I can’t say enough about this concept of recruiting great talent.
If you don’t have the right talent on the bus, then you will be beat eventually.
You might have the best widget or the biggest customer list or the coolest wizbang.
Eventually, someone else will come along with half as much money, half as many people, and less than half of your experience.
And they’ll win.
Why?
Mission over money
People love being apart of a great mission even more than making one more dollar.
In this article from Fast Company, the writer drives home the point that today’s digital talent isn’t driven by salary amounts or your employee cafeteria.
Instead, the liberators and heretics of the digital workforce are motived by the chance to change the world.
It’s a great article on what motivates some rare breed of people to innovate instead of just punch a clock.
“Why doesn’t digital talent want to work at your company? It’s not because you’re a consumer packaged goods company, rather than Google. It’s not because you’re in Ohio instead of Silicon Valley. It’s not because your salaries are too low, or because you don’t offer free food and laundry services.
It’s because you’re not providing them the right opportunity. The talent you want would be happy to work in an un-air-conditioned garage in New Mexico if it meant the chance to change the world.
This, the opportunity to do great things, to make a real difference, is what drives most digital talent--whether they’re developers, designers, producers, marketers or business folks.
Most companies don’t offer this, so they skip your company and work somewhere that’s more innovative and exciting. End of story. But the good news is that you can offer them something exciting and great. The promise of changing a giant, behind-the-times organization into an Internet-savvy business is an incredibly exciting challenge and a big way for ambitious people to make an impact.”
