Polco News & Knowledge

Leveraging Digital Marketing Strategies to Recruit Top Talent

Written by NRC | August 7, 2018

- Guest Article By Ron Holifield - Strategic Government Resources (SGR)

We are in an unusual period of history.  The combination of full employment and the rapid retirement of so many Baby Boomers has created an increasingly intense talent shortage.  Local governments across the nation are reporting growing challenges in finding both large and strong candidate pools in virtually every professional discipline.  To succeed, it is incredibly important that organizations of all types begin to rethink their approaches to talent marketing. In particular, they must begin developing strategies for reaching passive candidates, instead of limiting themselves to those prospects who are actively searching for their next job.

Fully 75 percent of all full-time employees consider themselves passive candidates.  In other words, they are open to considering new opportunities, but they are not checking job boards, or otherwise actively looking for that next job.  As a result, when you limit your talent marketing to placing ads on job boards and your website, you fail to reach 75 percent of the market!  To attract the best and the brightest in the current environment, local governments absolutely must begin to use digital talent marketing strategies that reach the three-fourths of the market who consider themselves passive candidates.

SGR and Vision by Granicus recently hosted a free workshop in Englewood, Colorado on Digital Talent Marketing. Attendees learned tips and techniques on how to leverage social media effectively in local government talent marketing, as well as how to use the organizational website to convey your culture to prospects. For more information about this, contact Ron Holifield at Ron@GovernmentResource.com.

 

About the Author

Ron Holifield served almost two decades in City Management, including Assistant City Manager in Plano, Texas, as well as City Manager in Garland, DeSoto, Farmersville and Sundown, and on the City Manager’s staff in Lubbock.  In 1996, he left city management and purchased Government Relations Specialists, where he provided strategic marketing consultation for many of the leading corporations in America, including Space Imaging, American Express, IBM, Xerox and over 50 other Fortune 500 companies, as well as NASA.  In 1999, Ron sold that company and founded Strategic Government Resources (SGR) to specialize in Recruiting, Assessing and Developing Innovative, Collaborative, Authentic Leaders for local governments nationwide.  Today, Ron speaks at over 50 state and national conferences and workshops each year and remains high profile in the city management profession.

 

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