With the cost for mid-level and senior talent continuing to increase, emerging talent has become highly sought after. Emerging talent are interns, entry-level, or junior employees that show the motivation, intelligence, and skills to accelerate to management level positions.
Why emerging talent?
Hiring emerging talent can save your business up to 60% in hiring costs. Immediately, they’ll start off with a lower salary, and may stay with your company for a longer period of time as they develop. Emerging talent are also known self-starters who are highly motivated to learn and perform tasks beyond their role.
The challenge with emerging talent?
While some businesses may be able to identify emerging talent depending on their experience, that’s only half of the puzzle. The struggle with emerging talent comes from the time needed to mentor and mold them with the right skills. Emerging talent are also more likely to leave companies if they feel like they are not being properly nurtured down their desired career path.
If you’re trying to recruit or hire emerging talent, then keep in mind the time you’ll need to dedicate to mentor. Despite being self-starters, emerging talent want to care about their work and feel valued. Continuous development will be critical in shaping them to become your unicorn for years to come.
How to recruit emerging talent
There’s a lot of hearsay with regards to how you’ll find emerging talent. Several people will say they’re finding them on social media, but the truth is emerging talent is everywhere. I recommend using tried and true methods such as Indeed, Glassdoor or Craigslist. Even student recruiting is a solid play here.
Next, you’ll want to listen to them when you interview them. When recruiting emerging talent, it’s also important to have someone experienced in the role they’ll playing interviewing them. This allows the interviewer to quickly suss out whether they have the necessary skills, thought process, and drive to be successful in future roles.
For example, a digital marketing manager should be interviewing someone who they’re looking to fill a role in content marketing/SEO, but who projects to grow into a DMM or Director role.
Why? Because general recruiters do not have the experience in the role to understand what it truly requires, and what separates emerging talent from someone who just sounds good on the phone.
When interviewing emerging talent, make sure to drill in to questions. Get to the “why” for things they accomplished or did, and uncover their motivations in life and where they aspire to to take their careers.
Getting started with emerging talent
If you want to start finding and developing emerging talent, then follow these steps:
- Build out your requirements for the roles and responsibilities.
- Create an overall goal or milestones for your future talent.
- Create a job ad using best practices in recruitment marketing to attract the right talent.
- Interview them and use questions to dig into their decision-making and fluency in sales/marketing.
- Build an onboarding and development program to help them succeed and learn.
If this is something you’d prefer to look for outside expertise, then learn more about emerging talent here.