Welcome to the Crossroads

The glut of talented employees is over. Was there ever a glut? Sure, the unemployment numbers may reflect a lack of jobs for manufacturing or factory labor, but the demand for experienced and accomplished individuals is at an all time high. There's a war going on for the best talent. Rock stars are rare.

What this means for growing businesses is that they need to work harder to ATTRACT the best people and RETAIN them. It's impossible to do this if the business doesn't market itself to the best job candidates. After all, who wants to join a company that is no longer relevant?

We are entering an interesting era where savvy HR executives are putting on a sales person's hat. Embracing this intersection of Marketing and HR has led to countless successes for recruiters. But for many, this is an unnatural position to be in. HR execs don't always have the proper training to understand certain marketing tactics. Conversely, marketing execs are used to communicating with customers not fellow associates or future employees. The emerging practice of Employer Branding/ Talent Branding is a mash up of these two disciplines.

Brands are meaningful, and they can act as a recruiting edge in talent acquisition. Big branding campaigns build awareness of the company's products.  Done well, they can also hint at the internal talent brand. If Talent Brands are well-defined and well-communicated, they have the power to connect with, and attract, the best job candidates. Moreover, a well stewarded talent brand reinforces all the positive aspects of the company's culture and can boost employee retention.

By sheer chance, I've had the unique opportunity to marry together my marketing background with the HR world. My hope with this blog is to help HR departments learn how to be better marketers, and for marketers to learn how to pitch to a company's greatest asset - its future workforce.

Buckle up your seat belts, gang. This is an intersection that can lead to creative collisions.