"Attracting the Talent You Need"
by Bruce Tulgan (from the Top Echelon Knowledge Base)

Recruiting is just like sales - it requires a "sales" message compelling enough to attract a large applicant pool. The traditional sales message emphasizes rewards of the old-fashioned career path. These rewards are not enough to attract the best talent today. Traditional rewards are merely the cost of getting potential employees to consider you as a potential employer. If all you have to sell are rewards that don’t vest until several years into the future, then your recruiting sales message will not be compelling.

People in today's workforce want to know what you have to offer them today, tomorrow, next week, and next month in return for their added value. They also want to know exactly what you want them to do today, tomorrow, next week, and next month in exchange for this compensation.

Eight factors that workers of the future look for in offers of employment

1. Performance based compensation. The amount of compensation must be competitive with the marketplace but should not be limited by any factor other than performance—employees who work harder and better will be rewarded proportionately.
2. Flexible schedules. As long as they are meeting goals and deadlines, people want to know that they will have some control over their own schedules. The more control, the better.
3. Flexible location. Again, as long as they are meeting goals and deadlines, people want to know that they will have some control over where they work. This includes the power to define and personalize one’s own workspace.
4. Marketable skills. People are looking for formal and informal training opportunities and want to be assured that they will be building skills and knowledge faster than they become obsolete.
5. Access to decision-makers. People in today’s workforce don’t want to wait until they climb the ladder to build relationships with important leaders, managers, clients, customers, vendors, or coworkers. They want access right away.
6. Personal credit for results achieved. Today’s talent doesn’t want to work hard to make somebody else look good. People want to put their own names on the tangible results they produce.
7. A clear area of responsibility. People want to know that they will have 100% control of something, anything, so they can use that area of responsibility as their personal proving ground.
8. The chance for creative expression. People want to have a clear picture of all the guidelines and parameters that will constrain their creativity so they can imagine the terrain in which they will have freedom to do things their own way.