How Anyone Can Recruit Like Apple And Google

The battle to identify, engage and recruit top talent has never been fair. For organisations like Apple and Google, their highly recognisable consumer brands, cash and resources galore, will ensure that finding talent will never be overly difficult.
 

But when you’re not an Apple or Google, how do you compete for the same quality of candidate? Are you destined to pick through the scrap pile of fish that John West rejects?

 
I took this question to Kevin Wheeler and  Dr John Sullivan to find out what they think.

 

How To Recruit Like Google Or Apple  – Dr John Sullivan

The Facebook Example

 
“I advise firms all the time in this area. I start with Facebook. The top ranked firm when it comes to recruiting but they’re 6 years old and 3 years from their IPO.”

So you can go from ‘nobody cares’ to really high on the ‘i want to work there’ list really quickly if you do the right things.

Collect Data

 
“You have to go out and talk to the people and ask “you said yes, why?” or “you said no, you wouldn’t consider Google” or  “you wouldn’t consider a start up” whatever it happened to be, so you talk to people who have said no and you find out why.”
 

What Google Can’t Offer (And What You Can)

 
“So it turns out that Google loses literally thousands of people a year to startups and so you survey them and ask them why they would pick a startup. It turns out they want to do the best work of their life, they wanted freedom, they wanted to make decisions, they want to make an impact but one of the most important things we found was that they wanted to build things from scratch, and Google can’t offer that.
 

[For these people] If you said you could build something from scratch, we’ll give you freedom, you could hire anyone.

Understand Their True Motivation 

 
“The army is one of the best recruiting machines in the world, and you die- it’s a shit job!
 
“You have to find people who either like that kind of work, what they want. I have found that top corporate innovators are totally different, five times the value of an average person-  they’re doing the best work of their life if they’re having a high impact.”

If you go to glassdoor and you look at Apple and Facebook, the reason their employees work there is that they’re doing the best work of their life and they’re changing the world.

How To Recruit Like Google Or Apple – Kevin Wheeler

The Two Ways To Compete – Money Or New Cool Stuff

 
“I think that the only way you can compete is one of two ways- you either have to offer them significantly greater amount of money, which sometimes might work, or you have to offer them the opportunity to do something they’ve never done before.”
 

Appeal To Them Emotionally And Intellectually

 
“Start from scratch, go to a start up, do something very different that appeals to them emotionally and intellectually. So I think we’re in agreement
 
 
 

If you want to learn how to improve your branding, marketing and engagement to recruit more like a Google, join your peers at  ATC2015 in Sydney. Limited spots are still available, here.