An executive recruiter’s insider tips on what really attracts top talent

As a 20+ year veteran executive recruiter, plus having led teams of up to 750 people myself, I am regularly asked by CEOs and business owners how to best go about attracting and retaining the best people in their organizations. This has been especially true more recently when people talk about the “war for talent” and the Great Resignation.

The reality is that organizations live and die based on the quality of their people. If you can’t attract and retain top performers, your business will never achieve its full potential no matter how good your products or services are. Here are five key points to assist you from my perspective as a recruiter.

Leverage your online brand

Most company websites are very focused on their ideal customer, yet very few emphasize why someone would want to join as an employee. Most executive leaders have a LinkedIn profile that is a synopsis of their career history yet does not indicate why they would be a great person to be managed and led by. If your teams are your greatest asset, then why not invest some time and money in projecting that to your ideal employees through your website and LinkedIn profiles?

Define success for the role

If you are not recruiting the role directly yourself, make sure that the recruiter you have delegated this to (either internal HR or a third party) clearly understands the role and especially the key deliverables. You want to recruit someone who has done it before, done it well, and is motivated to do it again. The clearer the brief as to what success looks like, the more likely that the person recruiting the role will deliver appropriately qualified and experienced candidates.

Put real contact info out

Make sure that the person recruiting the role puts their name and phone number on the advertisement (Seek or LinkedIn). Good candidates want to ring a real person and have a real conversation with someone before applying. If there is nobody to ring, then they are likely to not apply, which will significantly reduce the quality of your candidate pool.

Make sure to headhunt

The best candidates are not actively looking for a new role, they are passive. There are issues with internal recruiters headhunting because they need to identify who they work for. So if it is a mission-critical role, or you are looking to replace a nonperformer, then ideally you will engage an external headhunter to handle this for you.

Establish a balanced relationship

Once someone is employed, it is critical to establish a relationship of love and performance. Too much love and not enough KPIs result in a soft, underperforming team. Too much accountability (KPIs) and not enough love results in team members becoming very self-centered (they only care about their own KPIs) and/or they leave. Employees want to do well, they want to be held accountable, and they want to be loved. It’s a fine balance, however it is the mark of a great leader and it’s something you can easily learn to do.

If you can successfully attract and retain top performers, your business will achieve excellent results. As a leader, you will be able to delegate tasks efficiently and effectively, you will be able to focus on more strategic priorities, and you will be able to have a much greater work/life balance.

In my opinion, both the war for talent and the Great Resignation are cliches used by recruiters and managers as an excuse for poor performance. There are simply some companies that are great at recruitment, and the majority aren’t. Likewise, some leaders are excellent at retaining their top people, and the majority aren’t. By implementing these five simple suggestions, you and your business will have a distinct advantage over your competitors.