Pitching talent brand to your CXO

Table of contents

04 Why C-suite support is crucial

03 Introduction

05 Arm yourself with data

06 Make it relevant

07 Intel builds talent pool in competitive environment

08 Highlight the potential

09 DFS Group grows its talent brand awareness

10 Focus on bottom line benefits

11 Talent brand and consumer brand

12 Offer a clear pathway

13 Conclusion

14 References

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Introduction Is your company considered a great place to build a career?

In today’s market, securing the best talent is a highly competitive process. Social media increasingly influences company reputations and informs candidates’ decisions around which organisation they want to work for.

Companies forging ahead in this new context have embraced their ‘talent brand’: the highly social, public face of your employer brand, which includes what people think, feel and share about your company as a place to work.

A healthy talent brand can help you attract more high-quality candidates. It can also speed up the recruitment process while cutting costs and increasing the retention of existing staff.

While many HR professionals and recruiters understand the significance of talent brand, improving it can only be achieved with C-suite support.

So how do you show your CXO that a strong talent brand is important?

TIP:The bottom line impact for companies is real: a strong talent brand can reduce cost per hire by up to 50% and lower turnover rates by 28%.1

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Why C-suite support is crucial You need the support of your CEO and their team to drive widespread participation in the task of building and leveraging your talent brand.

You’ll need to ensure your CEO and their team understand what talent brand is and commit to helping promote it. Keep making your case until they’re on board.

Having C-suite support will enable you to get other key players involved. Your talent brand is part HR, part marketing, part communications – and it’ll need IT support. Use others’ expertise by including them in a cross-functional talent brand task force.

“I probably delivered the same deck 40 times – sometimes to the same audience. You will feel like a broken record, but it doesn’t sound like that on the other end until you start converting people.”

Kara Yarnot

former vice president and director, Talent Acquisition Center of Expertise, SAIC

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Arm yourself with dataBefore pitching to your C-suite colleagues, arm yourself with persuasive data that clearly illustrates the benefits of a strong talent brand for your organisation.

Health-check your company’s talent brand, so you can provide an accurate snapshot of where it’s at. Conduct internal and external research and evaluate where you stand relative to competitors using key metrics, such as the LinkedIn Talent Brand Index.

From here, determine compelling opportunities for improvement and suggest targets and objectives to aim for.

3 reasons to invest in your talent brand

You'll spend less on hiring. Lower your cost per hire by as much as 50%.

You'll boost retention. Reduce employee turnover by up to 2.8%.

You'll influence the conversation with candidates. If you don't, others will.

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Make it relevantShow your C-suite that a strong talent brand has the potential to deliver specific advantages for your company.

Identify pressing business challenges and show how talent brand can help. For starters, here are some common business challenges that can be effectively addressed with a talent brand focus:

• Lesser known brand: a strong talent brand can help increase overall brand awareness and improve recruitment outcomes.

• Company transformation: talent brand can help you attract the talent you need to grow and change.

• Limited talent pipeline: an effective talent brand can help you continually engage with future talent.

• Hiring inefficiencies: talent brand can help you get more done with less and expand recruitment channels.

FACT:Companies with a strong Talent Brand Index (TBI) receive 2.5 times more applications for jobs than companies with a weak TBI.2

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Intel builds talent pool in competitive environmentFacing stiff local and multinational competition for talent, Intel Corporation – the world’s largest semiconductor chip maker (based on revenue) – wanted to improve its employer brand and develop a recruitment strategy that would help it establish engaging relationships with candidates, create attractiveness for careers at Intel and build a strong, proactive talent pipeline.

Improving its talent brand using LinkedIn Talent Solutions tools, such as Career Page and Custom Groups, Intel:

• Changed employer brand perception.

• Built a strong pool of 1200 highly engaged professionals.

• Hired quality talent with cost efficiency in multiple geographies.

Results

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Highlight the potentialDeveloping your talent brand can help you move from a ‘post-and-pray’ hiring model to one that intelligently targets and develops relationships with candidates.

As a result, boosting your talent brand can deliver valuable benefits that your C-suite should know about. These include:

• Growing the number of job applications you receive.

• Having potential candidates seek you out.

• Activating and engaging passive talent.

• Attracting international talent.

• Finding talent for those ‘hard to fill’ positions.

FACT:83% of talent acquisition leaders say employer brand significantly impacts their ability to hire great talent.3

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DFS Group grows its talent brand awareness Luxury travel retailer DFS needed to attract candidates globally, but struggled with low brand awareness in Asia and globally, as candidates wanted to work for bigger, more famous brands. DFS turned to LinkedIn, using tools such as Career Pages and Work With Us to amplify its story as a luxury retailing brand and optimise its hiring process.

• DFS grew its Talent Brand Index from 8% to more than 22%.

• Potential employees began actively seeking DFS placements.

• DFS achieved 20% growth in job applications.

Results 8%

22%

DFS TALENT BRAND INDEX GROWTH

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Focus on bottom line benefits Improving your talent brand can deliver real bottom line impact. Share this with your C-suite to enhance your case for talent brand focus:

• Companies with a strong Talent Brand Index typically experience a 43% decrease in cost per hire.4

• A strong talent brand can help you hire the talent you need more quickly.5

• Companies with a strong talent brand receive 50% more quality applicants.6

• A company’s employer brand is twice as likely to drive job consideration as its company brand.7

FACT:Globally, 56% of professionals rank talent brand as a top factor when picking a job.8

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Talent brand and consumer brand – the ultimate match A talent brand focus can deliver powerful benefits for your company’s consumer brand.

Consumers are a credible, powerful voice with expansive reach through their social media activities. In forums such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram, consumers can build or destroy a brand in minutes. These platforms are also enabling an equally powerful yet often forgotten audience: employees.

Constructing a positive talent brand includes recognising the role of employees in brand building. Understanding the way your company is perceived by current and future employees, and working to lift those perceptions, can help you build a brand that resonates with consumers and talent.

FACT:Research conducted by LinkedIn and Lippincott reveals companies with a strong Talent Brand Index and BrandView score have a five-year cumulative growth in shareholder value of 36%. Aligning your consumer and talent brand efforts will inarguably pay dividends – not only in the stock market, but in attracting target consumers and top talent.9

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Offer a clear pathway While the pay offs can be enormous, the reality is that it’s not that difficult to strengthen your talent brand. In fact, there are many simple things (lots of them are free) you can do to give your talent brand a shot in the arm.

LinkedIn is the natural starting point for building a positive, highly social talent brand and it offers a wealth of free and paid tools you can use to showcase your company as a great place to work:

• Profiles: the #1 activity on LinkedIn is checking out profiles, so upgrading yours and your team’s represents a prime branding opportunity. Set your profile up as a model for others to emulate.

• Spruce up your Company Page: post status updates and use bold and colourful images, graphics and even video to bring your company’s brand and culture to life.

• Launch your Career Page: include compelling content and showcase authentic employee stories.

• Empower your employees: lay out the goals and offer your employees a clear, easy path to becoming talent brand ambassadors.

FACT:60% of large businesses and 63% of SMBs report using online professional networks to build talent brand.10

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ConclusionWhen considering switching jobs or a career, a company's reputation as a great place to work is increasingly important to candidates.

A deliberate talent brand strategy can deliver key benefits including:

• Cost: an effective talent brand can halve the cost of hiring.

• Speed: it can take weeks or months to secure candidates for certain roles. If talented people are proactively reaching out to you, you can hire within days.

• Retention: companies that make talent brand a top priority report significantly reduced staff turnover.

• Quality: having a standout talent brand helps you compete for, and win, the best talent in your industry – giving you the lead on your competitors.

With C-suite support, defined goals and a clear action plan, building an exceptional talent brand is an achievable task for any company – large or small.

Download LinkedIn’s Employer Brand Playbook to learn more about building a highly social

talent brand and how to bring your C-suite along for the ride.

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1 Eda Gultekin, What’s the Value of Your Employment Brand? December, 2011, http://lnkd.in/valueofEB.

2 Andrew Wu, February, 2015.

3 LinkedIn Talent Solutions, The State of Employer Branding, October, 2012, p8, http://talent.linkedin.com/sites/default/files/assets/LIStateofEmployerBrand_Oct12.pdf.

4 Andrew Wu, February, 2015.

5 Top 5 Benefits of a Strong Talent Brand, 2013, http://www.slideshare.net/linkedin-talent-solutions/ top-5-benefits-of-a-strong-talent-brand.

6 Top 5 Benefits of a Strong Talent Brand, 2013, http://www.slideshare.net/linkedin-talent-solutions/ top-5-benefits-of-a-strong-talent-brand.

7 APAC survey of 7,500 people, 2012.

8 2014 Talent Trends (Maria Ignatova), March, 2014, https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/business/ talent-solutions/global/en_US/c/pdfs/linkedin-talent- trends-2014-en-us.pdf

9 LinkedIn Talent Solutions and Lippincott, The secret sauce of top companies: Aligning your consumer brand and your talent brand, Sense Perspective, 2013, http://lippincott.com/files/documents/news/Perspective_Align_Your_Consumer_and_Talent_Brand_LinkedIn.pdf

10 2015 Global Recruiting Trends (Esther Cruz), November, 2014, http://www.slideshare.net/Silvester1000/global-recruiting-trends-linkedin-2015.

Index of resources

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About LinkedIn Talent SolutionsLinkedIn Talent Solutions offers a full range of recruiting solutions to help organisations of all sizes find, engage, and attract the best talent.

Founded in 2003, LinkedIn connects the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. With over 300 million members worldwide, including executives from every Fortune 500 company, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network.

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