Apple’s the richest company world, yet the Bed, Bath, and Beyond that it’s next to likely pays 7.5 times as much in rent.
Why?
Apple does two things that shopping centers love, things that those shopping centers are willing to do just about anything to reap the benefits from.
No. 1, Apple brings foot traffic, not just for its store but for all of the stores around it.
No. 2, an Apple store is a signaling device – its location tells the rest of the shopping center that higher-end stores are welcome here. And, because those higher-end stores know that they’ll see foot traffic from the Apple store (see No. 1), they gladly sign up to pay higher rents to come to the shopping center.
What does Apple have to do with hiring top talent?
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Reed Hastings, co-founder and CEO of Netflix, credits one strategy above all others that led to Netlfix’s success.
That strategy? Build talent density.
Like an Apple Store, Hastings believed that talent trumped all else, that having the right people on the bus, wasn’t just an important component of successful organizations, it was the differentiator.
So how do we get these high talent people in the door? Here are two strategies that I’ve seen lead to candidates saying yes to offers.
First strategy: Appeal to identity
One of the most effective ways to persuade people is what Robert Cialdini, who wrote the seminal book on influence, calls consistency and commitment. What Cialdini found is that people want to act in accordance not with who they are, but who they aspirationally want to be.
During interviews, you’ve no doubt been able to glean what candidates value the most. When we make offers to candidates by referencing those values, we not only send messages that we see candidates individually for who they are but also can begin to paint a vision of how their unique values fit within what we’re trying to create at the organizations or team we run.
What that means practically is telling candidates specifically when you offer them the job. Here’s an example of what that would sound like.
“It is clear to me you care about and deeply value (value 1), (value 2), … Here at (organization name), those values are what make our best performers who they are because (connect those top performers’ values have on the organization’s success). It’s why I think you, specifically, are going to strive here and be one of our top performers in a very short period of time.”
Second strategy: “Pay” more
Netflix believes that if you want top talent, you have to pay top of market. Unfortunately, not every organization can do that, which is why we as hiring managers need to think creatively about what “pay” means given the constraints of our contexts. Daniel Pink, who wrote “Drive,” gives us a three-part framework for how we can craft these pitches in a way that appeals to any candidate, but especially top performers.
His three parts? Mastery, autonomy, and purpose.
Pitch 1: Learning and development (mastery)
All else being equal, candidates want to get better. That means that we need to tell candidates specifically what learning and development will look like for them to get better. That also means that anyone they talk to at the organization needs to be able to also say that learning and development is a priority.
This doesn’t need to be complicated. It does, though, need to be specific so that it sounds real to candidates. They need to know how often they’ll get feedback, how often they’ll get a chance to reflect on their success and goals to date, what professional development opportunities exist, and who they’ll get to learn from at the organization who might also be a top performer.
Pitch 2: Freedom and responsibility (autonomy)
Candidates want to know, especially top performers, what level of freedom they’ll have to make choices that they know will lead to outcomes. If their inputs need to be managed, they want to know at one point they’ll have proven themselves to be allowed to operate with more freedom.
Secondarily, they want responsibility. They want to know what projects, people, or teams they’ll be able to impact. Asking them specifically what other responsibilities they’d find appealing will help you determine what you can offer that will allow them to make a bigger impact and expand their skill set.
Vision for the future (purpose)
And finally, candidates want to know why what they’re signing up for not only matters now, but will matter in the future. That means that we, as hiring managers, need to paint a clear picture of where the organization and team they’re joining is heading and how this candidate in particular will fit into this vision.
Similar to appealing to identity, this means that we need to have a compelling, direct, and efficient pitch for what we’re trying to build in the next year and in the next five years, the impact we want to aspirationally have, and why this should matter to the candidate.
Then, we need to connect that vision to what the candidate values and how they might want to grow within the organization. That could mean more responsibility, leadership roles, managing increasingly larger and more complex projects. They might not know what they want yet, but we need to show them that we are already thinking of how they’ll be a part of the organization in the short AND long term.
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Patty McCord, Netflix’s former head of HR, had a belief that underscored the importance of hiring top performers.
“The best thing you can do for employees,” she explained in Netflix’s culture deck, “is hire only ‘A’ players to work alongside them. Excellent colleagues trump everything else.”
Find your Apple Stores and then do everything you can to convince them to join you. The rest of the organization will thank you.
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