A company's brand, message and perception in the marketplace can make or break the best laid talent acquisition plans. It can determine whether a company can attract and land A-list superstars or D-list extras. They say perception is reality. Never can that be more dangerous than when it comes to a company's brand and its effect on talent acquisition.
Many years ago in a galaxy far, far away I was a wide-eyed, rookie recruiter required to make 75 phone calls a day. I would partner with a company and start searching for a "purple unicorn" (recruiter-speak for someone who just doesn't exist). I would make many connections and most of them would agree to hear me out, but then at some point in the conversation would say, "I'm not interested right now, but let's stay in touch". I would fight back with a few valid points fully believing that this was a great opportunity, but it mostly ended the same way. Each time I would be thoroughly confused on why they wouldn't be interested in a job that was clearly better than the one they were in.
What I didn't realize back then was how focused I was on the opportunity and making a match. It was like offering milk to the lactose intolerant. My mindset was, "I love milk, you should too. Want some milk?” What I failed to realize was that if I had only asked them their opinion about milk then I could have offered them a potential workaround, say Lactaid or Soy Milk.
One of the first things I do these days when I get on the phone with a candidate is ask them their opinion on the company I am calling on behalf of. Why? Many people suffer from what is know as the lemming effect. They go along by default with popular opinion, regardless of knowledge or fact. If the popular opinion is a negative one, the lemming effect can be very dangerous to a company's brand and message, and can be lethal to recruiting efforts.
Companies rely heavily on their brands to attract, recruit and retain employees. The problem is that this is a hands-off approach to recruiting. It's like investing all of your available capital in mortgage-backed securities. Surely no one would completely leverage themselves in such a manner...oh wait. I always ask companies, "How are you attracting people to your organization? What is great about your company? What is unique about this opportunity?" This vital input is some of the most critical information I can leverage in order to give the correct perception of the world behind the velvet ropes.
Challenges in recruiting arise when you run across people who have a negative perception about a company. Bad perceptions are often based on inaccurate or out-of-date information, so the logical question is how do talent acquisition teams overcome this obstacle? Better yet, are they landing the key leadership hires that are essential to a company’s growth initiatives? You know, the A-list superstars.
One of the best ways to ensure success in your talent acquisition initiatives, especially when it comes to plucking out impact players from your competition, is to understand the perception of your brand in your competitor’s eyes. This is where a headhunter can become an invaluable resource. A skilled headhunter is able to inform, educate, introduce, support and sell a brand with up-to-the-minute accuracy. A headhunter is also able to do this as an objective third party. They can go to bat for a company and make right what perceptions may be wrong in one conversation alone, drastically altering the results of a recruiting process.
In the end, having a trusted headhunter on your side can land a company a high performer in an impact role. Add a few of these hires up over time and you can cause a ripple in a company’s very fabric of existence, vastly altering the heights at which an organization can soar to. It all starts with having a headhunter out there reinforcing your brand, spreading your message and most importantly, giving accurate and up-to-date pictures of opportunity based upon personal knowledge. The only way to put an end to the lemming effect is to educate your target market. In the world of talent acquisition this is where a headhunter can be priceless.
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