José Ignacio Gafo Gómez-Zamalloa

If you are currently working in a growing company that needs to hire talented people, you will surely agree with me, that TALENT is becoming more and more difficult to find. Finding the right people, with the right talent and brisk of what is called a genious, is becoming a kind of mission impossible.

Much is at stake for the future of our company is at risk. Thus the quesion: What can we do about it?

The supply side is beyond our scope. Young generations, their values, their culture and their education are something in which the companies do not have a say. I remember speaking to a Top Executive from a well-known japenese multinational company, that complained that most of new japanese graduates were unable to do team-work and think by themselves. However, he admitted, there are exceptions and his company had to whatever it was necessay to get it recruited.

Traditionally, the role of hiring new Talent has been allocated within Human Resources, that should come up with attractive salary package + a well defined career path to be sold to new graduates at University. Unfortunately, due to the scarcity explained, this has become more a hygienic factor for getting talent than a determining one. I.e., you can have nice packages and career plans, but unless you make some Marketing you will either fail to get Talent or will have to pay more than others to get it.

Within the Marketing to be done, I would say one the most critical variables is Branding. Branding has many benefits for a company, among others the ability of creating an emotional link with your target group (aspirational and a sense of proud among others), and being able to charge a premium price for something which might not the best. (which in the case of hiring people is translated into being able to hire the best without paying the most).

American Companies are aware of it and invest a significant amount of money in Branding themselves among their targeted talented people. Take for instance the amount of activities and donations that both Microsoft + Google make in Stanford, or the Ranking that Forbes keeps of “The 100 most desired companies (USA) MBA students want to work for”. Or if you prefer, go through a selection process in one well-known american company, and you will be told that it is within the referred ranking, and the reasons for that.

To sum up, excluding top American Companies that are aware of this, there is no systematic effort done by Asian, Latin American or European companies to create Branding for Talented People and measuring it. The cost of opportunity of not doing so is huge and, if we don´t go ahead with it now, our companies will suffer the scarcity either by paying more than we should for talent, or being managed by people that lack it.

Maybe it is time to create a ranking of “The 100 most desired companies (European) MBA Students want to go for”.

Think Different!!!

Ignacio Gafo

Posted on 27 January 2008 in International Marketing, Branding

Comments

Posted by: Johnny Mulder at January 29, 2008 08:16 PM

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