Competitive intelligence case study - recruitment

• A military contractor was finding it difficult to hire a particular type of

candidate. They needed to know where to find these people, and how to attract

them away from competing job offers.

• Our client was competing for a type of specialized talent with several other very large

companies. They did not know where to find these potential hires, were not sure what

they should be paying, and had no information on why candidates chose to work for

their competitors. Aqute’s brief was to map the talent supply pipeline, work out what

the most compelling offer would be, and help the client get a bigger share of the

candidate pool.

Getting to the best hires first

• Our client wanted to build a sustainable supply line of talent to recruit.

• Aqute’s first task was to examine who made up the target talent pool. We split this

research into new graduates and experienced hires. For new graduates, Aqute

worked methodically through the top universities in the world, plotting the number of

doctoral graduates, the topics of their theses and where they went to work; we also

spoke to careers offices and students. For experienced hires, we mined a range of

online sources such as LinkedIn, personal blogs, job aggregators, and Google+; as

well as offline sources such as recruitment agencies and former employees of

competitors.

• We used quantitative data to predict when a given candidate would next change jobs.

Analysis of when each candidate changed jobs before, helped determine the best

date when they should be approached.

Mapping the talent pipeline

• Aqute then examined the hiring efforts of our client’s competitors. What universities

were they targeting? What media channels? We dissected their job postings. This

data helped us quantify where demand exceeded supply, and where there were

untapped wells of talent. Aqute identified geographical areas where competitors were

least active, in which our client would have more success. We also discovered some

of the more unusual locations to target candidates, such as venues, events and web

forums.

• Finally, we investigated the competitors themselves to create organization charts,

including the expertise and experience of existing employees. These gave us some

insight into what talent the competitors were likely to need.

• The overall result was a strong picture of what skills and which candidates would be

most sought after, and how our client could get to the best talent first.

Plotting talent supply vs demand

• We contacted many of the individuals to find out what motivated them, what had

attracted them to their current employer and how they might be persuaded to move.

With this information, Aqute produced recommendations on creating the most

seductive hiring packages.

• As a result, our client changed from a recruiter on the back foot, to a company with a

strong pipeline of candidates.

How to attract candidates

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