The future of talent has arrived. Today’s businesses are competing for the most innovative and the brightest, and it is time to step up to the plate or step aside. What does it take to recruit, evaluate and retain a 21st century workforce? Well, here are some things you need to consider:
1) The Old Ways Won’t Work: Cultivating top talent is essential if you want your business to adapt and thrive. According to a recent survey just 34% of executives believe their talent acquisition efforts are up to the job of preparing the workforces their companies will need in the future. They’re right. Executives need to focus on building the company’s employment brand. Today’s companies must market their brand not just to consumers, but to potential hires too. Leveraging social media and professional networks to mine and build talent communities is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the outreach process. Video, collaboration programs, and employment engagement platforms are just a few of the tools companies are using to build the workforces of the future. Leaders are becoming more social by the minute.
2) Use Big Data to Build and Retain Talent: Top talent is still a rare commodity, but the pool of potential employees is global. Leveraging big data and talent analytics is essential to identifying skilled candidates and measuring the quality of hires. Put simply, statistical tools can help you locate the proverbial needle in a haystack. Otherwise, you might as well be aiming at a dartboard blindfolded.
3) Community Building: Community building is not just important on the job, it is an important way companies are attracting the right recruits. For example, companies like GM have used employee generated content dispersed through social media to attract and build talent-based communities. Innovative practices like these are helping companies expand their talent pool.
4) Interface is Everything: To reach potential employees you must connect with them using the same tools and technologies they use. Think candidate experience. Essentially, this means giving potential hires a great experience with whatever platform, device or channel they choose to use when interacting with your company. Top-quality candidates have more choices than ever. If they can’t connect with you seamlessly, then they’ll likely pass you over in favor of someone else.
5) Employee Engagement: Today, hiring a recruit is only the beginning of an extended process. Employee engagement is indispensable towards maintaining a deep bench and a motivated workforce. Creating a connected and collaborative workplace environment helps assure that employees have open lines of communication, team-building tools and the feedback they require to do their jobs. Today’s recruiting is not your mother or father’s recruiting. The emergence of global markets, social media, and analytic tools is transforming the business of hiring and retaining employees. Companies need to out-smart, out-innovate, and out-hustle the competition if they want to have the inside track when it comes to attracting the highest quality candidates. If you want the best and brightest to work for you, then you had better be the best and the brightest at acquiring talent.
A version of this was first posted on Forbes.
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