Talent Attraction: opportunities and benefits for recruiting
Recruiting tips |

Talent Attraction: opportunities and benefits for recruiting

Talent Attraction is one of the missions of HR professionals. Companies are always interested in getting to know people of value and understanding how and whether they can fit into their work environment.
But what are we talking about when we talk about Talent Attraction? And what is the difference with Talent Acquisition? And what are the best moments in the candidate journey to attract talent?

Let’s try to answer all these questions in this article, starting with the definition of Talent Attraction.

SUMMARY

What is Talent Attraction

Talent Attraction is the ability to attract the right people for the business, whether it is when there is a search in progress and you are targeting active candidates or when there is no real selection in progress and you are targeting passive candidates.

Talent attraction tools and tactics include Employer Branding, recruiting marketing, company culture as well as benefits.

Representing a place where people would like to come and work as well as using the right recruiting tools to attract new people is a very effective way of talent attraction. The same goes for communicating the values on which the company is based and the benefits it offers to newcomers.

Of course, talent attraction is not a suit that can be worn by everyone without distinction, and the strategies and tools must be adapted to suit the people you are targeting.

They must adapt to generational differences, the economic period, trends in the world of work and competition.

For example, company benefits such as a car or meal vouchers may be more attractive to people over 50, but much less so to a new graduate about to enter the workforce who may be more interested in smart working and the company promoting sustainability.

Obviously, this is just one example, but it is useful to understand how Talent Attraction and its strategies should definitely be designed.

From Talent Attraction to Talent Acquisition

From Talent Attraction to Talent Acquisition is a short step and it goes without saying that these two phases of the recruitment process are intrinsically linked but are certainly not the same thing.

talent acquisition

While talent is always at the centre of both activities, Talent Acquisition is about continuously searching for talent and building long-term relationships with people. Talent Acquisition therefore goes beyond attraction and aims to create connections with interesting people regardless of whether or not there is an ongoing search. This is because forward-looking organisations and companies know that getting to know valuable people can always bring something positive, even when there are no vacancies that might be open at a later date.

Tools and channels for Talent Acquisition include email marketing, social media and artificial intelligence, which is playing an increasingly important role.

Attracting talent on the candidate journey: when and how to do it

How talent attraction is managed is very important in the so-called candidate journey, i.e. the path that talent takes to get to the company and to be included in the workforce.

Some strategies concern the attraction phase, which is based on awareness, i.e. the moment, the first one in fact, when the aspiring candidate becomes aware of the existence of your company. To make this happen, you need to focus on making your brand really attractive, also because before applying for a position, people look for reviews on the web, on social networks or simply on Google, to find out more about your organisation.

To do this, social communication, having an up-to-date website and career page and everything that people working in the company can say about it works a lot. Involving employees in talking about how they work in your company, interviewing them, having them speak on video or making posts on LinkedIn to report on their point of view or what they have achieved through that team is definitely a way to attract talent. In essence, it is important to focus on employee advocacy.

talent attraction ed employee advocacy

Not forgetting that the feedback you give to candidates – and here we are in a later stage of the candidate journey – also has an influence on attraction. If a candidate finds out that you are interviewing without giving feedback, this is counterproductive and also affects those who have not yet applied.

That’s why the best way to manage each stage of the candidate journey is to rely on ATS software such as Inrecruiting: this will help you to give feedback automatically to candidates, to organise interviews better, and not leave people unanswered. It will help you not only in the attraction phase itself, but also in the application, interview and post-interview phases of the entire recruitment process.

Each stage of the candidate journey is a way to keep attracting candidates.

You can also involve employees in inviting them to refer people they think might be interesting: this is called referral. You can thank those who do this by giving them benefits, for example, or perhaps by giving them a voucher, a gift card and so on.

The job description is also very important in the attraction phase. It should not only be specific to the position sought, focusing on skills and activities, but also written in a way that makes the company and the way of working within it known. It goes without saying that job descriptions should be an extension of the company culture.

Talent Attraction: opportunities for recruitment strategies

In both Talent Attraction and Talent Acquisition, it’s all about social recruiting and making connections with talented people. This means sharing their content, commenting on it, giving space to what they have done if it has actually been noticed in the company and so on. This, as well as other recruitment marketing strategies, are opportunities that should not be missed. Also in view of inbound recruiting.

Nowadays a company has to think not only in push but also in pull, or rather inbound, mode by creating content that your ideal candidates can find interesting and valuable.

Speaking out on trends such as the Yolo Economy, for example, is not about supporting those who tend to leave their jobs, but rather providing your point of view, being up-to-date, being found by those who are asking questions and looking for answers and, at the same time, making your uniqueness clear.

Articles on the company blog, posts on social networks, videos, ebooks, whitepapers that can be shared with users (who can be asked to subscribe to the newsletter or leave their email address when downloading a piece of content) all point towards Talent Attraction.

Do you want to know how the ATS Inrecruiting software works?

Request a demo