Article: How Intel Leverages Talent Communities in Asia

Employer Branding

How Intel Leverages Talent Communities in Asia

Intel's talent initiatives are aimed at creating awareness about the company's culture
How Intel Leverages Talent Communities in Asia

Every marketer craves a strong brand and an army of raving customer advocates. Today’s top HR organizations are borrowing heavily from their marketing colleagues’ toolkits as they build strong employer brands and talent communities.

The story is no different in India, where talent brand is the new wave of attracting and acquiring desired quality. 77 percent of India recruiters agree that employer brand is a top priority for their organization and 90 percent of Indian companies are either increasing or maintaining their investment in this area.

Richa Telang from Intel, one of our key customers, spoke to us about her experience of establishing an employer brand and a talent community that are reaping dividends for the company in the marketplace.

What’s the significance of employer brand today? How does Intel leverage its employer brand?

The talent market today is hyper-competitive with recruiters vying to attract the same pool of quality talent for their organizations. The pressure is on to create a unique value proposition to attract and retain talent. Crafting an employer brand which maintains the ethos of the company brand but creates a distinguished market position has become the need of the hour.

At Intel we place strong emphasis on our employer brand. We prioritize it as part of our overall talent strategy. Broadly, our initiatives are aimed at creating awareness about Intel’s culture, why Intel is a great place to work at and how professionals can develop their careers when they commit to work for our organization. At a more refined level, we have taken inspiration from sales and marketing concepts by segmenting our talent market and tailoring content and messaging to appeal to the different talent segments.

What are the most important things you’ve done on LinkedIn and elsewhere to boost Intel’s talent brand?

We have used both traditional and new media channels. Blogs and online communities have always been part of our strategy. With the advent of social media channels, our efforts have been centered on leveraging the already existing professional network on LinkedIn. Our objective was two-fold – change employer brand perception by creating awareness about software opportunities, and tap into the pool of software talent which was inaccessible through other channels.

And we have used different LinkedIn Talent Solutions – Recruiter, Job Slots, Gold Career Page, a Custom Group, and targeted ads – to meet our objectives. This package of solutions helped us create the right employer brand positioning, target the right talent segment and also hire quality talent.

Why did you choose a Custom Group as one of your channels to position your talent brand?

We wanted to build a talent community to help change our talent brand perception in the market. We decided to go ahead with LinkedIn as our platform because of two definite advantages – an already existing wide talent network which is professionally oriented, and the ability to segment and target the audience so we position our employer brand in the right segment.

It started out in India with the Intel India Software Talent Community, and now other countries are applying this learning. For example, Vietnam has already started building a community for mechanical engineering talent.

What approach did you use to build and manage the community?

Our objectives were to create awareness about the cutting edge software work at Intel and to establish relationships. Getting leadership buy in and involving stakeholders outside of the recruiting team helped us give the community a business context, with business managers and Intel leaders participating in the discussions. Sustainability was something which was always considered an important component.  We built an engagement charter with details on what, where, and how do we share and engage with the members with clear ownership assigned.

How did this initiative of creating of a talent community impact your business and talent acquisition strategy?

This community coupled with the Intel Career Page definitely helped us change our perception among candidates in the market. It helped in creating a new talent market which was previously untapped and unaware of software opportunities at Intel. Quite a few software professionals from the community have proactively shown interest in opportunities at Intel. We have been able to build a pool of talent which can now be leveraged for our talent acquisition efforts.

What were the key learnings? What is your advice to peers who aspire to build talent communities to interact with talent?

Before you decide on creating a talent community, be clear about why are you creating one and how will it help you meet your objectives. The next steps are segmenting your audience and creating the messaging and vehicles to attract the right audience. Another key to success is getting leadership buy in and working with existing employees to evangelize your brand. And finally, having a plan to sustain it will help you reap benefits in the longer run.

What are your future plans for the community?

Our focus is on increasing membership and creating deeper engagement with the already existing 1200+ members. As part of deeper engagement, a mentorship program within the community is something we are working on. And finally, we will look to the existing community members to fill software positions in Intel. Other countries like Vietnam and China have learned from this experience to create similar efforts based on their specific market needs.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Understand your target audience – who they are and what will motivate them to follow or show interest in you.
  2. Build your employer brand positioning and customize content and messaging to appeal to the talent you are looking for. In Intel’s case it is about bringing about a change – “Want to transform technology and create a better future?”
  3. Inject the essence of your employer brand into all communications and activities. Be it a job description or a talent community, they should reiterate your employer brand message.
  4. Before building a talent community, have a plan for it – who is it meant for, how you will bring them onboard, how you will engage passive candidates and how you will sustain the community.

To understand in detail how Intel brings its strategy to life through LinkedIn Talent Solutions, watch the video.

YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/C-b1IZo1sCo

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Topics: Employer Branding, #TalentBrandingWeek

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