How to Hire Top Talent in a Competitive Market: 6 Strategies for Success

With the intense war for talent, it's more imperative than ever to strategize effectively on what would appeal to high-performing candidates. We often say that talent is the most powerful variable you can control in your business, hence attracting top talent is a critical factor in your organization's success in today's hyper competitive market. 

In this blog, you will find strategies that have proven themselves in helping to attract great talent, with a few examples from across industries that showcase their effectiveness. From developing your employer brand to leveraging new-age technologies, these six strategies can help you represent your organization suitably, helping you attract, engage, and acquire the best talent for their organization.

From our data, there is nothing more critical to attracting great talent than this. People will still want to work for Google and the like, even if all things (such as pay) are not equal. That said, your employer brand must truthfully represent your company's culture, values, and growth opportunities as well as highlight what sets you apart from your competitors. Do note that it’s not only your claims but that of your employees that stand out and hence company reviews in sites like Glassdoor are often the first thing candidates look-up to assess your employer brand.

Companies like Apple and Salesforce have created a strong employer brand by emphasizing their commitment to innovation, and even to philanthropy. This has taken them to the coveted list of best places to work, enabling them to attract top candidates.

To get into their shoes takes some effort but it’s not impossible. Try the following:

Next in terms of importance for attracting top talent is offering competitive compensation and benefits which would involve a combination of salary, performance based variable incentives and bonuses, stocks, shares or profit-sharing plans, health insurance for the employee (and their dependents), and other innovative perks.

Netflix has successfully attracted top talent by offering competitive salaries and an innovative "unlimited" vacation policy. Amazon’s stock option is very attractive from a wealth creation perspective. Several well-funded organizations in India and abroad are known for offering attractive compensation and benefits to secure high-quality candidates, though some of them serve only to appeal to those candidates who are more money minded.

Developing a competitive compensation and benefits package across the organization requires some specialization but you can try the following:

Consider this - would you, as a candidate, join an organization if your experience in interviewing with them is poor? Most wouldn’t. Hence, a positive candidate experience can considerably impact your ability to hire top talent. If every interaction that a candidate has with your organization, from the initial application to the final interview, is professional, timely, efficient, and respectful, the ‘wow’ feeling tends to sway them in your favour.

Several organizations have invested time and effort in creating a seamless and engaging candidate experience, whether by training their folks including their leaders on the art of interviewing, or by leveraging technology to keep candidates informed throughout the recruitment process. This has helped them create a positive impression on candidates right from the beginning.

Creating a positive candidate experience is more about your mindset, and less about everything else. Consider the following:

Technology can help you streamline the recruitment process which in turn improves your ability to hire top talent in a competitive market. By automating time-consuming and repetitive tasks and harnessing data-driven insights, you are freeing up your human resources to have actual conversations with candidates which can help you identify and secure the best candidates.

Many organizations, from enterprises to start-ups, have successfully leveraged recruitment technologies to enhance their recruitment strategy, reduce time-to hire and increase the quality of their talent pool. The more aggressive among them have even started leveraging AI and Machine Learning platforms to assess candidates and raise the bar of their talent. 

Leveraging recruitment technology is neither expensive nor a rocket science anymore, you simply need to:

Building and nurturing talent pipelines is actually a bit tough in real-life but in a competitive market, it's necessary to proactively ensure that you have access to high-quality candidates as and when a job opening comes up. It’s tough because it’s often not a priority either for the organization or for the candidates since it involves identifying potential candidates, engaging with them regularly (even when there is no current opening), and fostering relationships (that may or may not lead to future employment opportunities).

However, some companies have successfully built talent pipelines by partnering with graduate and post-graduate colleges and universities, launching early-career development programs, having well-defined internship practices or through leadership mentoring. This has helped them create ready sources of candidates for upcoming roles.

If you are keen to build and nurture talent pipelines, consider the following:

Last but not the least, a diverse and inclusive workforce has been proven to be a key driver of innovation, resulting in business success. If the effort is sincere and not just lip service, fostering a workplace culture that truly values diverse perspectives and backgrounds can help you attract great talent from a wider pool of candidates.

Globally, a few large organizations (such as Accenture) and several mid-size ones (such as Diabsolut) have set bold goals for gender and ethnic diversity which has positively contributed to their reputation as being progressive. But again, making a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion in the workforce isn’t so easy, though this can help in attracting top talent from diverse backgrounds.

To foster a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusivity, you need to work on the following:

We have almost always seen from our experience that a comprehensive approach is required to attract top talent in a competitive market. The six strategies outlined above can significantly improve your chances versus your industry peers in successfully securing the best talent. However, if this is a challenge that you believe requires external intervention, call or mail us for a consultation on the recruitment strategies and practices that you can adopt to navigate such challenges.