Walking the Tightrope of Talent Attraction

Workforce Therapy Files

File 13: In today’s file, the team focuses on the topic of talent attraction. The environment has evolved and so has the way successful companies plan for success as it relates to recruiting and staffing their organizations. Remember, there are compliance issues you should consider when promoting your job openings. Are you ready to compete for your next, new hire?

Look How Far We’ve Come

Molley begins by describing how a call center she worked for attracted candidates, back in the day. They posted openings in the Help Wanted section of the newspaper. The eye-catching headlines usually included, “Immediate Opening” or “Interview and Hire in the Same Day.” It was fairly bland, but that’s how it was done.

Jamie recalls how a company bought an attendance list from a conference, mailed 500 postcards about job openings…and didn’t receive a single response.

Lately, companies have begun using billboards, which Jason points out are difficult to measure from a lead generation perspective.

Jamie had a client who decided to recruit from a college job fair. Most of the people she spoke to didn’t have the experience or even the right majors to qualify them for the openings. Many of the people who stopped by weren’t all that interested to begin with, but thought they’d give it a whirl. The entire day was a bust.

From a marketing standpoint, Jason comments that the company may not have been that recognizable from a branding standpoint. Did the company’s logo and tagline provide enough information to generate interest from the pool of students attending the event?

Where Does Talent Come from and How Do You Attract It?

Molley comments that many companies struggle with these 2 points. There are misconceptions surrounding how companies could be more successful in these areas. There are so many platforms that impact how the company and the individual roles are perceived. For this and other reasons, a company needs to have a plan.

With the advent of better resources, such as your computer or smartphone, are newspapers really the most effective place to market your job openings? Jason notes that many newspapers are slowly launching digital versions, which can provide advantages over traditional, print versions. Nonetheless, it’s probably too late.

Social media is becoming a viable resource for companies who want to promote job openings (i.e. Facebook and the other Meta channels, Twitter or “X”, LinkedIn, etc.). The traditional, online job boards such as Monster Jobs, CareerBuilder, Dice, and Indeed have evolved as viable options.

Still, Jason offers that rather than waiting for candidates to find you, you need to actively seek them. Molley agrees, especially in this market. It’s important to understand the typical audience, as well as user intent, on the various social media channels. For instance, you might not spend a lot of time posting for C-suite candidates on Facebook, but LinkedIn would make sense. Even more importantly when dealing with executive roles, you need to leverage various networks.

Targeted marketing for specific roles is ever-changing. You’ll need to be ready to adapt your approach. If you have a plan for successfully hiring a candidate(s), you’ll be better equipped to achieve your objective.

Filing a Position involves Targeting the Right Candidates

Jason discusses how they begin by working with companies to build out candidate personas. While compliance is a significant concern for how you target your clients, there are permissible ways to wade into these waters.

Meta enables you to target using age, gender and various micro-categories. Examples include interests such as gaming, live events, reading, movies, family and relationships. There are selectors including dating, marriage, motherhood, parenting, fitness & wellness, food and drink and many more. You can use these to build personas around what you’re specifically targeting.

Google enables you to target age, gender, parental status, household income and more criteria.

From an HR compliance perspective, there are times when these can be helpful. Recognize first, that what we’ve learned in the past are not based in what’s actually required. Just because you can, doesn’t necessarily mean you should.

Be Mindful of the EEOC Requirements

Jamie suggests you consult with the government requirements, or contact this team for advice. The EEOC.gov site is extremely helpful. Understand that you’re not able to discriminate against protected classes in your practices. It’s best to cast a wide net, including the utilization of various job boards.

Keep in mind that in reviewing your organization’s demographics, are there opportunities to bolster under-represented demographics, especially for your specific locations and the type of work to be performed?

Is your organization required to have an affirmative action program? If so, you’ll need to understand what market exists in the areas you’re placing you job openings. You’ll need to analyze your current organizational demographics. Can you identify existing gaps? If so, you actually should do targeted marketing, using the available targeting categories Jason described.

Understand, you cannot use that as a restriction. In other words, you can’t say, “We’re only going to hire females” or other types of limitations. You want proactively attract individuals, rather than discriminating against certain individuals.

Jason cautions employers not to simply rely on specific targeting criteria, simply because they’re available to be used in a targeting strategy for your online ad. This also involves an over-reliance on your third-party vendors, as well as your internal marketing team. They don’t necessarily understand the rules.

Jamie warns that you need to be aware of your actual motivations. It might be argued that you’re actually unfairly, or unjustly, targeting specific demographic personas (either on purpose or not). Jason mentions that it’s possible to exclude certain demographics or geographic areas, which also can lead to problems for the organization.

Using interests and similar targeting criteria can be extremely helpful. Jamie uses an example of a company targeting “LEGOs” to generate potential candidates for complex assembly work. Jason describes how selecting interests in “adjacent categories” can be a strategic way to attract qualified candidates. For instance, if you’re trying to sell fancy suits, targeting the term “yachts” would be an adjacent category.

There are creative ways to utilize available categories to help you to achieve your hiring goals. It’s a good idea to question why you shouldn’t use the categories you just chose? It’s a simple way to check to determine if there’s a potential problem with the approach you’re about to implement. Beware of unintended consequences.

Molley returns to the importance of actually having a plan to develop and support your strategies. Spending time trying to understand why your people remain with your organization is time well-spent. Relying solely on the feedback you receive during exit interviews isn’t your only option.

By canvasing the employees who continue to return to their jobs will help you to better develop a strategy and plan around where you need to be, how you need to be and what you need to be doing to attract the right talent. The old ways of attracting talent are less effective today.

Allocating the Proper Budget for Effective Recruiting

Jamie speaks from experience when she comments that companies often under-resource the recruiting team to achieve the objectives they’ve been given. Where should you invest your funds, time and energy based on what you have available?

Molley strongly advocates for an employee referral program. Jason recommends utilizing Google search ads to identify people who are looking for your specific job or role, instead of casting a broader net. He agrees with the focus on referrals. From an HR compliance perspective, Jamie understands why ads need to be written a certain way, but by harnessing the power of targeting criteria, it can positively impact the effectiveness of your ad. Molley builds on this comment by encouraging you to be consistent in your deliverables. You want your candidate experiences are aligned with the marketing messages across all prospective candidates.

That’s where we’ll leave the conversation for today. Before we close the file, we invite you to reach out to us with questions, suggestions or other comments. We’d love to hear from you.

Need Help Supporting Your Company’s Recruiting and Staffing Goals?

We’re here to help. You can contact us via our individual websites, depending on your specific needs or questions:

· Jamie Swaim, SPHR – www.ParcelKnows.com

· Molley Ricketts – www.IncipioWorks.com

· Jason Heflin – www.CrowdSouth.com

We hope you found this file insightful and helpful. Thank you for listening!