Your Recruitment Strategy Is Nice, But....

Effective recruitment of top talent is vital to the success of any business, but it is only one piece of a comprehensive talent management strategy. Far too often, businesses operate in silos without thinking of the big picture. In the case of effective talent management, we have to think beyond recruiting and consider the broader talent management strategy.

The market for top talent is competitive. Therefore, companies who are successful in attracting top talent can gain a significant competitive advantage over their competition. But, recruiting the talent is only one piece of a company’s talent management strategy. Effectively marketing your company as a great employer is important. Getting those quality candidates in the door is great. However, equally important is the next piece of your talent management strategy – retention. Businesses would do well to take a broader view of their talent management strategy. What I mean by this is that each piece of the talent management strategy feeds into the effectiveness of the others.

A recruitment strategy is of no value if there is not a good retention strategy to maintain the talent. Likewise, if there is not a good retention strategy it will eventually have an adverse impact on your recruiting effectiveness. You may ask “How does retention impact recruiting?”. Think about it. If you do a good job of attracting top talent to your organization, but they find that they are dissatisfied and leave your company, eventually the negative feedback will get around. The brand that you have been marketing will be of no value if your reputation is tarnished by negative employee experiences. Makes sense, right?

Another key piece of a comprehensive talent management strategy includes succession planning. This is not a comprehensive article about succession planning, but here are some key questions to ask:

What are the key positions in your company, and how will you leverage your talent to ensure there is a plan for succession?

What steps are you taking to develop and retain your succession candidates?

What are the skill gaps in your organization, and what is your plan to fix those gaps?

If you take a wholistic view of your talent strategy, your succession planning should feed your recruitment strategy. You will be able to identify skill gaps, and factor that in to your recruitment strategy. Also, you will likely need to have a plan for how you will develop and retain your top talent. If your top talent finds that they are unable to advance, and advancement is important to them, you will have difficulty retaining them. All of these pieces fit together to help you develop a comprehensive strategy.

In closing, a recruitment strategy is good. Not every company has an effective recruitment strategy. But, don’t stop there. If you want to compete for top talent, you need a comprehensive talent management strategy. There is a lot more to an effective talent management strategy than is in this short article. If you are considering how you will develop a comprehensive talent management strategy, there are many helpful resources out there. This article is not intended to provide a comprehensive roadmap to talent management strategy, but to challenge businesses to take a broader look at their talent management strategy. How will you recruit and retain top talent to give you the competitive advantage in your industry?

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