The post How to Attract Top Talent: 10 Companies Job Seekers are Dying to Work For appeared first on Brazen Life.
]]> Feeling blah might not sound like a big deal, but when it comes to American business, workplace disengagement has huge consequences. Recent research has found that less than one-in-three American workers is actively engaged in their jobs, a fact that Gallup estimates costs the economy $450 to $550 billion per year.But not every company suffers from an epidemic of employee disengagement. A handful of top companies really do get it — engaged workers aren’t just happier and more productive, but also the source of the vast majority of breakthrough ideas. (Click here to tweet this thought.) In addition to being great places to work if you happen to be looking for a job, these best-of-class companies can serve as inspiration for managers hoping to better inspire their teams.
So who exactly are these much desired organizations, and how do they attract top talent?
Every year LinkedIn aims to find out with its annual ranking of InDemand Employers, compiled by sorting through reams of data from the website. The latest edition is now out, so who made the list of America’s dream employers? Here are the top ten:
There’s no shock at the top of the list as Google and Apple retain their (unsurprising) position at the top of the heap from last year. Nor were there any huge movers, but Amazon, with its bold and much chattered-about initiatives including drone delivery and controversial hardball tactics with publishers, did climb a couple of spots from number five to number three. Walt Disney, however, was two slots less magical this year.
So what makes a company such a dream employer? LinkedIn suggests five factors that these firms emphasize when hiring that keep them so demand among talent and so deeply engaging once they hire.
The best companies for employee engagement, unsurprisingly, encourage team members to bring their whole selves to work. “The culture at NBCUniversal is not a faceless corporate culture, it’s a culture that allows people to have a personality. Being true to your personality while maintaining professionalism is the key to success with landing your dream job here,” says NBCUniversal (ranked #15) VP of Talent Acquisition James Ryding, for instance.
Top employers engage deeply with candidates on social media and encourage potential hires to have deeper connections to the company than a simple scan of the webpage.
The firms that topped the list don’t hire many lone wolves. Adobe (ranked #24) VP of Global Talent Selection and Development Jeff Vijungco says: “We want individuals with a unique skillset that complements the team, a sense of urgency to deliver beyond what’s possible and ‘we’ rather than ‘me’ team players.”
Top workers don’t just work — they also dream big. “When you interview, show us your passion, your innovative mind, and intrigue us with your big ideas on the impact you could have on our company, customers and our community,” says salesforce.com SVP of Global Employee Success Monika Fahlbusch.
If you want to hire top employees, don’t expect them to do the same thing day in and day out. One of the keys to being engaging and in demand is routinely shaking things up and encouraging employees to follow their passions. “Prospects should be open and determined about pursuing passions yet flexible enough to jump in to anything,” says VMware (ranked #19) Director of Executive Staffing Anu Datta.
Employers: How could you emphasize these five factors to bring in more top recruits?
Jessica Stillman is a freelance writer based in London. She writes a daily column for Inc.com, contributes regularly to Forbes and Women 2.0 and has blogged for CBS MoneyWatch and GigaOM, among others.
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]]> http://blog.brazencareerist.com/2014/06/20/attract-top-talent-10-companies-job-seekers-dying-work/feed/ 4The post 5 Powerful Ways to Recruit and Retain Top Talent appeared first on Brazen Life.
]]> Graduation is right around the corner, and for recruiters, that means a flood of resumes in your inbox. Among the score of applications, you’ll always receive one or two from real superstars who have exactly the skills you’re looking for… right?Maybe this happens at Google, but for most in-house recruiters, attracting the most talented workers is a whole new ball game these days. Relying on job boards, attending career fairs and having a standard “we’re hiring” message on your website just isn’t enough.
So here are five powerful tactics for finding all-star employees who want to stay the course and help the company grow:
Today’s digital world has created a recruiting environment centered around screens. Your organization will stand out if you get off your computer and attend live events to meet candidates. Having a face-to-face connection with a rising star will leave a lasting impression, while an email can easily be forgotten.
To determine what events to attend, think about who you are targeting, learn where they hang out and then go there. For instance, attend a local hackathon to find hard-to-reach tech geniuses. For harder-to-reach candidates like those in the emerging field of “big data,” you may need to think outside the box and host a special event that will draw in great candidates.
Collaborate with your marketing team to create innovative ways to announce job opportunities. For example, at Seamless, the online food ordering system where I serve as Vice President of the People Team, we include messages about joining our team when our customers interact with our service. They’re likely to see it even if they aren’t actively looking for a job.
By doing so, we’re putting a bug in the ears of people who are already familiar with us, but maybe never thought about our company as a great place to work. Infuse all of your outgoing communication with the message that you’re actively looking for candidates to extend your reach.
You may have a top-notch recruiting process in place, but if a supportive and dynamic company culture isn’t there to back it up, your efforts may be all for naught. Today’s prospective employees are looking for a workplace that’s fun as well as purposeful and fosters appreciation. When your employees are excited to go to work every day and find meaning in the work they do, they’ll share that with their friends and, in turn, provide you with a continuous flow of candidates.
Creating the type of environment in which today’s top talent wants to work requires investing in building their leadership skills, recognizing their accomplishments and rewarding hard work. In other words, it means helping build great careers. This will not only improve your recruiting efforts; it will also help your company retain the best employees.
The entire organization should be involved in bringing in top talent; it should not solely fall on your shoulders. Managers should feel responsible for building out their teams—and then engaging team members so they can continue to build new relationships for the company, attend live events to advertise and help creatively announce openings.
This may include using a referral program as an incentive for employees to bring in their contacts as well as encouraging them to tap their networks for potential leads. In all likelihood, those referrals will make excellent workers who want to stay with the company long-term.
At Seamless, we recently conducted a nationwide survey of nearly 1,100 professionals across more than a dozen different industries and found that employees highly value the perks their company offers. We learned that the presence of food (surprise, surprise!) can play an important role in motivating employees to spend more time in the office, work more effectively and view their workplace more positively. In fact, 60 percent reported that having more food at the office would make them feel more valued and appreciated.
While offering free food all the time may not be feasible for your company, you can show you care about your employees by hosting special birthday get-togethers or celebratory lunches.
Offering competitive salaries is nice, but the ability to nurture a vibrant and engaging environment will separate you from the competition and help you retain the best workers. In our highly connected world, news about the ways in which companies treat their employees travels fast—hopefully to the ears of a rising star considering a position within your company.
Karen Miller is the Vice President of the People Team at Seamless, the leading online food ordering service that makes it easy to feed the office, where she is responsible for defining and executing Seamless’s people and HR strategies. Karen has more than 15 years’ experience in organization development, including talent management, employee engagement, performance improvement, communication, facilitation, coaching and cultural transformation.
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]]> http://blog.brazencareerist.com/2013/05/14/5-powerful-ways-to-recruit-and-retain-top-talent/feed/ 15The post Why Recruiting the Right Talent Matters Now More Than Ever appeared first on Brazen Life.
]]> Originally posted on tlnt.com.A quick look at the jobs data will tell you that while there is still high unemployment, companies of all sizes are hiring.
This is great news: the recession is finally coming to an end, but the catch is that most companies are hiring for hard-to-find skills like software developers, data scientists, social media strategists, digital marketers, and user experience designers. Each of these skills is very specific and not possessed by most of the population, which explains why so many unemployed people are out there despite so many open positions available.
The fact of the matter is that there will never be enough talented people who have the exact skills that companies need, because technology is changing at lightning fast speed and skills that were relevant five years ago (or even two years ago) are often outdated today. Every time a new platform comes along (think Facebook, IPhone, Adwords), old important skills become obsolete and new skills that often never even existed before become critical, and as we all know technology is not slowing down.
If this rapid pace of innovation continues, we will soon see industries being disrupted and new types of jobs created every other week. The ramifications of this on the workplace are enormous, and every talent management professional, executive and entrepreneur needs to be aware of how this affects their company.
First off, the need for recruiting, nurturing and retaining the “best of the best” talent is more important than ever. It is the single most important function in a company. Most of us understand this already, but more and more even the executive suite in major corporations are beginning to realize that they can no longer ignore the “soft stuff” like HR, talent management, and succession planning.
This “soft stuff” is all about people — and people are what ultimately determine if organizations win or lose. Whether you’re a massive company who needs to continue operating at maximum capacity, or you’re a three-person startup who needs to innovate and iterate at rapid speed to beat your competition, the people you hire and don’t hire, the people you promote, and the people you let go, will ultimately determine your fate.
Second, the definition of “talent” has fundamentally changed. Talent used to be someone who had years of experience in a particular field or a particular skill set. But when the skills you need to win change every other month, you need a new type of talent. You need someone who knows what skills will win, and who is motivated and savvy enough to learn those skills on their own.
This new type of talent may be from a tier 2 or tier 3 school, and they may not have any experience in your industry, or in some cases, any experience at all. As someone who is growing a team, you need to create your own definition of talent, identify the traits that they need, and hire folks who fit the bill.
For example, at Brazen, we’re always looking for people who are hungry, flexible, honest and most importantly, curious. I know that someone who has all of these traits will succeed.
If the first experiment doesn’t work, they will try the next experiment. And while they’re in the middle of that experiment, they’ll be writing down ideas for experiments three, four and five. One way or another, someway, somehow, they will figure it out. I also know that someone who is constantly curious and motivated will never be able to rest until they have learned the next critical skill.
When technology changes so fast, and things go in and out of focus, the only way to stay ahead and stay relevant is to stay educated, and to never stop learning. To me, that’s what a start-up is all about, and those are the types of traits we look for when we’re hiring.
As technology continues to outpace education, and new skills become critical overnight, the true “talent” will be the people who stay hungry, stay curious and never stop learning. The most successful organizations will be the ones who identify, hire and retain these special people.
“Talent” may not look like it used to, but it is without a doubt more important than ever before.
If you’re a recruiter or HR professional, check out Brazen Careerist’s free one-hour webinar on April 10, when Ryan will discuss how to win the war for Gen Y talent. Sign up here!
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