should dovetail with the image and brand statements that your marketing team is already putting out there.
Just like “who a person is” cannot be separated entirely from “what she does,” a successful brand goes beyond marketing hyperbole to the reality behind the message.
Your talent brand must reflect your company's reality. When differences occur, it can cause a major disconnect, and there is a risk that new employees will be disillusioned. When companies do not meet the expectations they set forth, their talent brand is doomed. Their clever slogans will ring hollow. Instead of inspiring loyalty, they will inspire feelings of irony, or worse.
If you are starting from scratch to develop a talent brand, then once you commit to truth, the talent brand can fall out of an examination of the company itself, compared with its needs and goals. Examine the product messages, the brand images. Take stock of the company's objectives, as well as those of each department. Look at the business itself and what it takes to build, deliver, and maintain the quality of your products and services. What is special about your company? Examine who your customers are—are they different from or similar to your talent? Chances are, they are similar. If you are recruiting for a specific position or if there is a specific skill set essential to the company, describe the business problem solved by those skills or that position. What is the value to the company of the person you want to hire?
Take the business goals and objectives, the realities that the company faces, and weave them into a story that appeals to exactly the sort of person the company needs. To be effective, the message should create an emotional reaction. It should cause a light to come on inside your ideal talent. Do this, and you will cause your prospective talent to start picturing how their lives might be different if they were working for you.
This process, based on the business realities of the company, will lead to a talent brand and, ultimately, a recruiting strategy aligned with the business model. As a result, the company will begin focusing its efforts on more strategic sourcing and on laying the groundwork for compelling employment messages that derive directly from what the business is trying to accomplish. Think about it. What is more inspiring than a company that knows exactly what you do and how valuable that is to the bottom line?
As with marketing, after you have determined whom your target audiences are and carefully honed the company's messages to appeal to them, you can start thinking about implementation. The next step is to identify the most effective forum for your recruiting efforts. Where will your messages be delivered? Who is going to read them? Are these the people you are trying to reach?
Go back to the kind of personality and skills you want. You know your customers. Do you know your employees? Which segments of the population fit this mold in high numbers? Where do you find those people?
Many companies do not have an answer to these questions and attempt to cover their bases by carpet-bombing the population with ads in the Sunday paper, national magazines, on large public job boards, on radio or television, and at career fairs. All of these traditional methods, although popular, lack focus. They lack strategy. They are not targeted. As such, they generally provide results, but those results are often cumbersome and unproductive.
These scattershot approaches might or might not find their way to your ideal candidate, but they will almost always find their way to the active (perhaps desperate) candidates who are sending resumés out left and right. These untargeted approaches create more “noise,” both for your HR department and for the candidates.
To find your ideal talent, the next difference maker—who is probably a passive candidate, already employed and rarely reading the classifieds or job boards—companies have to be more thoughtful and creative about how they place their employment messages. The goal is to be within arm's reach or, better yet, a keystroke away from your targeted talent.
The companies that win in this game will often be those that find new and refreshing ways to effectively target the talent they seek.
For example, videogames developer and publisher Electronic Arts (EA) included a URL for their careers Web site in each of its game manuals, putting employment messages in the hands of millions of passionate gamers. Think some of them might be qualified and interested in working at EA?
As another example, U.S. defense contractors, such as Harris Corp. and Raytheon, are often challenged to find workers with federal security clearance, which is not a high percentage of the population. Because of this, these companies have taken extensive measures online and offline to get ahead of the game and source this specific type of Q-Talent. In response to the same issue, some recruiting agencies now work for these firms, positioning themselves in close proximity to military outplacement posts, where military personnel are cycling out of their tours of duty. Not arm's reach, but not that far away.
Creative possibilities for targeting talent abound. Think about the people—your customers—who already interact with you and have an interest in the products or services you provide. For example, a movie store could mine its customer database to find the biggest movie buffs—who has rented the most movies over the past few years? Maybe one of them would be interested in a part-time gig that came with some free rentals. The manager could talk to prospective talent about this the next time they visit the store. Short of that direct contact, employment messages could simply be placed on the movie boxes themselves.
Pizza parlors advertise for drivers on their boxes, offering a signing bonus for those with clean driving records. Companies could put employment messages on credit card receipts and potentially catch people twice, once when they sign and again when they reconcile their checkbooks.
Or maybe a country or region is trying to find available talent. New Zealand, with its dire need for medical personnel, could extend the basic advertising it might do in medical journals and at medical conferences by running ads during fishing shows offering free fly-fishing trips to one of the greatest fly-fishing venues in the world, Lake Taupo.
After you have exhausted some immediate opportunities to attract Q-Talent, begin to broaden your reach by launching initiatives that will help your organization cultivate Q-Talent in the long term. Just as some of the most successful marketing initiatives involve long-term partnerships, some industries might benefit from forming symbiotic, cooperative relationships to achieve talent acquisition results years down the line. For instance, a university with a major veterinary program is always competing for top talent—those superstar high school students who want to become veterinarians. At the same time, a company such as Purina also needs to ensure they have talent in the future—the veterinary scientists who create their pet food formulas.
Suppose a major university proposes to Ralston Purina that they jointly run a summer camp for kids interested in becoming vets. The kids get an exciting opportunity to explore a field of interest and perhaps, in a few years, even earn a scholarship. The school gets to identify and build relationships with potential talent. Purina gets a terrific advertising opportunity and a way to identify future talent, knowing that some of those veterinary students will end up on the scientific side.
Taking it a step further, the university and Ralston Purina could then propose to the television network Animal Planet that they run a special on the vet camp program. When the network runs the show, it could display an icon in the corner of the TV screen that directs kids to a Web site where they can learn about the camp, play animal games, and interact with the university or each other. Animal Planet gets a new show for its younger viewers and a new stream of visitors to its Web site. The camp's participation rate explodes. The kids have a blast, and every time the family shops for dog food, they have to at least look fondly at the Ralston Purina bags. Everyone wins.
The talent market of the future has the potential to drive these kinds of arrangements as companies become more creative, more forward thinking, and more strategic in their recruitment efforts. After all, why should these companies pay for separate efforts when a coordinated effort enables them to spend further and deeper with greater results? The types of programs you can create are only limited by your imagination.
Consider the following proactive, strategic steps that other organizations are taking to meet their long-range talent needs:
Responding to a general lack of skilled workers, a locally owned shop in Lubbock, Texas, has teamed with education leaders to create a program for training automotive technicians. This not only enhances the technicians' education with real-life experience in the company's auto bays; it will also help the business by building a pipeline of trained auto workers in the Lubbock area to meet the demand.
Medical systems in New Zealand, facing a dire shortage of doctors, are using their career Web sites to establish long-term relationships with medical talent around the world, “selling” the lifestyle in New Zealand as a way to help attract top talent.
One hospital system in Indiana has created an outreach program for grade school and junior high students to get them thinking about medical careers, outlining how to pursue a career in medicine, and how the hospital can help. The system also has begun to employ a cutting-edge compensation structure that rewards nurses and other critical talent based on merit and performance, as opposed to the classic emphasis on seniority. These programs are both designed to attract and retain young, skilled, and motivated Q-Talent.
The videogame industry is supporting and helping to create college degree programs to develop the next generation of skilled Q-Talent. This relatively new industry has seen sales of videogames grow beyond Hollywood's box office receipts, yet there is still no widely recognized four-year program to train game developers. In conjunction with public institutions around the world, this industry is now working to develop an entirely new base of skilled workers worldwide.
Defense contractors in the United States are having more and more difficulty finding U.S. citizens with appropriate technical backgrounds necessary for research, development, and production work. (U.S. citizens are especially needed for jobs requiring security clearance.) Some companies are even considering mergers or acquisitions solely based on their need for experienced talent.
One of the largest financial services groups in the world has begun tying CEO performance in part to talent objectives. The CEO of each of the group's companies is now required to report on talent management progress and outline future plans.
Some companies that are offshoring in other parts of the world are establishing relationships with universities in those countries so that they can recruit undergraduates there—talent that will work in those companies abroad or back at home.
A hospital in Florida invests in educational buildings for nurses at local college campuses and provides scholarships and education assistance, ensuring a steady stream of talent ahead of demand.
A former biotechnology executive teaches high school biology in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is working with Genentech and other leading biotech firms to be sure that he is teaching his students the “what's” and “how's” that these companies expect from their talent force 4 to 10 years from now.
A major U.S. college has developed an internship program through which college undergraduates can work in the defense industry and obtain federal security clearance while in school.
For Jody Conradt, early planning for future talent needs is already a fact of life. Conradt is head coach of the University of Texas women's basketball team. In that business, the coach and her assistants—all of them talent managers—identify and start developing relationships with target Q-Talent when these prospects are 13 or 14 years old. There are strict rules of engagement regarding when, where, and how much contact can be involved. To stay ahead, assistant coaches are on the Internet instant messaging (IM-ing) prospects and watching blogs and chat sites to see where the talent is going and what is being said.
A shortage of auto bay technicians in Lubbock, Texas, might not seem like a big deal, but when a nation's defense industry is having trouble finding the talent it needs to compete and keep up with demand, the potential ramifications should cause business leaders in every industry to pay attention.
Talent development, seen in some of the preceding examples, is one of the fastest growing initiatives inside companies. How much less does it cost to develop talent in-house or in-region? In addition to the development initiatives listed previously, many companies now have their own internal “university” to teach and develop proprietary skills.
Here's one more example: Ross Perot, famed for starting the technology firm Electronic Data Systems (EDS) in the late 1970s, created a Q-Talent force and high-performance culture by offering a three-year training course for his sales staff. He attracted fresh, hardworking individuals who were driven to succeed. Any salesperson who joined was required to sign a three-year contract. Those who left during the three-year period paid back a prorated portion of the training. In this way, Perot put a value on training and talent development. EDS implemented a proactive plan to ensure the right talent would be available externally and internally to match the planned growth of the company. EDS grew successfully due to their careful planning and long-term investment in having the right talent in the right place at the right time.
So, what could you do to draw talent to your company or industry that you are not doing now?
Today's technology gives companies a global reach and allows them to easily communicate with people in their living rooms, at their desks, on the subway—almost anywhere someone is willing to be contacted. Companies have explored and exploited these technologies to help create value in their sales forces, technology services, supply chains, customer service, and repair departments.
In the arena of talent, however, many of the efficiencies to be gained from modern communication have remained untapped. The technology exists, but companies have not been thinking about ways to take advantage of it when it comes to finding and acquiring talent. As the heat gradually turns up on recruiters, as arrogance of supply becomes a relic of the past, and as companies start realizing the huge bottom-line potential of great talent management, more creativity and energy will be put into finding new ways to recruit the best people. Technology can, and will, play an ever-growing role in that effort.
Let's take a look at how a company might use technology to reach and recruit talent today. A candidate might see an employment ad during the Super Bowl at halftime, for example. First, he gets the not-so-subtle message that what he is doing for his livelihood is sub-par to what he could be doing—the famous Monster.com campaign featured children saying such things as, “When I grow up, I want to sit in the same cubicle for 20 years.” Next, he sees an ad for a financial services firm that contains the URL for that company's career site.
His curiosity piqued, the candidate gets on the Internet while he's watching his team get blown out in the third quarter. It just so happens that the financial services firm has a position of interest. He answers a few easy questions, submits the questionnaire electronically, and by the end of the game, he has an e-mail telling him he is qualified and the company is interested.
At dinner the next night, he is talking with his partner about the wonderful opportunity he might have at this other company. By Friday, when his boss thinks he wants to talk about last week's Super Bowl game over a drink, he instead tells the story of his fantastic new opportunity, and asks how badly the company wants him to stay.
Communication channels are not limited to television, e-mail, and the Web. In the first half of 2005, there were more than 170 million cell phone users in the United States, and far more in Europe and Asia. Instead of passing notes in class, teenagers text message one another. Some handheld games can access online gaming communities from anywhere.
Nokia's N-Gage device, a hybrid gaming console-telephone-PDA, enables players to share profiles and participate in chats and message boards. Some people feel lost without their “crackberry.” Google is a verb. Sixty seconds is too long to wait on hold.
In this nearly always-on, always-ready environment, it will not be long before savvy recruiters make increasingly effective use of the myriad communications channels to reach Q-Talent candidates at all levels with compelling job opportunities.
A talent brand strategically aligned with your business is a huge competitive advantage. Similar to the way a marketer runs a marketing campaign, recruiters need to understand the habits, hopes, and dreams of their engineers, longshoremen, and fry cooks, and develop a talent brand that reaches out to them to make an effective “sale.”
Coupled with targeted online and offline delivery, a talent brand has the potential to cut through the “noise” and reach your desired Q-Talent. To effectively communicate their talent brand, companies should make an ongoing investment in exploring and using technology. The next chapter shows how companies can harness technology to create talent communities where they can promote their talent brands, meet their ongoing talent needs, and contribute new forms of business value to the organization.