Can’t Buy Me Love: Earning Candidate Love

Have you ever noticed how people buy and sell almost anything? Craigslist is a landmine for junk hunters. People who just collect random things and start their own antique stores. That sounds like the beginning of an episode of Hoarders. A little scary.

There are corporations that are collectors of companies. They scoop up organizations big and small, and in that acquisition, companies also acquire people. In some cases, that’s precisely why they buy the company in the first place. They want people who are highly specialized and if that company does it really well? Why wouldn’t you buy them, if you have the cash on hand that is. But here’s the thing. You can’t buy candidate love (or employee love, for that matter).

Can’t Buy Me Love

Companies acquire property and things—and sometimes other companies—but they never really buy employees. People need to be enticed, motivated, encouraged and empowered to apply for and take a job. Individuals thrive on engagement with work and attraction to an employer and a team.

You might say attraction is fleeting, and you’d be correct. Attraction to a job is created through an ongoing process of open communication, solution creation and personal satisfaction generation. Team building. Managers who care. The things that keep people sticking around.

Yet, solutions are usually temporary and personal satisfaction can be gone faster than your latest Snapchat photo. Eating a delicious Torchy’s taco temporarily satisfies hunger, but you’ll need to eat one again (insert taco excitement here). I’m talking about career nourishment. Our jobs don’t end at attraction. The success can’t be measured on hires alone.

We can’t be measured on happy employees, either. Each person is responsible for achieving real happiness in his or her job. Let’s face it: recruiters can make a job or company sound downright amazing. But the employee is responsible for matching a job opportunity to their personal requirements of fulfillment. This includes challenges, but also career progression and compensation. Gotta get paid, folks.

And I Love Her, Indeed

My strategy at Indeed? Benefits, growth and culture. In every candidate conversation, we challenge ourselves to put the jobseeker first and help them get the right job that’s a fit for them, not just where we want to fit them in right now. No matter how quickly we grow, we need to grow with people in mind. You know the line- people first. It makes a difference.

As corporate recruiters, we evangelize the brand too. We build teams that work together, with a side of fun – all in the name of seeing the company succeed. Now, identifying people who will be great for the team AND have all the skills we need isn’t so easy. There has to be a long game.

To succeed long term we are consciously shifting the recruitment message to align with both the onboarding and employment experience. It means that your initial experiences don’t leave you completely unprepared to go and do your job. It means we’re aligning on engagement.

We Can Work It Out: Re-branding Talent

Does this sound like acquisition to you? It doesn’t to me either – and that’s why we’ve rebranded our recruiting team as Talent Attraction.

This may seem like a small change or just semantics, but changing our group name within Human Resources has really changed our attitude. Here’s why we made the change and why talent attraction is much more accurate than talent acquisition.

1. Talent Attraction Helps Define your Employer Brand

We continue to be thoughtful and personal in our messaging to candidates and prospects. This applies to job descriptions, recruiter outreach, and career-related social media content. Talent attraction science highlights several drivers for career change. If our outgoing recruiter and sourcer communication is rooted in these principles, we can track and truly understand what makes people click. That means better information not just for our team but our clients, too. It’s all about the bottom line, right?

2. Talent Attraction is More Focused on the Candidate Experience

Attraction starts before a candidate even knows why a career at your company may interest them. It continues through initial contact, conversations and job application. Not everyone is a fit for every job. Putting yourself out there and applying takes guts. This is where respect is most important. Respect for time, respect for communication, respect for people. We need to continue to test, iterate and create a better experience.

3. Talent Attraction Helps Define How Everyone in Your Organization Has a Role to Play

Recruiting is everyone’s job. Attraction has to be embraced by employees in every function from custodian all the way through to the CEO. This is particularly important for hiring managers…but this isn’t a quick or easy journey. Like motivation, it’s a process that takes effort and energy every day. It takes humble, caring leaders at every level of the organization, who support and believe in our mission to help people get jobs.

Don’t Let Me Down: Advice On Practicality

You’re asking “what can your employees and teams do differently today to attract talent?”

The bottom line is thoughtful messaging and outreach. You need to tell stories focused on benefits that matter to your audience. Consider how your group of recruiters is currently being represented and think about your name – are you simply collecting and acquiring people, or are you attracting them?

Change your mindset. Change your relationship with candidates. Change your company.
About the Author: Bryan Chaney is director, employer brand, Indeed. He has worked in recruitment, technology, and marketing, providing him insights into the marketing of hiring, the importance of technology and the buying process that candidates make when applying for jobs. He’s an international speaker and trainer on the topic of recruitment and talent branding and loves to travel. Find him at @BryanChaney

By Bryan Chaney

Bryan Chaney is a global talent sourcing and attraction strategist. He’s worked at IBM and Twilio and currently leads employment brand for corporate recruitment at Indeed. Bryan has worked in recruitment, technology, and marketing, providing him insights into the marketing of hiring, the importance of technology and the buying process that candidates make when applying for jobs. Bryan is a co-founder of the Talent Brand Alliance and can be found on Indeed Resume and Twitter.