All companies today are facing a similar challenge: How to address internal resource constraints in an uncertain economy to ensure they attract, hire, and retain best-fit talent — especially for highly skilled or hard-to-fill positions. By combining targeted talent assessments with a clearly articulated employer brand and value proposition at every touch point, talent teams can not only provide a better candidate experience, but also gain the competitive edge they need in today’s market.
In fact, that’s exactly what we discussed during a fireside chat with Symphony Talent’s Kara Polk, Program Director, Assessments, and Lizzie Barrett, Vice President, Group Brand Strategy.
Watch the full, on-demand session:
Key Takeaways:
What is an EVP? An Employer Value Proposition (EVP) commonly refers to the employment offer for talent that goes beyond compensation and into other, more emotional factors. This typically includes messaging around learning and development, culture and ways of working, purpose, employee expectations, and other factors. Another way of looking at it, EVP is the positioning, messaging, tone of voice, and personality of your employment offer, amplified through branded experiences throughout the talent journey, from reach to retention.
What effect does EVP have on the talent pipeline? First, it’s important to remember that your talent pipeline doesn’t start with active recruitment. More often than not, it begins long before the first known engagement. It’s at this stage that a strong EVP and employer brand really shine as they build brand awareness, interest, and ultimately the earliest stages of your pipeline. A smart EVP leans into messaging that aligns with an organization's core values and expectations, which means it can help potential talent self-select into or out of the recruitment process based on that information. Ensuring you have a well-articulated EVP that is infused into every touch point is essential to drive consistency, build brand awareness, and support a healthy talent pipeline.
How and why are assessments used to filter candidates for hiring? Think of it like an ecosystem. You may think that your brand and selection process are different, but they’re very much in the same ecosystem. They can work together to find the right talent and attract them to your organization. Talent assessments provide an unbiased and objective view of candidates within your talent network, which enables talent teams to further refine and narrow down the best-fit candidates for an open position. The added due diligence that assessments provide helps to minimize turnover and increase the likelihood of high-quality, right-fit talent joining your organization.
How can assessments and EVP address new candidate expectations? It’s no secret that candidate expectations have transformed. The stress and struggle of the past few years for people on multiple levels means candidates are more attuned to predicting and anticipating their experience with an organization. Candidates no longer just want another job, they want to find a place where they fit and can thrive. This often looks like anthropomorphizing organizations, meaning assigning them human characteristics and relating to them as humans. These characteristics allow candidates to look for commonalities between the perceived core values of the organization and their own. From the employer perspective, this further elevates the importance of a strong EVP and employer brand, accompanied by relevant talent assessments that can help both sides assess whether the candidate-employer match is, indeed, the best fit.
Explore more about the talent assessment and EVP connection by watching the on-demand fireside chat above.
Or, if you’re ready to dig in even deeper, reach out to one of our experts to see how talent assessments can strengthen your recruitment process and talent pipeline, or for help refining and strengthening your EVP and employer brand.
