Finding great talent is never easy, especially if you spend your time using the same methods and channels that you use for every employee.
You need to remember that highly skilled employees usually aren’t looking for a new job, they have one and probably a good one at that, plus they have already worked their way through the career ladder and most likely have had or have a job that already pays well and provides them with what they need, what you need to do is give them something they want.
What Do Highly Skilled Employees Want?
- High Calibre Companies
- High Growth Opportunities or Top Level Positions
- Exciting Markets/Products or Services
- Exposure (If they are Extroverts)
- HIgh Salary or Unique Benefits
- Supportive Cultures
High Calibre Companies
It goes without saying really, high profile individuals want a high profile stage from which they can thrive, but this doesn’t always mean the biggest companies win the best employees.
It’s your job as the employer to showcase how great your company really is and can be, what it has achieved but more importantly where it’s planning on going. This is something that many startups have over larger companies, they still have that excitement and drive to change the world around them, and this is highly attractive to highly skilled individuals.
High Growth Opportunities
Highly skilled employees want to push the boundaries of what they can achieve, they are one of the few people who have found their calling and have spent a lifetime honing their skills to become one of the best in their respective industries, but they haven’t got to that point by coasting along in low hanging role, they always strive to get to the next level.
This is where you have the opportunity to highlight the roadmap to the top level, if you are a smaller company perhaps you want to consider showing the router becoming a director or even partner.
Exciting markets/products or services
Chances are if you are highly skilled in any particular area then you have probably seen and likely worked on most things currently shaping the market, so when something new comes along that is likely to reshape the whole industry, you are going to want to be involved in some way.
If you are very new and still in concept phase this might be slightly harder for you than most, but don’t hide away any exciting new products or advancements you are making when you showcase your company to any potential top talent, this could be your golden ticket to securing the services of someone who can take your product to a whole new high.
Exposure
This isn’t for everyone, but for a lot of highly talented individuals they often quite like the limelight. Not because of any narcissistic tendencies, but mostly because they would have been involved at some point in their career with some form of advancement in their industry and therefore are often playing centre stage at trade shows, and other industry events, where they can showcase their knowledge and build their networks with other high;y skilled individuals.
If you can, highlight any potential PR opportunities that you would be looking for them to be involved in, or that are coming up they may be interested in.
High Salary & Unique Benefits
Of course it’s a given that if you are a highly talented individual, you will want appropriate remuneration for your skills. However, money is not always the only motivator, benefits especially in more modern times are becoming frequently more important to employees.
Try to think out of the box, look at what the best companies give, don’t be afraid to negotiate potential unique benefits to the individual, but also be wary of giving one person too much preferential treatment as this could sour the entire workforce morale.
Supportive Culture
Just like any normal person, highly skilled people are still human, meaning they still seek affirmation, support, collaboration and an environment that generally feels welcoming.
Use your website and social media as platforms to shout about the internal culture of the company, you can even create a whole separate page showing off the amazing culture you have on offer.
Where Can You Find Highly Skilled Employees
With over 700 million users worldwide and over 60 million of those being in senior level positions, it’s no surprise that LinkedIn is the place to be if you want to connect with highly skilled individuals.
Networking
When it comes to building connections with high level professionals, networking remains the number one route. But with so many different networking opportunities to choose from it can be quite easy to get a little lost in the crowd and never actually get an opportunity to meet the people you want, so how do you get around this?
The starting point has to be understanding the type of person you are most interested in, and then joining the types of groups that they will be involved in, and rather than just going straight in for the kill so to speak, instead join in on the conversations, spark up a mutual interest and provide them with some kind of value first, networking is simply about 2 things, being there and having a two-way conversation.
If you are still finding it hard to find places to network, here are a couple of starting points.
Trade Shows/Events
These are great places to meet high level individuals, and spark up a genuine conversation especially if you are looking for someone who is an expert within a particular niche. Don’t just speak with the people at the stands, in fact a lot of the best people are the visitors.
Specialist Networking Platforms
There are tons of great platforms out there, LinkedIn included, that provide excellent opportunities to meet and interact with highly skilled individuals, as long as you have a little bit of knowledge around what their interests might be.
Some of the below mentioned platforms are a gold mine.
Lunchclub
A real gem of a networking platform, and quite often filled with senior level executives and decision makers within large companies, that would normally be inaccessible through most avenues - But remember this is a networking platform, not a place for you to try and sell an idea or poach talent, but saying that if you are good at networking we’re certain you could build a relationship here with that very special employee who may be tempted to work with you in the future.
Shapr
This platform is usually good for finding highly talented people to work on project basis or join in exciting new ventures, give it time and effort it is very likely that you will find a real diamond.
Meetup
This is a strange one, because it’s not intended for finding talent or even business professionals, but there are some great groups that just simply meetup to discuss key topics and innovations in particular industries, so the advice here is find a few groups that talk about your niche and then join them, you may find a real diamond in the rough, if not it’s a great place to hear the views and opinions of the latest innovations in your industry.
Work With A Specialist Recruiter (Like Us!)
This is probably the fastest, easiest and most effective way to find highly skilled talent within your niche, use a specialist recruiter - Like us!
Specialist recruiters have built up a lifetime of experience and networking to be able to provide you with a service that helps you to both find, attract and even retain highly talented employees. The trick is to work with an experienced recruiter agency that specialises in your particular niche rather than an all rounder, this way you know that the recruiter you get is exactly that, a specialist.
How You Can Attract Highly Skilled Employees
Create A Candidate Persona
This is probably the most important step in finding your highly skilled employee. A candidate persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal candidate, formed by combining all that you know of their defining characteristics.
A candidate persona will provide you with the insight you need to be able to better understand, identify and ultimately source your ideal candidate.
Develop Your Employee Value Proposition
Your employee value proposition or EVP is going to be even more important when it comes to attracting highly skilled talent to your company. Try to look beyond the usual suspects of salary and generalisation of what you do, instead build an EVP that highlights all the great work you do, are planning to do and your overall company mission.
Include aspects like;
- Company culture
- Additional perks and benefits
- Any product innovations your are currently building or planning to build
- The career growth potential
What you include in your EVP should be a combination of what makes your company great and why employees choose you over others, and what you know your ideal candidate wants from the candidate persona you created earlier.
Be Part Of Their Community
This goes back to networking, don’t just find where they are and hit them repeatedly with adverts or offers, if they are highly skilled, they are also highly sought after and therefore will receive these types of offers daily.
Instead try to immerse yourself in their world, attend the events and groups they do, join in on social conversation they are involved in and even ask them for advice pander to their ego and build relationships, at the end of the day, the person you are talking to might not be the one who joins your cause, instead it could be colleague they know who would actually be the perfect fit.
Create Project Based Opportunities
This can be a great way to coax highly talented individuals into joining your cause without risking what they currently have, also it could be a more cost efficient way of hiring such talent.
This method also works great on platforms like Shapr, where the majority of users are usually working already and just looking for a side project or new venture.
To Conclude
There are many ways to find and attract highly skilled employees, more than what we have included here for sure, but as long as you start with a candidate persona to help give you a deeper understanding of the person you are trying to attract, then you will automatically have an edge over companies who ignore this.
If you are still struggling to find top talent within the FMCG industry, then give us a call, our strength is on our network.
