As the name of a recent conference in San Francisco suggests, there’s a war for talent going on right now. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Over the last couple of years I’ve been fortunate enough to talk to many successful entrepreneurs and executives from some of the fastest-growing companies in the world. While the specifics of those conversations remain confidential, I’ve noticed some general trends that seem to separate the winners in the talent war from those who aren’t doing as well.
Here are five I’ve picked up on:
The talent war winners aggressively seek out passive candidates. It’s the heat-seeking missile approach to recruiting and they do it because they know that they have to go find top talent, not the other way around. They do whatever they can to determine where the people they are looking to hire are likely to be. Often this is knowing what company an ideal candidate might have worked for previously, what school they attended, what Meetup they are going to next month or even what online communities they are hanging out on.
