Let’s assume that a company desires true transparency, the opportunity to create meaningful conversations between people with key skill sets they find desirable. We know the end goal; attract talent to hire, but have some class. This is a marital courtship and the often-embraced one-night stand approach will not attract the right talent.
So what is the best approach for engaging lovable talent? Let’s start with your answer to a key question.
How do you develop conversation and cultivate talent for your community?
(a) what is a talent community?
(b) drop people into an email blaster and send them job openings that match their skills, we need hires!
(c) allow people to chat with key ambassadors of the organization so they can reel them in…
(d) encourage open dialogue for every participant with everyone in specific skills based communities and follow-up with targeted campaigns
If you answered (a) you may be on the wrong blog. Answer (b) or (c) you need to keep reading, (d) make fun of everyone that answered a, b or c and comment below about your awesomeness.
So how do you create this open community, encourage 360 conversations and not make it a replica of your applicant tracking system? Here are a few tips;
- Create multiple communities for specific job families. An all-inclusive corporate “talent network” does not encourage conversation and has a high probability of being ignored, blacklisted and just pissing people off.
- The name of the community should allude to the reason for joining, i.e. “ACME Talent Community” presumes someone is seeking further job notifications. HOWEVER “Mobile iOS Developers for Atlanta Start-Up Freaks” gives someone 2-3 reason to join within the naming convention and targets a key audience (in this case freaky iOS developers in the ATL)
- Community owners MUST be leaders or experts within their fields and your organization. Hey, if 90% of the conversation is by talent acquisition/HR people then people know what’s up.
- Tailor your approach per audience; a veterans community should encourage conversations with other veterans in your company AND other applicants, alumni or any member of the community.
What about community recruitment? How do you build the community?
- Solicit your employees with expertise to provide a list of people from their past lives that may benefit from joining and send invitations to the community (offer them incentives to invite their peers).
- Get a sourcer identify potential members and then your owner/ambassadors (who are experts/leaders in your company) can invite them to join.
- Give people an issue related reason to join such as “Latest changes in iOS development causing you headaches? Come join some like-minded freaks as we discuss this topic in our Mobile iOS Developer for Atlanta Start-Up Freaks community
- Create a content calendar of topics and information to share with the community unrelated to jobs.
See how this comes together; experts and leaders in your organization, having real conversations regarding topics of interest to people you really want to attract.
It’s a long-term relationship, not a wham, bam I have a job…want to join us?