Anyone Out There?

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Hello, anyone out there? Yet another in-house challenge: Finding great talent.
In my much younger agency years I never understood why small groups of seasoned pros jumped jobs together as a team.
I get it now!
It’s so difficult to find great people you can connect with and who care. The kind of people you can just look at and they instantly know what you need. When you find that rare and special business relationship you’d be silly to let it go.
So why is it so hard to hire the right talent and find the folks that fit the mold?
Is it 1, 2 or 3?:

  1. Too much competition
  2. People don’t want to work in-house
  3. Everyone is a slacker

I’d like to hope it’s not C and it no longer makes sense that it’s B, since in-house design teams have been on the rise for many years and are now the cool thing to do since Apple and Google put us all on the map. So that leaves us with A–too much competition.
If too much competition is the challenge, we are back to putting our strategy caps on and figuring out how we differentiate ourselves from other organizations when we are interviewing good people for freelance or full-time roles.
Think about what benefits on your team you can discuss with a candidate when you’re getting the feeling that you’re speaking to someone good.
What types of projects are you working on? Some in-house teams get involved in everything from marketing collateral to interior design of their office space–that’s cool, mention it. Has your team won design awards that are worth pointing out? Are you working on any global initiatives that are great learning experiences like launching a new website or rebranding? Any of these opportunities could sway the right talent in your direction.
So, what have you been doing to attract the right talent for your organization?
Robin Colangelo
VP Board of Directors: InSource
Global Director of Creative Services: White & Case

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