How to attract and engage the right talent

Today we're excited to share a guest post from Kelly Segat, Global Head of Programs and Client Experience at Inkling. Inkling is a client of Stopgaps' whose leadership programs create sustained shifts in mindset and behaviour that awaken individuals, teams and organisations to their full potential.

Kelly knows a thing or two about hiring & attracting the right talent having spent a large portion of her career working in Talent, HR, Customer Success and Coaching for organisations like LinkedIn and Suncorp. In this guest post from Inkling, Kelly shares her top tips for attracting and engaging the right talent for your organisation.

Let’s jump right in!

Today’s talent is more discerning than ever before. They are more inclined to know the types of organisations they would like to work for, the culture that will suit them, and the type of leader who will get the most out of them.

They will be interviewing you as much as you will be interviewing them, and doing as much, if not more, due diligence on the company than the recruiter will do on them.

Today’s talent is vocal and resourceful; they will rate you on sites like Glassdoor, tweet about the interview process, and talk about you on LinkedIn. In the current fast-paced talent market, you need to be strategic about the way you recruit. These 5 tips will help you shape your talent acquisition roadmap and future-proof your hiring process:

1. Create employer brand awareness

Your brand as an employer must be as strong as your consumer brand in order to cultivate awareness of your organisation as a destination of choice for the right candidates. As a start, get your Employee Value Proposition (EVP) in order:

• What are your best people saying about the culture?
• Why do they stay with your organisation?
• Why are they successful there?

But a word of caution; your EVP needs to be real, and therefore it won’t appeal to everyone, and that’s ok. This means that the quality and fit of interested candidates will align more closely to the skillset and culture you are looking for.

2. Walk the talk

Now that you have the talent’s attention, how do you keep it? They aren’t going to accept your EVP at face value, they are going to want to know more, and it’s likely they will turn to the internet for some cyber-sleuthing.

Get your best leaders involved. Ensure that they have excellent LinkedIn profiles that talk about what they do, how they do it and how the culture supports them.

Talent today is driven by connecting to a mission and purpose; the “why” behind what your organisation does. They will want to know that the work they will do matters and how it is done. They will want to see this demonstrated from the top down. Make sure your website and social media tell stories of giving back, of innovation, and how your organisation is making a difference.

3. Engage them early

Encourage your Talent Acquisition (TA) team and hiring managers to connect with potential talent prior to recruitment needs arising. The most successful and retained talent within an organisation are connected heart and mind to the company, and outreach helps to create that psychological contract early. This allows the talent to know the company from the inside and connect to the values. For those still measuring time to hire, this process can have a major positive impact.

4. Select the best of the best 

Now that the time is right for you to recruit, you already have a pool of quality applicants who are ready to go. The talent knows who you are as an employer and what you can offer them. They understand your impact and contribution to the community. Through this groundwork, you have alleviated the need for a cumbersome selection process!

5. On-board with care

Everyone’s excited, the offer is out, the contract comes back and then…nothing.  Radio silence until your new hire starts 4-8 weeks later. They turn up on the day and no one is there to meet them, their leader isn’t around, but a friendly colleague shows them to a free desk with a laptop. That’s fine, right?

Nope. The research shows the most retained and engaged employees are those that are effectively on-boarded. The outreach that worked so well in the engagement phase needs to continue into the on-boarding phase.

Both the recruiter and the hiring manager should contact the new employee throughout the pre-start period, checking in, sharing information about the team and current activities. If the lead time to start is a longer one, someone from the TA team or the hiring manager should organise at least one coffee meeting to keep that psychological contract bubbling along.

On their first day, your new star hire should be greeted by their leader and shown to their desk which is ready, clean, and fully equipped with all the tools they need to perform their work. There should be time set aside for the team to welcome them into the fold, and a structured onboarding plan for their first 90 days, and for goodness sake, show them where the bathroom is!

​Inkling chose to partner with Stopgap when they needed to hire a marketer knowing that Stopgap are Sydney's go-to specialists for attracting top marketing talent. If you're looking to grow your marketing team and are in need of a trusted recruitment partner, please get in touch with the team at Stopgap today to discuss how we can support your hiring needs.