How to Attract Top Talent to your Company

Making Your Business Attractive to Top Talent

Recruiting the best talent possible for your business is recommended at all levels, however for executives, particularly top-tier executives such as the C-suite, it’s imperative.

With a talented and motivated C-suite, your organisation’s chance of optimal growth and continued success is hugely enhanced.

When it comes to top-talent, however, executives often have a choice of organisations looking to recruit them. In fact, if you’re looking to truly recruit the best executives, it’s likely you’ll need to attract them away from an existing organisation, in many cases, a competitor brand.

At C-suite level, it isn’t necessarily just the best salary that executives are looking for, there are many other ways to enhance the chances of attracting top talent.

For example, 77% of people consider a company’s culture before applying, meaning having a great company culture is vital when it comes to attracting top talent.

But what makes a great company culture?

This can be difficult to define… Indeed, not all people will have the exact-same definition of a good company culture. However, there are some points that are likely consistently considered as part of a good company culture. These include:

Transparent communications and clear channels for communication
A diverse workforce
Positive working relationships
High levels of staff retention
Recognition of employee successes and celebrating staff achievements.

Offer Executive Benefits to Attract Top Talent to your Company:

As well as a great culture, offering executive perks can also tip the balance in favour of your organisation, allowing you to attract the very best executive talent.

Examples of executive benefits that attract top talents include:

A greater stake in decision making
A solid brand reputation
Benefits, such as:
- Company car
- Health insurance
- Generous travel allowances
- Club memberships
- Gym memberships
- Extended holidays
- Pension plans
For more ideas on the best benefits to offer executives, check out our blog post on How To Retain Executive Talent

Enhancing Branding

Whilst working hard to ensure a good company culture and offering great executive perks is a vital part of attracting top talent, making sure people are aware of your brand is also important.

There are various ways that this can be achieved, examples include:

LinkedIn For Company Branding:

Posting business-posts to your organisation’s LinkedIn page is important, but don’t neglect ‘culture posts’. Culture posts can include staff charity fundraising events, company outings such as golfing days, Christmas events, and posts celebrating staff promotions and wins.

These types of post give a window into the culture of your organisation to those outside the company, which is important as when reaching out to recruit executives.

This will allow executives to to gain insights about your company culture. Visual posts, showing happy executives are key.

Glassdoor – Provide an Insight Into Your Culture:

This one should only be attempted if your staff are truly happy… Encouraging staff to post to Glassdoor with positive stories of what it’s like to work within your organisation is another way to enhance your branding in the eyes of potential candidates.

Okay – as well as a great company culture, top executive perks, and great brand awareness, what else is key to attracting top talent?

Clearly Define The Position

Whilst the advice so far relates more to your organisation that any specific role, there are also important things to consider when recruiting for specific roles. For example, it’s important to:

Profile your ideal candidate

Consider using a model, such as the Leadership Skills Strataplex. This is a model specifically designed to outline the key skills needed to thrive at a specific level of a company.

These skills are the signs of someone who could make a great senior leader:

Strategic (Vision, planning and insight)
Cognitive (Analytical and investigative skills)
Business (Including industry knowledge)
Interpersonal (Including soft skills).

With the Strataplex model:

Low level managers require more Cognitive and Interpersonal skills.
The requirement for Business and Strategic skills increase as we move up in seniority. As such, a C-Suite level employee would be expected to have developed their Cognitive and Interpersonal skills earlier in their career, and since grown their Business and Strategic skills in senior positions as they progressed in their career.

Use this model to help define the requirements of the position you’re recruiting for.

Candidate Requirements

Once you have defined the position at a top level, go on to develop the requirements further. Requirements may include:

Remuneration: Whilst it’s important to consider the level of remuneration expected by candidates in comparison with the compensation your organisation offers, often with senior executives the level of pay is not everything. Consider other perks as well, such as gym membership, bonuses, and healthcare.
Culture fit: Hiring an executive that’s a poor culture match can be disastrous, regardless of their experience. Ensuring a good culture fit, conversely, can not only ensure success of the appointment, but further growth and success of the team.
Strategy and vision: Ensuring the candidate has the same vision as your brand is also important, as top-level executives help steer the direction of your organisation.
Key competencies: This largely depends on the role you are recruiting for. For example, a CFO would obviously be required to have strong analytical competencies.

Stages of Executive Search

Casting The Net

Initially it’s wise to cast the net wide when looking for executives. You should consider exploring options such as:

Your own connections (within the industry and don’t forget LinkedIn)
Connections of others in a leadership role in your organisation
Searching LinkedIn to find candidates with past experience in a similar role who are available.

Don’t Forget Competitors…

Whilst the above channels may identify a selection of candidates, often the ideal candidate may be in a similar role at another organisation… many times at a competing brand. This can make an approach difficult, which is just one instance where an Executive Search firm can be beneficial, as executive search specialists can make an approach discreetly on your behalf, whilst keeping your name confidential during initial stages.

Shortlisting Executives

Once you have a satisfactory number of applications, the next stage is to shortlist candidates. Look for ways to rule-out candidates that are not suitable, such as those that don’t have the requisite skill-set, or candidates that would pose a culture problem.

Interviewing Executive Candidates

Several interviews are often required when hiring top-level executives. It’s essential to review all candidates from multiple angles (as mentioned, skill-set, experience, vision, as well as a good culture fit). In addition, all stakeholders should be provided a chance to discuss the candidates, and raise any concerns or questions they may have.

One of the issues with multiple interviews, though, is the possibility of losing a candidate to another organisation due to the timescales involved. So it’s important to balance the need for solid due diligence and methodological approaches to hiring executives, with the need to avoid losing candidates to competitors.

Benefits of Hiring an Executive Search Firm

As you can see from this article, a lot of effort is needed to identify, reach out to, connect, and then recruit top talent. The more senior the position, the more this is true.

Considering the likelihood that the ideal candidate may well be in a current position with a competitor organisation, engaging an executive search firm to handle your assignments professionally, can have the following benefits:

Confidential Search

Novo Executive Search And Selection work in a highly confidential manner. This means we can make initial approaches to candidates, including those employed by your competitors, in strict confidence. Protecting your brand.

Sector Experience

As a well-established executive search firm with decades of experience, we have executive search consultants highly knowledgeable in practically every industry sector. Our network is wide, allowing us to reach ideal candidates that may otherwise be missed by those with a shorter reach.

Systemised Yet Flexible Workflows

Novo has very robust systems and processes, yet we are flexible enough to adapt to our client’s needs. This allows us to professionally manage your needs, without applying a ‘one size fits all’ approach to your executive assignment needs.

If you’d like to discuss your executive search needs, contact Dale Perrett, on: 0844 241 2064, or email: dale.perrett@novoexec.com