Are You Able to Hire Top Talent?

The Strength of Your Team Depends On the Quality of Each Person You Bring On – Here’s How to Make Sure You Attract the Right People…

This past week one of my clients and I were brainstorming on talent acquisition – attracting GREAT TALENT.

(Note: This post is not about vetting – something I’ve written about in the past and requires some serious thought in addition to initial attraction.)

What Are You Offering? What Should You Be Offering?

It’s no surprise – finding top talent is hard. The media can go on about unemployment stats forever – like there’s lots of people out there (although unemployment rates are at a 49 year LOW right now!)

No matter how many millions of people are out of work – finding great consultants and sales people is just plain hard! Just finding someone who shows up on time and actually works can be a challenge.

That said, it’s common for the small business entrepreneur to skinny down salaries and benefits to make ends meet. It’s also common for larger companies to have bureaucratic policies that prevent hiring managers from offering top talent an attractive package.

Your people are one key asset you can’t skimp on, so here are some things to consider in the ATTRACTION phase…

Salary plus commission…Pay people more! In my past IT-Services leadership role I used commissions to give systems engineers and consultants a way to boost income – their personal contribution to the bottom line drove their salary up. Of course those who didn’t bring in money were left with smaller incomes…as it should be.
Vacation and Sick Time…Here’s an easy one. Do you really need your employees to earn their vacation? Next year they get the entire vacation, so get used to it and just give them the weeks on day one. Let’s take it a step further…did you know people perform better when they’re rested? Work life balance isn’t just a wanna-have, it helps your employees be better employees. So what would it cost you to give them more time off? 3 weeks, 4 weeks…I have one client who offers 5 whole weeks on day 1!
Training…more certs, more experience. What do systems engineers really want? Money? Well, we all need money, but career advancement is so much more important to the kinds of people you really want. So do you help your engineers grow? Most companies don’t. Be one that does.
Team Building…identity. Turns out (according to the brain science people I study) that identity is a key factor – people want to belong to something – a movement, success, something… don’t treat your people like replaceable contractors. Do you have a team? A true identity group going in your work place? Again, this takes some work, but it pays off in long term commitment, harder workers, and the attraction of top talent.
What else can you add here?

Okay, You Have Some New Benefits – What Can You Do To Attract?

Especially in smaller companies, it’s expensive to recruit – recruiters charge a lot and don’t often come up with great candidates. But you need just that – great candidates (Plural!) to compare….

What does your website say? We’re hiring? Pretty boring, and not at all differentiating… So how can you take your benefits (above) and turn them into a lead magnet for recruiting?

Let’s rephrase…can we create comparisons on the things a candidate would really want?

We offer 50% more vacation days than most of our competitors….and you get them on day one, without earning them!
We offer comp plans paying as much as 3X what our competitors pay. (You can do this if you have a few SEs making big commissions – because they are big producers!)
We offer 75% more training and certification opportunities than our competitors…
Our company invests X% more in leadership training, team building, and… opportunities…and we include our technical team in achievement rewards such as quota club trips (which your competitors probably don’t even have!).

Make it Look Great…Use it!

Remember this is marketing…so get a copywriter to PUNCH IT UP! I’ve said this so many times – copywriting is an art – a skill that takes years of study and practice, coaching, mentoring…so stop trying to do it yourself and outsource this one page.

When it’s great…forward it to your recruiter contacts. They aren’t marketers either…so do the heavy lifting for them. Just like you need marketing materials from a manufacturer or cloud services provider in order to really sell their stuff, recruiters will come up empty unless you provide the resources they need to market your firm as the go-to work place in town!

What else are you doing – comment below and let’s exchange some ideas!

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