Home / Reports and Articles / Finding Keepers

The Engagement Cycle

As companies move from the hiring-as-transaction view to the marketing view, we see that employer and candidate follow a clear three-phase cycle in the course of their working relationship. These three phases describe the level and quality of engagement between employee and employer, which we call the Engagement Cycle:

1. Attract. The Attract phase is a long-term “dance” between you and the candidate. It includes every activity meant to position the organization as a potential employer in the mind of a candidate. You project a carefully crafted, authentic image as an employer; they become aware of your organization’s specific attributes. Your employees spread your reputation as an employer; the candidate listens and assesses you as a potential workplace. It’s a similar dance to the way consumers are drawn to brands in the marketplace.
2. Acquire. This phase involves all the interactions between you and candidates from the moment they reach out to you. You advertise a position and they apply. You treat their application a certain way, and they react. You find their résumé and approach them, and they judge you by your image and your behavior. Your interview process is a series of interactions with different parts of your organization. Both candidate and employer set expectations throughout this process that will be critical in making a good hire and later in holding onto the best talent. The Acquire stage also includes the honeymoon period right after an employee starts working, in which expectations will be tested against reality. In terms of consumer branding, this is the purchase of a product and its aftermath: Does the product perform as advertised? Is the customer so satisfied that he would recommend the product?
3. Advance. Keep critical talent moving, not necessarily up, but growing in experience, responsibility, money, or other tangible and intangible ways. Advancing talent in your organization is a key to retaining good people and vital to your company’s ability to change as opportunity or necessity require. Retention is the “hold” part of hire and hold; in consumer branding terms, it’s the equivalent of customers becoming loyal to a brand and identifying with the brand’s attributes.

The Engagement Cycle is the long-term flow of activities that attract, acquire, and advance talent, and it is the interplay of the full cycle—both the employer’s three activities and the candidate’s responses—that creates a strong relationship. Figure 3-1 shows the parallel activities from the employer and candidate points of view.

The first stage—Attract—consist of getting the word out, and the consumer-minded candidates’ activities in a job search (including checking you out). The middle stage—Acquire—is transactional and relatively brief. In the third phase—Advance—both sides try to maximize the value of the relationship.

Figure 3-1

This last phase might repeat over the time that an employee works at your company. A poised worker is always judging the employer against other potential employers. When talent is in demand, you have to re-earn its engagement constantly or risk losing it to someone else.

The Engagement Cycle requires more attention than transactions because it is multidimensional and depends on the ongoing interaction. For example, it’s not enough for your outreach to be good; how you receive the candidate’s response is also important.

The Attract phase can last for years. For the career-minded worker, employment is not a single event but a sequence of encounters: a candidate hears about an employer, maybe years before applying for a job there (but from the moment the candidate hears, he starts to form an impression). In the language of marketing, that’s a touch point. Sometime later the candidate hears about the company from a friend who works there. That’s another touch point. Perhaps he then uses one of the company’s products, or shops in its store; that’s another touch point. Then the candidate connects in a very specific way to an opportunity—a job advertisement, a network contact, a call from a recruiter who dug up his résumé. More touch points. Then the candidate applies for the job and goes through the process of getting the job. More touch points. Then he starts working as an employee, and he’s now in a daily relationship with the employer until he leaves the company—retires, quits, is let go, or dies!

The Engagement Cycle is a multidimensional, long-term approach to hiring and holding skilled employees.