Winning talent strategies for today’s most innovative businesses

In today’s ever-changing labor market, candidates want to work for companies that put them first: they want organizations that match their values, offer support, give them choice over what working structure suits them best, and allow them to thrive. It’s these people-first companies that often get the best talent.

To find out more about how to become one of these companies and how to link it to a hiring strategy that works for you, Jon Kennard, Editorial Content Manager at UNLEASH is joined by Donald Knight, Chief People Officer at Greenhouse, and Maria Culbertson, Talent Acquisition Manager at Greenhouse to discuss the how to create a winning talent strategy that delivers for the brand, talent needs, the DE&I agenda, and much more.

Hiring is expected to become even more challenging…to stand out companies have to find ways to strengthen their brand.

Donald Knight, Chief People Officer at Greenhouse

Watch on-demand to:

• Get to know more about building a strategic pipeline rather than being a reactive market player.
• Hear more about the role that values and people-first practices can bring when it comes to nurturing talent.
• Takeaway strategies for providing unique and memorable candidate experiences.

Building the brand; building the candidate experience

Hiring, throughout the last year, has undeniably been a challenge. And it’s not going to get easier. Kicking off the webinar, Knight cited a Greenhouse survey which found that those who work in talent acquisition and HR expect recruitment struggles to continue. Therefore, businesses need to find ways to stand out.

Knight explained that thinking about improving the brand can be key here, so candidates get a clear, consistent, and easily understandable view of the culture of your company. Although Knight noted that this can be challenging — especially at a time when firms have increasingly gone remote or hybrid; and are thus more distributed, making those coherent tales more difficult to tell- one easy way to do this could be with consistent messaging and storytelling that really showcases what working life is like at your company, what’s the purpose of the company and what are the company’s values. Digital tools, Knight added, can be an organization’s friend, here.

Yet, Knight said improving the hiring process cannot just be a branding tack: employers really have to deliver on what they’re saying, otherwise candidates will call them out; especially younger generations. And this means delivering a great talent experience, right down to the details. Whilst it should be smooth, quick, and efficient, there are digital tools that recruiters and hiring managers can use to show candidates they do care about them. For example, Greenhouse has a name pronunciation feature that allows candidates to record how they would like their name pronounced, creating a database of over a million recordings. This ensures that recruiters and hiring managers make candidates feel like they belong even during the hiring process.

How to understand what good hiring should look like

Most in talent acquisition and HR know that there is a lot of noise on what works when it comes to improving hiring. Yet Knight stated that often improvements on how to get the best external talent come from within. He explained that ideas on how to improve a sense of inclusion and belonging, and pretty much everything else, can come from those already employed at the organization.

External insight also has a role though, Knight added. He said that it’s important for hiring practitioners to understand the latest market trends, especially around how certain facets of work-life are described or perceived by workers. He added that recruiters also need to get savvy about the latest trends, benchmark using the industry, and understand who the best-in-class practitioners are (so they can mirror where suitable). Webinars, round tables, and even reaching out to others in the sector can all play a role, too.

Crucially, good hiring practices should also align with what the business wants to achieve, whether that is a financial goal or improved DE&I outcomes. Here, Culbertson explained that a joined-up business strategy is crucial: the organizational strategy, the inclusion strategy, and the hiring strategy should all be part of the same overarching master plan and espoused by everyone in the organization.

Other tips she had for improving hiring included going to where the talent is, reviewing data to understand where the process is most difficult, and creating outside-of-function accountability for hiring, too. Knight re-emphasized this: everyone has to understand the benefits of, and the responsibility they have, for a good candidate experience and how it can improve their working life and organizational outcomes.

What role do hiring managers play?

This is perhaps a question that is often overlooked but one that both Knight and Culbertson defined as absolutely crucial to good hiring. As Knight said, a hiring manager has the ability to meet candidates where they are, make them comfortable, understand what challenges they face and who their authentic self is, and whether they’d be a good fit for the company.

If hiring managers do this well and allow a more diverse range of people to feel like they could succeed and fit in at a firm, what they are doing is then opening up the talent pipeline even further. Diverse groups of people have diverse networks and this can act as a wider potential pool to hire from, explained Knight.

Culbertson added that they would need training on bias that is refreshed on a regular basis. Hiring managers also need to be guided on response times, too. The organization needs to set expectations around hiring so that hiring managers can balance goals. Hiring managers should also ask what accommodations a candidate might need and have the technology and tools around them work well.

The purpose of all these efforts is to make hiring more human overall.