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# Build the brand – talent are not looking for the next

job they are looking for an opportunity to excel their

career. In order to attract the best, you need a brand

that stands out and a value proposition that matters

# Proactivity – instead of going after active job

seekers when you need them, build long term

relationships with talent pools and harvest over time.

Think large scale

# Every employee – your recruiters will not be able to

complete the demanding task of attracting the best

people alone, consider turning every employee into a

recruiter

THREE RULE OF THUMB

THE DIGITAL WAR FOR TALENT IS A REALITY

TALENT BECOME MORE AND MORE IMPORTANT FOR CORPORATE COMPETITIVE-

NESS AT THE SAME TIME AS THEY ARE BECOMING LESS LOYAL TO THEIR

EMPLOYER

Let’s start with why we have to rethink the concept of

talent.

First of all, talent is one of the main drivers to

companies’ competitiveness today. Apple would never

have been able to do what they have done during the

last decade without the best designers, the best

engineers and the best store managers. LEGO would

never have been able to take the leap to the digital

sphere without people that see what is on the horizon.

It is not a question of putting just any person by the

production line anymore. The challenge today is about

finding Talent that see what is going on in the industry

and take on the leadership to help the corporation

adapt to the new circumstances.

At the same time Talent has become less loyal. Think

about it, you are more loyal to yourself and your career

than your company. This is a major paradigm shift

comparing to earlier generations. If you would get an

opportunity to take on a new challenge that would fit

your career you would probably take that opportunity

independent of how it would affect your current

employer. We as professionals are now shifting from

opportunity to opportunity independent of company

rather than going from position to position along the

corporate ladder.

Some companies have for a long time seen their

employees in the same way as universities always have.

Former employees also have a value both as brand

ambassadors, as connections to clients and partners and

as potential home comers.

Now let’s turn to the digital perspective. Our user

behavior has changed dramatically during the last

couple of years. We are moving from desktop web

surfing to mobile apps. We are moving from regular

websites to social networks. Since digital have been the

driving force for productivity during the last 50 years,

companies that have not yet adapted to the new web

are facing a major gap and their relative efficiency is

decreasing in comparison to peers that have already

adapted. The current economic times doesn’t make the

need for more efficient digital solutions less important.

The digital solutions that are available let you reach the

right candidates at the right time at large scale, and your

solution will be automatically getting your message

across 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

As talent becomes more important at the same time

becoming less loyal to companies we need to develop

our recruitment strategy in order to stay healthy as

organizations.

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THOUGHTS ON RECRUITMENT STRATEGY

AS RECRUITMENT BECOMES A STRATEGIC PROCESS, WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND

THE CONSEQUENCES OF OUR DIFFERENT CHOICES

FOUR OPPOSING FORCES

In defining recruitment strategy we have some forces

that we need to consider. First we have the opposing

forces of choosing a strategy that is either using

internal resources or external resources. External

resources could be jobboards or recruitment agencies.

Internal resources could be internal referral programs

or the own webpage as channels for attracting talent.

Secondly, we have the opposing forces of choosing a

strategy that is reactive or proactive. Reactive

activities are for example contacting a recruitment

agency trying to find a position needed to be filled

“yesterday”. Proactive activities could be to work long

term towards a specific group of specialists in order

for them to understand the brand proposition of your

company and turning them into candidates over time.

EFFECTS

Depending on where you are today in your activities

you can expect different outcomes. With an

internal/proactive set of activities you can expect costs

to be lower and quality of candidates to be higher

comparing to the reactive/external strategy that will

bare higher cost and expected lower quality in the

recruitments. Further, having someone else (mainly a

recruitment agency) carry the brand name in the

recruitment process will have consequences for your

brand.

DEFINING KPIs

Next step in defining a recruitment strategy is to develop a set of KPIs. Depending on individual business objectives,

recruitment objectives will vary from case to case. A good exercise to get priorities set correctly can be to rank the KPIs

in the example to the right. In that way you will have better guidance for making the right decisions. If you are in an

expansion phase, maybe the number and quality of hires is more prioritized than if your company is in a mature phase

with more focus on cost savings. As a consequence of your prioritizations your business case will also look different.

Cost-per-Hire is in most cases only a hygiene factor making it possible to benchmark different alternatives against each

other.

BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

INTERNAL

EXTERNAL

REACTIVE PROACTIVE

FOUR PERSPECTIVES ON RECRUITMENT

Lower cost Higher quality

Positive brand effects

Higher cost Lower quality Neutral brand effects

NUMBER OF HIRES

QUALITY OF HIRES

TIME-TO-HIRE

COST-PER-HIRE

WHICH OF

THESE KPIs ARE

MOST

IMPORTANT FOR

YOUR BUSINESS

OBJECTIVES?

CONNECTING OBJECTIVES

RECRUITMENT OBJECTIVES

BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

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TURNING LINKEDIN INTO A RECRUITMENT ENGINE

YOUR STRATEGY ON LINKEDIN WILL HAVE TO BE TAILORED WITH THE USER

BEHAVIOR IN MIND. START WITH PERSONAL PROFILES

The recruitment solution takes its starting point in the

user behavior on the platform. The top three activities

on Linkedin are (1) to look at other peoples’ profiles,

(2) check the inbox and (3) look at the homepage and

the newsfeed. The recruitment strategy needs to be

adapted to these activities to be successful. How this is

done will be explained in detail during the next couple

of pages.

As an attempt to explain the recruitment solution in

only a couple of sentences: The recruitment engine

starts with your employees. If you have great people on

board it is likely that your ideal candidates can be found

in your employees’ networks. Therefore the first step is

that you activate your employees as ambassadors and

drive the traffic they have to their personal profiles to

your company page and your jobs. The purpose is to

build a base of followers that you will be able to

communicate with and turn into candidates and

employees over time. On the company page you have

the possibility to let your jobs be listed with a rich

description of why it is a good opportunity to start

working at your company. The employees’ profiles

together with your company page and your jobs

constitute the three pillars of the recruitment engine.

Moreover some companies have also started to turn

their recruitment department into a direct sourcing

unit. Instead of screening CVs of active candidates that

might not be qualified, they can actually go out and

pinpoint the best passive candidates and contact them

directly. In order to be successful with the direct

sourcing it is important to have the basic setup created

first. Remember we are talking about passive candidates

(top talent) that already have a job. These people are

looking for the next opportunity.

MAIN ACTIVITIES ON LINKEDIN

12%

18%

22%

32%

34%

60%

70%

73%

Jobs

Company Pages

Groups

Address Book

People Search

Home Page

Inbox

Profile Views

In the next couple of pages the following modules will

be explained:

Work With Us – Activating employees

Career Page – Your main destination page

Job Slots – Explaining current opportunities

Recruiter – Direct Sourcing

CORE MODULES

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REFERRALS - your internal referral program

to get a boost

FOLLOWERS - your follower base

(subscribers of news and jobs) to increase

BRAND RECOGNITION – external and

internal recognition of our employer brand

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT

ACTIVATING EMPLOYEES AS AMBASSADORS “WORK WITH US”

The starting point of the recruitment engine is to

tap in to the massive traffic you already have to

your employees’ profiles. People from other

companies are networking with your employees

every day. In the allocated advertisement space that

other companies are using you can get your

message across. In the example to the right,

Coloplast are saying that the curious visitors have

the opportunity to follow them as a company to

receive company updates and relevant jobs.

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BRAND – Express your graphical brand

identity

PEOPLE – Display people within the

company that the individual visitor is

connected to

JOBS – Explain current job opportunities

here, sorted by relevance for each visitor

TESTIMONIALS – Let employees tell the

story of why they have chosen to work at

your company

VIDEOS – Use the Career page as a channel

for corporate videos

+ more…

FEATURES

CREATING A MAIN DESTINATION “CAREER PAGE”

The module Career Page has the purpose of describing

how it is to work in your organization. If the Work

With Us module creates awareness, the Career page is

where you position your company in comparison to

other companies within your industry. This will create a

strong positioning – both internally and externally.

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THE VIRAL EFFECT – On average a job is

shared 7 times

SEARCH OPTIMIZATION – We provide

training and tips about how to search

optimize ads

AUTOMATIC MATCHING – Our system

make sure that the job reach the right

candidate

MOBILE – Jobs are also targeted through

mobile. Expect all your candidates to be

mobile

THINGS TO CONSIDER

EXPLAINING CURRENT OPPORTUNITIES “JOB SLOTS”

So if you have created a strong and well positioned

brand, it is also appropriate to explain current job

opportunities. There a couple of things worth

mentioning concerning the jobs. Most importantly,

they are matched automatically with active and passive

candidates. The function that does this is called “Jobs

You May Be Interested In” and you might have seen it

on the first page displaying the three most relevant jobs

for you that we can find right now for you. We also

market this through a weekly e-mail and on the

jobboard for the active candidates.

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DIRECT SOURCING “RECRUITER”

START DOING THE HEADHUNTING YOURSELF. CUT OUT COSTLY MIDDLEMEN

AND UNLEASH THE RETURN ON YOUR EMPLOYER BRAND INVESTMENT

SEARCH

With the recruiter search account you are given access

to all of the 200 million members on LinkedIn. With 22

search fields you can easily find the right candidates

that match the role you are

trying to find. There are also an

integration towards the jobs

which give you a suggestion of

candidates to each job you post

so that you don’t have to

search manually. The feature

“Similar profiles” make you

copy one of your ideal

employees and find others on

the platform that looks like a

close match. When you have

built your perfect search, save it

and get notified when new

profiles match your criteria.

ORGANIZE

The feature “Talent Pipeline”

help you organize the profiles

of ideal candidates and turn

your recruitment function into a relationship

department. When top talent is becoming more

important as competitive advantage, HR departments

start treating talent almost like the sales department

treats their key prospects. Organizing candidates by

Tag or Status make you keep track of your Talent

Pipeline over time.

CONTACT

With templates that you create and share with your

team you can easily contact candidates that are

interested in new career opportunities in a 1-to-Many e-

mail. Your message is received as

an InMail and candidates can easily

find the job ad you are contacting

them about on the platform if you

attach a link in your InMail.

COLLABORATE

If you are a team working with

“Recruiter” you will easily be able

to share profiles internally and with

the feature showing if a person has

already been contacted, you never

have to contact the same person

twice.

DATA

When you invest time in building

your talent pipeline through the

recruiter tool, you will always know

that the data stay with the

company and not the user.

RESULTS

The results you can expect from this can of course be

calculated in the number of hires you do as a

consequence of the activity. But consider also that this

is a branding activity. When you outsource

headhunting, the branding investment stays with the

recruitment agency.

RECRUITER

ACCOUNT

PREMIUM

ACCOUNT

Search - contact anyone on LinkedIn

Yes No

Search – use advanced seach fields

Yes No

Ownership - owned by

the company Yes No

Collaboration – share projects and profiles

Yes No

Organize - create a dynamic database

Yes No