8 Quick, Free Ways to Supercharge Your Talent Attraction Efforts
If you work in talent attraction (and we’re guessing you do, if you’re reading this), your work probably encompasses marketing, internal and external messaging, social media strategy, interfacing with employers and stakeholders, wrangling ambassadors and board members, and running a wide variety of programs that fall under the “talent attraction” umbrella.
(Whew. We’re tired from just typing all that.)
We want to help you make the most of the work you’re already doing on a tight budget without a ton of extra time, so we rounded up some of our favorite quick and easy (and free!) ways to maximize your existing efforts and shake up the status quo. Have questions or ideas to share? Reach out anytime. We can talk about this stuff alllll day.
Speaking of which, let’s get to free talent attraction tip #1…
1. Talk about it. Constantly. With everyone.
Let’s start with the simplest way to prioritize and amp up your talent attraction efforts: talk about it. And not just in meetings that have “talent attraction” in the title. Make talent — and the work you’re doing in talent attraction — a central part of your daily vernacular. Weave it into your internal and external messaging. We recommend this for a couple reasons: 1) your talent attraction ecosystem is broad and varied and the more perspectives and advocates you can pull in, the better; and 2) your members, investors, and local employers are talking about talent attraction, so constant communication shows you’re hearing their needs and prioritizing it as much as they are.
Speaking of those members, investors and employers...
2. Build a coalition of the willing.
Get your members involved in your talent attraction efforts. You probably have committees or coalitions or task forces already set up — you might even have one working on talent. If you don’t, build one. We advise all our partners to create a “Talent Task Force” (TTF). It should include any member business that cares about hiring new employees, specifically from outside of your laborshed. (Bonus Tip: make participation in the TTF a member benefit. If you use a tiered dues or investment structure, make it a mid-level buy in.) Make your TTF to any employee with hiring authority, not just the CEO. The fine folks in human resources make great additions to this group because they’re working with new and prospective employees every single day. They know the ins and outs of what makes recruiting and hiring in your region difficult.
When you build this coalition and ask for their feedback, they’re more likely to engage with the new talent that you’re finding with your TA programming. Why? Because they’ve told you all of the information you need to collect from prospective candidates and you listened.
3. Give prospective residents an action to take.
You built a marketing plan. You’ve probably even built an external-facing, talent-focused website (love to see it!). Unfortunately, this isn’t Field of Dreams. You need to do more than just build it and wait for talent to come. Prospective new residents and employees need more than just a catchy tagline or well-designed site to make the decision to move to your city. Give them a “path to yes.”
What is a path to yes? It’s clear steps new residents can take to:
Get connected with your community
See and interact with job opportunities
Get their questions answered and concerns addressed (honestly)
Make their move
Your job: figure out what your path to yes looks like, and then give them an action to take to get there. Does your website allow forms, buttons, landing pages, newsletter sign-ups, etc.? Give them somewhere to click and something to do to indicate they’re willing to take that first step — and then follow up.
“Prospective new residents and employees need more than just a catchy tagline or well-designed site to make the decision to move to your city. Give them a ‘path to yes.’”
4. Don’t just tell new talent what you have; ask them what they want.
Before you can tell your prospects how great life is in your city, you need to find out what will resonate with them. It will rarely be a minor league baseball team or a new highway overpass — it’s usually something a lot more personal. A welcoming creative community. Good schools. Grocery stores that sell their favorite ingredient. Affordable flights to their hometown. Beautiful parks. A chance to make a difference in a growing, evolving place.
This is the “what’s next” part of talent attraction that forms the foundation of what we do at RoleCall: the chance to build a real connection with your prospective residents, learn more about wants and needs, and make sure your city is a good fit. You can do this with simple forms, an online survey tool, or through one-on-one communication.
5. Give people a real human to talk to.
This step takes a little more work, but it’s doable, even with a small team. Humans crave real-life interaction. This doesn’t have to be face to face. It could be a phone call, an email, a text, or a social media chat. You don’t even need to use staff time to handle this. The real person could be an ambassador or a local realtor, but if people have questions about living in your city, they need a real human to answer the phone/email. Identify that person, give them insights and guidelines about your key messaging, and make sure prospective residents know how to reach them.
Read more: The Key to Revolutionary Talent Attraction? Make It Personal.
6. Purge the cliches.
Attracting talent takes effusive, wild, shocking honesty. You’re asking people to pack up their lives, leave their homes, jobs, and friends, and move to a possibly unknown city. That’s a huge ask. The least you can do is be honest.
A quick way to amp up the honesty in your talent attraction marketing? Go through all your materials and messaging and purge the generic phrases and cliches. A few that come to mind immediately: “Live, Work, Play.” “Something for everyone.” “Innovative dining scene.” “Vibrant downtown.”
These things may be true of your city, but they’re not the things that make you special. Talk about what makes you unique. A good place to start that goes beyond amenities everyone else has? Think about how your city makes people feel. If you can capture and communicate that, you’ll win and win and win.
7. Go find your colleagues.
Often, chamber of commerce and economic development professionals work on their own islands. You might be the only dedicated talent attraction person on your team or in your organization, and you’re probably pulled in a million different directions every day.
It’s so important and helpful to connect with people dealing with similar challenges to yours. They usually have a role like yours in another city or state, and I have always been amazed at how generous economic development pros are with their time, ideas, and energy. Don’t be shy about reaching out to far-flung colleagues you haven’t met yet and asking them, “Hey, what’s working for you?”
Not sure where to start? Reach out to us and we’ll help connect you with people in this space who inspire us.
8. Collect and nurture your leads.
You made it this far, so it’s pitch time (sorry, we have to!).
At RoleCall, we help with all of this stuff. We can consult on existing programs and help you optimize them with ideas like you just read. We can build back-end infrastructure and management systems to help you organize, communicate with, and convert prospective residents. We set up systems for automated communication and set schedules for personal communication. We build content strategies to engage and nurture new residents. And we work with your local employers to make sure they’re getting the candidates they need.
Our goal is always to make you the talent attraction hero, and have fun doing it.