Episode #11 of Leading Matters features Jason Heilman, Co-Founder of Herefish, a software solution that helps companies mine their existing candidate database.  Jason discusses the importance and value of connecting with the talent community early in the acquisition process and the necessity of prioritizing employment brand.

I believe Herefish is on the cusp of the next wave of talent and employment focused solutions.  As you hear Jason speak I think you’ll agree that the changing nature of how we attract and hire talent requires leaders to prioritize how we deliver value to our talent communities well before we start the acquisition process.  This twenty minutes will absolutely change the way you are thinking about how your organization is identifying and bringing new employees into the organization. 

Highlights

On Undervaluing the Process of Nurturing Our Talent Community Connections

Jason shares that in so many areas of our business we make investments to connect and nurture with the people that are important to that part of the business, yet we hesitate to make those investments in our talent acquisition process.  He encourages listeners to look beyond the transactional reality of the process to better engage the individuals who make up the talent community. 

On The Transformational Impact that Talent Acquisition can Have on Our Company

Jason believes that every new employee has the potential to be that transformational difference making employee.  If we are making it our business to engage our targeted talent communities in meaningful ways he also believes that we increase the chance of finding those difference makers. 

On Properly Evaluating the Cost of Talent Community Engagement

Jason explains that we can look at talent community outreach and inbound recruiting tactics as expensive and cumbersome, or we can look at them as very small costs that will improve our overall talent acquisition investment. Ultimately the latter perspective will drive our talent acquisition cost down and our quality metrics up.

On Owning the Employment Brand

Our employment brand will be owned by either us or our employees, there is no other choice according to Jason.  We can take great strides in employment brand ownership by focusing on our talent acquisition process and how we connect with our talent communities.