APDF’s Webinar Series in July featured Lynn Hazan. Lynn is a twenty-six year recruiting veteran in communications and marketing and President of Lynn Hazan & Associates.
While the APDF Webinar addressed a wide range of topics, here are some of the key take-aways participants learned.
CURRENT TRENDS
Recruiting top talent and making good matches is tough today. It’s important for design firms to follow overall business trends not only to help you reach clients and prospects, but also to position your firm for future candidates. Some of the current trends to watch:
- Rise of the CMO (keeper of the brand)
- Budget Shift to Online Media (go where the money is)
- Data-driven Marketing (justify what you’re doing)
- Dominance of Search (is your firm top of mind?)
- Explosion of Social Media (new forum for firm positioning and for recruiting)
- Green Marketing (what is your firm’s commitment?)
WHAT CANDIDATES ARE LOOKING FOR
What are you doing to position yourself as an “employer of choice” for future candidates? Because fewer Gen X candidates are available, they are going to be in higher demand and harder to recruit. They will have the luxury of saying yes or no to jobs. Today’s candidates are looking for:
- Ability to work from home
- Flexibility
- Growth opportunities
- Buy-in on the firm vision
- Engagement; they want to be involved in meaningful ways
- Sense of a community and team environment
- Life/work balance
- Technology forward and socially responsible work environment
PARTICIPATE IN SOCIAL MEDIA
The networking watering hole has changed. We have a digital watering hole now! You need to be there and position your firm as a thought leader, so candidates will recognize you before you approach them. But, how can you make time to implement your social media presence?
- Look to your younger staff – reverse-mentoring.
- Hire interns or freelancers who want to get a foot in the door. They’ll teach you a lot!
- Start simple (5% of your time) and then grow to engage more.
- Give your current staff a challenge to get your firm front and center using social media.
Cathy Brownlee
Executive Director
APDF
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