6 November 2024
Attracting top talent starts with an aspirational job ad
According to research by McKinsey, the best talent is up to eight times more productive than their ‘average’ peers. The more senior or complex the role, the greater the competitive advantage. The top 1% are credited with driving 10% of an organisation’s output. It is little wonder, then, that, even in a cooling recruitment market, competition for the very best people remains fierce. Acquiring genuinely game-changing talent can be a challenge.
When £7.7 billion a year is being wasted in lost productivity, due to poor hiring decisions, we need to improve our recruitment processes. A great recruitment process starts with a compelling, aspirational ad.
Are you paying enough?
While flexible working and clearly defined career development pathways have become increasingly important, the number one priority for most people looking for a new role remains remuneration. The best people know what they’re worth.
Before advertising a role, benchmark the salary (including benefits package, where appropriate) by reviewing the market to ensure yours is competitive.
It is extraordinary how many companies still do not clearly state the salary on their job adverts, hiding behind the pretext of negotiability. Candidates view salary transparency as the number one indicator of an employer’s long-term potential, while 75% of candidates would be more likely to apply for a role that included a salary range. Almost half of candidates are turned off by an ad that doesn’t include one.
A failure to list salaries on job adverts (along with asking a candidate’s salary history, at interview) perpetuates pay inequality, especially for those who have been historically underpaid (mainly women and those from underrepresented groups). As such, the best people understand that a lack of transparency around pay is the hallmark of a regressive organisation. The best people want to work for progressive, values-led organisations that are equitable and diverse.
Transparency around pay will save everyone time. It is a filter for unrealistic expectations on both sides of the process.
Benefits are important, too, and should be listed clearly, along with the salary at the top of your advert. Investing in the health and wellbeing of your people is a signifier of a progressive, socially aware business, a business that is invested in creating social as well as economic value – after all, the benefits of health and wellbeing at work are proven. It’s not complex; where people flourish organisations thrive.
With over £25 billion a year being lost in poor productivity, due to people working through sickness, prioritising the health and wellbeing of your people, through a comprehensive benefits package, is becoming increasingly important. With the well-documented struggles of the NHS, business has a responsibility to step up. Offering a private health package that enables your employees to get seen and diagnosed quicker is not only an attractive benefit to prospective candidates, but also a boost to the productivity of your organisation.
Flexible working is key. The business debate around a return to the office (RTO) is moot; the bottom line is the majority of people want the option to work flexibly. People have reassessed their priorities post-pandemic and are prioritising a healthier work-life balance. If you’re not offering flexible working, you are going to struggle to attract the best people.
Highlight company culture
Society is changing. Both consumers and employees want to support businesses that align with their values and contribute positively to society. Top talent seeks employers that provide a sense of purpose and meaning to their work. In a world scarred by the pandemic and subsequent cost-of-living crisis, purpose-driven organisations stand out.
Be clear about your values and purpose when advertising your role. For senior roles, especially in the public sector, where vocation rather than remuneration is often a significant driver, we encourage our clients to create a microsite where they can showcase their culture in depth.
This is all part of building a successful employer brand. As such, think of your job ad as a manifesto for your organisation.
Leadership style
‘Wanted: Genuine leader who happens to be a Finance Director’ was the headline of a successful advert we placed for a client who had very particular expectations of their leaders and clearly defined views on how a leader should lead. The company had been struggling to find the right fit. The whole campaign was built around what the company believed made a great leader. The finance element was only alluded to.
A person specification goes hand-in-hand with your company culture. The role requirement aside, having clarity around the qualities and character of the person you are searching for, in your person specification, increases in importance along with the seniority of the role. Recruiters often talk about cultural ‘fit’ but, perhaps, cultural ‘add’ is a more appropriate description of what organisations really need, especially when they’re looking to appoint to more senior roles.
Rather than searching for homogeneity, we would suggest organisations should be looking for complementarity. Diversity and difference are, after all, the hallmarks of innovative, productive leadership teams.
Highlight the opportunity
Too many job ads focus on the need of the company rather than the opportunity for the candidate. With 55% of early career/entry level employees leaving their jobs within the first year – because the reality of the role doesn’t meet their expectations – it is, clearly, important to list a role’s requirements and expectations. For senior roles, however, this is less so. A competent professional knows fundamentally what the role requirement is.
The talent gaps in Engineering are well documented. So, how do you persuade a gifted engineering graduate to eschew the bright lights of a big-city talent hotbed for rural Shropshire, with its restricted salary bands? You focus on the opportunity: the security of working in a subsidiary of a growing, global brand, which also offered the exhilaration, agility and autonomy that comes with being a disruptor in the UK EV market.
Aimed at a dynamic demographic of engineers, we led with a quote from original industry disruptor Henry Ford:
“If I’d asked my customers what they wanted...they’d have said a faster horse.”
No doubt about it, the brief to search for an engineer with a person specification that included the qualities of charisma and emotional intelligence was challenging, but our focus on the opportunity meant we were able to present eight highly proceedable candidates.
Progressive companies are eschewing the rigid, top-down structures that inhibit innovation for flexible, bottom-up communities that are more agile and commercially creative. Trusting people and giving them more autonomy leads to greater levels of engagement, empowerment and, as a result, productivity. Autonomy is an attractive aspiration for the truly talented. They want to be set free to fly. So, if you’ll let them, shout about it. If they have the opportunity to build from the ground up, to make their mark, to be self-directing, to grow with the business, focus in on this.
Autonomy is an attractive aspiration for the truly talented. They want to be set free to fly. So, if you’ll let them, shout about it. If they have the opportunity to build from the ground up, to make their mark, to be self-directing, to grow with the business, focus in on this.
Advert placement
There’s no point having a great advert if no one is going to see it. As with any online search technology, today’s job boards rely on algorithms to be found. To appear in the top search results, an advert must use the same keywords a candidate is using in their search.
So, think carefully about which keywords and phrases your target candidates are searching for. The received wisdom is that you need to repeat these keywords or phrases between four to seven times in your advert. This isn’t always as easy as it sounds. As such, the advice is to include as many variations as possible, too.
Increasingly, social media is playing a big part in extending the reach of job adverts. Whether it is LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram or, increasingly Tik Tok, think about including a strong accompanying visual. Better still, turn your advert into an animation or video. Video outstrips every other medium on social media.
Including alt text, with your images, not only enables you to reinforce your keywords, but also offers a text alternative to make your images accessible to visually impaired users and others using screen readers (they also appear when, due to technical issues, images do not properly load on a user's screen).
And encourage your audience to like, comment, and share your content. Engagement signals to the platform’s algorithm that your content is valuable and relevant, increasing its ‘visibility’ in users' feeds.
Diversity and Inclusion
As said, diversity and difference are hallmarks of innovative, productive leadership teams. To achieve this, for recruitment professionals and hiring managers, the goal is to create a fair and equitable process. This is important not only for legal compliance, but also to give candidates confidence in your process. This means, as far as possible, eliminating bias from the language in your advert.
Larger organisations that have access to the latest recruitment technology have recourse to AI language-checking tools. For startups and SMEs, there are a number of free gender decoding tools that can be utilised. The nature of bias is that it is often unconscious. Being mindful when writing your advert will help. If in doubt, run your advert by different people in your organisation.
And include a clear inclusivity statement. After all, you want to receive applications from the best people, irrespective of their background.
In brief
An organisation is only as good as its people. Attracting the best talent gives organisations a clear competitive advantage. The talent attraction process starts with a compelling, aspirational advert.
When compiling yours, the remuneration package is key. So, research the market to ensure it is competitive and include it clearly, upfront in your advert. And remember, you are selling your organisation as a great place to work, so highlight why, focusing in on your culture, values and purpose. The best people want to find meaning in their work. They are ambitious, too, wanting to know that there is a clear development pathway. They want the freedom to make a genuine difference. They also want to work flexibly.
The best job adverts appeal to the widest possible talent pool, so be mindful of unconscious bias that could potentially put a high-performing person from an underrepresented group off from applying. The goal is not necessarily a cultural fit, but a cultural add. You are looking for top-tier talent that can help your business to be better.
6 November 2024