As part of your overall employer branding strategy, you should absolutely conduct a talent competitor analysis to understand: what their employee value proposition (EVP) is and what they’re doing in the marketplace in order to differentiate yourself and clearly articulate your message. Surprisingly, they might not be who you think they are!
Your talent competitors are not necessarily your market competitors. In fact, your talent competitors might not even be who you think they are.
In The Talent Cast podcast, James Ellis explains how to identify your talent competitors.
“How many people think they’re competing with Google or Facebook for talent? You’re nuts, but you’re not alone. So many companies consider Google, Facebook and Amazon as competition for talent, but miss their real competition. Let’s think through the question of who your real competition is so you can evaluate your own employer brand better.”
From a consumer standpoint, there are no market competitors for Amazon and Google. They are simply too large. So, to think you’re trying to attract developers to your small startup who are also considering Amazon and Google is simply incorrect.
“If I ask you where you want to go on vacation, you tell me you only know that you want to go to a beach. But do you want to go to Mexico, Puerto Rico, the South of France, or Greece? What about Iceland? They have beaches too, but they’re chillier. Your experience will be different. Technically Antarctica has a beach too (a place where land meets water), so why aren’t you including there too? You end up talking about many different places, none of which will give you the same experience.”
Ellis uses this metaphor to explain that not all your potential talent is the same! A startup competing for developers against Google is the same way Iceland and Port of Aratu compete for beach-goers. They’re radically different.
“Only when you embrace and understand this can you start to have a better idea about who your talent competitors truly are.”
If your organisation is a startup, your talent market includes people who are interested in working for a startup, as startups are different and special.
Big organisations are radically different from smaller organisations because of their size. People choose to work there because they offer what big organisations can: stability, structure, scale, and the potential for impact, including the need to navigate things such as politics.
People who want to work for a small organisation choose to do so for different reasons.
“Small organisations are radically different. Everybody knows everybody, everyone wears different hats and tries different things. Small organisations leverage the most from each individual. If you can increase the value of one person by 1% you can really see that. It’s not something you necessarily notice at a big company.”
The more you consider who your competitors are, the more you can truly understand and create a strong employer brand. You need to think about it with maturity to truly understand why people want to work for you.
“You are so different and what you offer is so different. There is a litany of organisations who are in a similar position as you, with similar reasons for existing and brand promises. Those organisations are your competition.”
For example, there’s no reason that the Red Cross couldn’t hire people from Amazon. But they’re not talent competitors. These organisations don’t compete for the same people in any way, shape, or form. Understand who your competition is by understanding where your best people might work.
So how do you find out who your talent competitors actually are?
“Find a company whose motivations and brand promises are similar to yours, and how you compete in that industry, not [necessarily] because you’re the same size or you’re in the same geographic location, but because you’re motivated by the same things. Because those people are motivated by the same things. Your job in building a strong employer brand is to ask: “how do I overperform in this space compared to others?”
For example, if there is a similar company to you based in a similar location, and you’re both motivated by empowerment and innovation, you’re both essentially targeting talent who are inspired by the same things.
Understanding who your talent competitors are means, “knowing who you are, who is attracted to you, and where those people are. It’s understanding what other companies have similar motivations to you. Understanding your motivation and comparing that to other organisation is how you should be comparing yourself when you look at your employer brand and understanding how you stack up.”
“Understanding who your competitive set is beyond industry, scale or size, geography. It’s about your organisation’s motivation more than anything else.”
Assess your competition by understanding their employee value proposition (EVP), what they’re doing in the marketplace in terms of their careers site, social channels, and recruitment advertisements. Then find a way to differentiate yourself and amplify your message.
By understanding who your talent competitors are, you’ll be able to create a more compelling pitch!
Have you done a talent competitor analysis? Let us know in the comments.
Sources
James Ellis
The Talent Cast