Perhaps I should start with what we define a Talent Experience to be. You may have your own definition already, or perhaps an idea as to what you think it should mean. We look at a Talent Experience being a combination of your talent brand and the various tools and activities that execute on it. So it is a lot more than just branding, as branding is mostly the messaging component, or what you “say.” Talent Experience also adds how you execute on it, or what you “do.”

Why care? An effective talent experience assists many aspects of your organization’s talent management goals, including hiring the right people, having high levels of engagement amongst your workforce, alignment with business objectives and ultimately how these things drive business metrics like profitability and customer satisfaction. Using recruitment and selection as an example, an effective talent experience will help prevent those who would not be a great fit for your company from applying for a job to begin with. Those who are a great fit will feel like they get a helping hand in landing them the perfect career. In this way a talent experience plays the role of a screener for your organization.

For example, with a technology boost, Zimmerman Advertising uses our career portal to deliver a powerful message on what it is like to work there. It is extremely clear that if you are not passionate enough about the advertising business to deliver perfection and long hours, then no need to apply. But those that get past that barrier are nurtured and engaged by getting them introduced to their future co-workers. They also ensure that if their perfect job is not currently available, they don’t loose that candidate forever by proactively notifying them when that perfect job is available. The experience is delivered in the employment brand messaging for sure, but the tools also execute on the message and prove that Zimmerman is passionate about recruiting passionate people. They aren’t just all talk, and that is what forms the bond that drives high engagement. Zimmerman’s obvious dedication begets commitment from the future employee, and this is the core foundation of employee engagement. The use of technology in this example allows that one-to-one experience to be delivered efficiently.

Recruitment is a fairly obvious place to examine opportunities to boost the talent experience, but often times looking at onboarding, general employee communications and performance management processes can offer the greatest return for your investment. This is mostly because very few organizations have done much at all in these areas, whereas recruitment branding is a more mature discipline. The stakes are highest here, and practicing what you preach is paramount. In a future post we’ll examine the other aspects and examples of delivering the talent experience and how it directly affects employee engagement.