HR exec Spencer Kupferman found that every time it looked like he was about to land a prize recruit, a bigger company – and a bigger salary – pulled the recruit away, until Kupferman came up with a novel approach (part of an ongoing series).
Question: How do you compete for top talent when you know the bigger guys can outspend you?
We faced that problem right at the time we were trying to expand our operation – and become one of the bigger guys ourselves. But we simply didn’t have the dollars that some of the larger employers were able to throw at good candidates.
Sure, we could offer challenging work and a degree of independence that wasn’t available in the big corporate settings. Sometimes, though, people wanted something else.
We figured out what that was when one candidate told us she wanted to leave her employer because “all they care about is how much work I do.”
Just 15 minutes
Maybe we could show them we cared more than Humongous, Inc., down the street. How? By setting up a 15-minute meeting between candidates and our CEO, meetings with no talk about work.
For example, the talk might center on a person’s favorite class in school or a favorite nonwork activity. You’d be surprised about the effect something like that has.
More than once, a talented applicant has signed with us for less money while noting, “Your company was the only one that showed an interest in me that had nothing to do with work.”
(Spencer Kupferman, VP, Global Software, Inc., Raleigh, NC)
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