Talent attraction post-COVID: What will change and what will stay the same?

The world of talent attraction is changing fast. As of late April, 26.5 million people in the U.S. have filed for unemployment. Supply and demand have shifted drastically. Companies now have fewer positions available and there is more talent on the market.

As a result, it can be easy to think that the way we define success and the activities we need to focus on as TA professionals may be changing too. However, as Gonz Sanchez highlights in Seedtable, in many ways this crisis will only emphasize what we already knew: that talent attraction strategies always need to focus on quality over quantity.

Let’s break down how this works and what it means in practical terms.

The new (and old) TA focus: Attracting qualified candidates

What’s likely to happen in this new world of ours is that more people will be applying to a wider range of roles. Many of those positions might even be a stretch for them, but they will toss their hats in the ring regardless because these are difficult times and you never know what company might actually bite back.

What this means for those of us working in the recruitment space, is that in many areas our applicant numbers may increase substantially. However, that doesn’t mean that the number of qualified applicants are going to increase proportionately too. 

As Sanchez explains, “in a post-COVID-19 world where capital isn't as abundant, hiring Great Talent will be an extremely important job. Maybe the most important job. Just like before. Which brings me to question – did anything really change?”

In the same piece, Sanchez explains that “good talent” is attracted to organizations with “good talent.” And now that we have an abundance of “bad talent” we really need to focus on filtering the stand-out candidates from the masses to build better organizations for the long term.

So, in a post-COVID world the quest for TA remains the same in many ways as it did before. We’re still focused on coming up with thoughtful strategies to stand out from competitors so we can attract the best talent.

A new factor in talent attraction: Competing against the world

However, talent attraction has been (and will be) complicated a little with the widespread introduction of remote work in response to this crisis.

As James Ellis recently pointed out on the Chad & Cheese podcast, the way we work is likely to change post-COVID. Candidates, employees, and companies now understand how feasible it is to work remotely.

As a result, many organizations may choose to stay remote to reduce overhead costs when this is all over. Other companies may offer more flexibility when hiring — allowing some roles that were previously only in-office to be available for the right remote candidate.

What this means is that you’re no longer competing for qualified candidates against just the hiring competitors in a given market (ie. the city you operate in). Instead, we are likely to be competing against hiring competitors from around the world on a regular basis.

How to land more qualified candidates now and in the future

Despite an increase in hiring competitors in some cases, attracting qualified candidates in a post-COVID world looks much the same as attracting candidates in a pre-COVID world. Honest, compelling, and consistent messaging infused across the entirety of your candidate journey goes a long way when it comes to attracting and converting the best talent on the market.

To get there, we need to start by really understanding our candidates’ psychology and get specific about what our organizations can really offer to top performers. And remember that COVID is going to change the candidate mindframe and expectations as people have just been through a traumatic experience, so you may need to rework your candidate personas as a result. (Chantell Cooper from Arbonne recently wrote a great piece called “What Will Matter to Candidates in a Post-COVID World”, if you want to hear more on this topic).

Ultimately though, you need to work to convince qualified candidates that your organization will check the box on the things they’re looking for when it comes to a great career. You need to show them that your organization can provide the things that they value.

The caveat here is that the employment factors that candidates value will vary from person to person. And because you will only want to attract qualified people who will also thrive in your organization, you need to be honest about what the value drivers are at your organization. This way, candidates can self select if this is the right fit for them.

After all, even if a candidate is a quality candidate, you don’t want to attract them to your organization if the total package that you offer doesn’t align with what they’re looking for. Because in that case then they will only stay with you for a few months, and you end up wasting a ton of money on attracting and training someone who was never likely to stick around in the first place.

So the best thing that you can do is to firstly uncover your authentic employee value proposition (EVP). This EVP should communicate the real reasons that employees value being part of your organization. You can learn more about how to uncover your EVP in our blog post, “How to uncover your organization’s EVP: A 7-step process.” 

And if you already have an EVP, now is a great time to revisit it and make sure it still holds true — because this platform will be more important now than ever before in a world where candidates increasingly value transparency and authenticity.

Lastly, from there, the task becomes to infuse your EVP across every single touchpoint in your candidate journey so that candidates can understand the employee experience and opportunity. This approach will help you to convert highly-qualified candidates, who will be a good long term fit for your company. And ultimately that is the ticket to winning at talent attraction — before, during, and after COVID-19. 

About The Employer Brand Shop

The Employer Brand Shop is a boutique recruitment marketing and employer brand agency located in Kitchener, Canada. Our team helps organizations around the world attract and engage talent using creative marketing strategies.