How can you attract creative talent in advertising?

1 Define your employer brand

Your employer brand is how you communicate your identity, mission, and vision to potential candidates. It should reflect your unique style, voice, and values, as well as your work environment, benefits, and perks. To create a strong employer brand, you need to be authentic, consistent, and engaging. Use your website, social media, and portfolio to showcase your best work, your culture, and your impact. Share stories and testimonials from your employees and clients. And make sure you have a clear and compelling value proposition that answers the question: why should creative talent work for you?

2 Use creative sourcing strategies

Creative talent is often passive, meaning they are not actively searching for a job, but are open to new opportunities if they come across them. To reach them, you need to use creative sourcing strategies that go beyond the traditional job boards and referrals. For example, attending or hosting events, workshops, and webinars related to your industry and niche can help you network with potential candidates, showcase your expertise, and generate interest in your company. Additionally, creating and sharing engaging content that displays your work, insights, and values can help build your reputation, attract followers, and spark conversations with potential candidates. Utilizing social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram to connect with creative talent, share job openings, and showcase your culture is also beneficial. You can use hashtags, groups, and communities to find and join relevant conversations. Lastly, using niche job boards, platforms, and networks that cater to creative talent such as Behance, Dribbble or Creativepool can help you find and contact designers, writers or illustrators.

4 Provide feedback and recognition

Creative talent thrives on feedback and recognition; they want to know how they are doing, what they can improve, and how they can grow. Providing effective feedback and recognition can help motivate, engage, and retain your creative talent, as well as improve their performance and quality. To do this successfully, be specific, timely, and constructive when giving feedback on specific projects, actions, or behaviors. Additionally, be consistent and fair in your feedback and recognition, avoiding favoritism or bias. Finally, make sure your feedback and recognition is personal and sincere; use their name to express your appreciation and acknowledge their efforts and achievements.

5 Support learning and development

Creative talent is always looking to learn and develop new skills, knowledge, and ideas. To support their learning and development, you should provide opportunities for internal and external training, coaching, and mentoring. Encouraging experimentation and risk-taking can help creative talent test new ideas, methods, and tools. Additionally, creating a culture of curiosity and collaboration will enable them to share their knowledge, feedback, and opinions with each other. These tips can help you attract creative talent in advertising, build a strong employer brand, use creative sourcing strategies, offer flexible and remote work options, provide feedback and recognition, and create a team that can deliver amazing results.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?