Attracting top talent is consistently named a top strategic priority among senior executives.
According to PwC’s 21st CEO Survey, 80% of CEOs are worried about sourcing and hiring highly skilled employees.
Losing high performing employees and failing to attract the necessary talent to your team can have an enormous impact on the performance of your business.
To address this, many corporate HR teams are creating what they refer to as “talent communities” – warm pipelines of talent for future recruitment, typically filled with active job seekers.
This often entails a simple form on the company’s employer brand website where the candidate can submit their resume for consideration to future positions. While the instinct to move from a reactive hiring approach to a proactive strategy is absolutely right, not all talent communities are created equally. And many miss the mark completely.
Too often, talent communities are led by recruiters and focused solely on targeting active job seekers (only 5-20% of talent market) – people who already have an interest in the potential employer and will take action to learn more.
However, to passive job seekers (an even larger talent pool at 65-75% of talent market!), these so-called talent communities offer nothing that would entice them to join. Instead, for top talent of any relatively in-demand skillset, they will likely view these corporate talent communities as just another platform through which they’ll be spammed by recruiters.
So, how do we define a Talent Community?
A Talent Community is:
- A platform that allows for its members to share common interests
- A space for shared conversation
- A relationship between the employer, its people, its brand and the community
- Employee and community-led
A Talent Community is NOT:
- A database of people that applied for a specific career
- One-way communication to a candidate
- A box to check for your employer brand
- Recruiter-led and managed
Key to the success of a talent community is the “community” – the reason for being, the common interest that brings individuals together. Job seeking, while perhaps a common activity, is not an interest – nor a sustainable, engaging context for a community. Even a very talented, motivated, active job seeker will move on from a talent community once they are hired elsewhere, because their reason for belonging will no longer exist.
True communities are participatory. For example, in a community of football fans, there is an ongoing dialogue around the topic. The community of fans might find affinity around a certain team or player, start a fantasy league or have a lively debate around a draft pick. These shared experiences over time create a feeling of belonging and trust among individuals within the community.
The goal, then, is to develop a talent community that follows this same participatory model around a common interest that will build long-term trust and belonging.
But, why even build a Talent Community in the first place? How can it be valuable for employers?
1. More qualified candidates in your ecosystem that believe in your brand
2. Less dependence on job boards
3. Lower spend on job advertisements
4. Increased interaction with potential candidates
5. Better quality of applicants
6. Attraction of passive candidates
7. Ability to track ROI, patterns, trends & opportunities
In our next blog, we’ll share how to asset map existing talent communities and create a community talent community that is authentic to your employer brand and goals.
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