The JobSync Blog
Talent Wars vs. Talent for Mismanagement
October 17, 2011
Is your company having trouble attracting talent for open positions? Do you find your competitors consistently snapping up the cream of available talent while your business watches helplessly in continual disappointment? Perhaps the problem is not your recruiting style but something far more deeper in your company.
Recently, Recruitingblogs.com featured a piece by an author who insisted there are no talent wars. Rather, the author contends that companies that consistently lose out to attracting the best talent suffer from inherent problems at their company that they are either oblivious to or refusing to address. In today’s world, such problems can rarely be kept internal and isolated from the outside world. Candidates are connected and have access to tremendous amounts of resources and knowledge, quickly gaining awareness of a company’s weaknesses and drawbacks. Such job hunters can become attuned to the following common problems of a target company, which leads them to refocus their job-seeking efforts elsewhere:
- Their stagnating culture: Slogans and catchphrases simply aren’t enough. Companies that fail to fulfill their corporate culture’s vision will be pushed aside by discriminating jobseekers.
- Lack of leadership: Is the CEO deeply committed to drawing top talent and keeping them happy at a company? If poor upper-level management is sparking high turnover, word will certainly get around and undermine a company’s recruiting efforts.
- Poor communication: Is poor internal communication driving talented employees out of the company? Such an exodus is a calling card for caution among candidates.
- Rigid reward model: Is the business incapable of providing flexible options in how employees will be rewarded? Those companies that can demonstrate such flexibility will have two legs up on recruiting talent.
- Old fashioned employee rules: Has the company avoided entering the 21st Century? Refusing to let employees access their social network (even for business purposes) at the office or address a family matter during the day is a surefire way to drive candidates to a firm’s rivals.
- Poor business model: There is simply no way to mask poor numbers, especially if a company’s competitors are somehow managing to thrive in the same environment. And those competitors will thrive in recruiting, too.
Winning the talent war is easy. Most of the time, you just have to win the war with yourself.
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