Three Keys to Attracting Top Talent, Part 3 of 4

By Brad Copes, Business Coach, Breakthrough Academy

#2 Know the Profile

You’ll need to do a bit more than just recruit energetically, every day, if you want to build a championship team. After all, if it was just about working energetically the general manager of your favourite team would have already delivered you that championship. Now, how many times has your team drafted or signed a player and you went, “Why on earth would you select that person? That’s the wrong positional player we needed,” or, “that player no-shows in big games,” or, “they are a locker room cancer.” My guess is that sports professionals make the same error trades entrepreneurs do all the time. And that error isn’t being blind-sided after you hire someone, or tricked in an interview. There are always improvements to be made when it comes to interviewing and selection, but your gut is probably surprisingly good. The big error in attracting top talent comes before you even step out to search: you don’t have a clear profile of exactly what top talent your team needs. The second key, then, is building a profile of exactly what you need on your team to win your championship.

Good recruiters don’t have the wrong person in front of them in the first place. They know that if they try to jam a square peg in a round hole, they’ll end up with the wrong person on their team and that person will likely turnover anyway. Before you dive into recruiting you should know exactly what you need. What are the role(s) missing in your business? What skills and abilities make someone great at those roles? What makes them not great? What makes someone enjoy that role? What would make them stick with it for years? Who would enjoy being on your team? We call these things “preferences,” “abilities,” and “fit”; these are the building blocks of what is called an Ideal Candidate Profile.