Competition for talent is a major issue keeping corporate managers and business scholars busy: immaterial assets are now at the heart of competitive advantage, and thus the quality of human capital matters deeply.
Marketing can provide major insights into these issues. Attention to human resources implies the creation and communication of a value proposition having differentiating elements that can be perceived and defended. This goes to the essence of marketing, as the discipline is defined by the American Marketing Association.
Together with Guido Cristini of the University of Parma, and thanks to the support of five major corporations (Generali, Henkel, Kraft, L'Oreal Italia, and Philips), I have explored the role of marketing in the competition for talent. In our research study, two samples were constructed: the first comprising 52 firms operating in Italy, having a very positive corporate image, and the second composed by 200 young graduates enrolled in Masters of Marketing offered by the best Italian universities.
As far as firms were considered, the study devoted significant attention to employer branding, strategies for attracting talents, and the essential elements of the corporate value proposition. For Master students, attention was focused on the potential benefits of recruitment and their decision-making process in the selection of job offers.
The results of the study confirm the relevance of marketing to implement talent management strategies. In particular, the gap between demand and supply emphasizes the importance of segmenting strategies to articulate attractiveness with respect to the target involved. With respect to the corporate vision, young graduates tend to underestimate their leadership and initiative capabilities, and overestimate their problem-solving and stress-management skills.
Another area of investigation pertains to the Employer Brand Value Proposition (EBVP), which summarizes the set of benefits offered by the corporate employer to potential employees. In particular, companies tend to underestimate the importance that young graduates attach to salary packages, and, especially, to the usefulness of the position for being hired in the future by other employers. The factors are 5th and 2nd in the young graduates' ranking of importance, while they only reach the 13th and 9th positions, respectively, in the companies' ranking. This gap has adverse consequences for the perceived attractiveness of a company's EBVP.
Finally, in terms of market segmentation, four clusters have emerged, which differ in terms of the candidate's involvement in the decision-making process and her/his potential level of loyalty to the company. This kind of segmentation is crucial to design attraction and retention strategies, winnowing out candidates having short-term horizons of employment.
Summing up, our study points out domains and analytics which can enlarge the scope of marketing in the competition for talent.
by Bruno Busacca,
Full Professor of Corporate Strategy, Università Bocconi