Episode 03 · 15 July 2022 · 25:57
How To Win The Fight For Talent (And It's Not What You Think)
How To Win The Fight For Talent (And It's Not What You Think)
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What 'the fight for talent' actually means
Why the nature of the role changes everything
Has the pandemic really changed work forever?
Recruitment is science — the evidence base
Step 1 — Define the role properly (job analysis)
Step 2 — Create a process, not a gut feeling
Step 3 — The search (and why it's not where you start)
Gen Z and millennials — what they actually want
Wrap-up and how to get in touch
Show notes
How To Win The Fight For Talent (And It's Not What You Think)
Truth, Lies & Work — Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Business Psychologist and lead consultant at Oblong) break down why the "fight for talent" isn't the war you think it is — and why the secret weapon isn't a bigger salary or a flashier job ad. Leanne shares a simple, three-part framework for attracting, qualifying and recruiting great people every single time.
If you're struggling to find great people right now, you're not alone — and it's probably not your fault. The pandemic massively shifted how people see their jobs, driving up resignations and making candidates more demanding (and often willing to hold out for more money or greater flexibility). But here's the good news: recruitment is science, not guesswork. And Leanne's got the evidence to prove it.
🧠 The Three-Part Framework
Step 1: Define the role properly. Most businesses skip this. Leanne's approach starts with a thorough job analysis — not just "we need a marketing person," but a deep dive into what the role actually requires, how it might shift, and what level of person you're really recruiting for. Skipping this step is why so many hires go wrong.
Step 2: Create a process, not a gut feeling. "The number of people I speak to say, I just had a gut feeling that this was the right person." Leanne's response? There's a mountain of evidence on what works in recruitment — structured methods beat intuition every time. And it doesn't have to be expensive; you don't need to engage specialist consultants to do it properly.
Step 3: The search — and it's not where you start. Most people begin with the search. Leanne argues it's the final step, not the first. Once you've defined the role and built a solid process, the search becomes much more intuitive — and much more likely to land you the right person.
💬 Key Moments Worth Revisiting
- The pandemic myth (05:15): Leanne pushes back on the media narrative — the pandemic didn't change everything, but it did change the balance of power between employer and employee.
- Equal choice (07:00): Recruitment is an equal choice for employers and employees — and that shift is here to stay.
- The pay trap (17:09): Al flags something worth a whole episode: paying people more doesn't necessarily fix retention. Understanding what actually drives your people matters more.
- The spreadsheet moment (20:29): Al's seen Leanne's "fancy spreadsheets" in action — and they're apparently worth it.
🎯 If You Take One Thing Away
Recruitment is science. The evidence is clear: define the role properly, build a structured process, and only then start the search. Your gut feeling is not a recruitment strategy — but a good process will make your gut feel a lot more reliable.
📬 Get In Touch
Want a chat with Leanne about how you can build an amazing workplace culture? Email: podcast@oblonghq.com
Got feedback, questions or future guest suggestions? Same address: podcast@oblonghq.com
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
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Al ElliottThe dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
Al ElliottNice. Check out hopspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
Leanne ElliottAnd then also making sure you don't go on gut. The number of people I speak to say, I just had a gut feeling they weren't right. And it's like, your gut is the most unreliable predictor of how well this person's gonna do in the job that you can imagine.
Al ElliottHello and welcome to episode 3 of Truth, Lies and Workplace Culture podcast for business owners who want to build high-performing teams that genuinely care about the business you've built. I'd like to introduce our lead consultant and my wife, Leanne Elliott.
Leanne ElliottHello, I'm Leanne Elliott.
Al ElliottAnd I'm Al Elliott, and I do pretty much like everything else, like the washing up and the client acquisition and all that kind of thing. Leanne's the clever one. So what we're going to be talking about today is, in this episode, is recruitment. Now, this is a big thorny subject. A lot of people are saying that they can't find good people. And so you think, Leanne, that you've got a great process for finding the right person for the right role every time.
Leanne ElliottYes. I don't think, Al, I know. I know how good it is.
Al ElliottSo let's kick off a little bit, sort of taking back a step and go, I've heard about this, this phrase called the fight for talent. Will you explain to me what that means and how it's different to 2 years ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago?
Leanne ElliottYeah, the fight for talent is talked about a lot in the media, in industry, online, you're going to find lots of different things about it. And I guess there's 2 kind of key streams to the fight for talent. One is skill shortages. You know, there are some industries where skills are short and work is being done at government level to increase skills in said areas, such as technology as an example. The other fight for talent really comes down to the competitiveness of an organisation and also their ability to recruit. There is talent out there and you will not have to dig too deep on LinkedIn or even Google for organisations and business leaders who are very happy with the caliber and quantity of talent that they are attracting in their recruitment drives. So, is the fight for talent real? Yes. Yeah, it is. But ultimately, there is a lot of work you can do on your recruitment process alone to significantly enhance your ability to find great talent.
Al ElliottNow, I want to, I want to touch on, um, on Gen Zs, on millennials a bit later on in Because I feel that obviously I, what am I? If I'm 45 now, I was born in '77. What does that mean?
Leanne ElliottA boomer?
Al ElliottAm I? No, I'm not a boomer.
Leanne ElliottNo, you're not. You're Gen Y.
Al ElliottGen Y. So there's a lot of differences between when I was applying for jobs and obviously people who are half my age now. Um, but the thing I do want to kick off with is asking you about freelancers. Now, as a business owner, I have a choice of either recruiting someone to do the job or using a freelancer. Now, can you think of any reasons why using a freelancer would be a better idea than recruiting someone and vice versa?
Leanne ElliottI think it depends on the nature of the role, and that's the number one thing you have to really think about and assess before you even put together a job description or even dream about advertising for a post. It's the nature of the role that I think is going to help you answer that question. If the nature of the role is fairly transactional. For example, if we use something like copywriting, the role doesn't need to go beyond that. Perhaps in some circumstances you need somebody to create copy for a blog. You don't also need them to interact with clients or support business development or the marketing activity. So, if it's quite a simple transactional role, then freelancers might be a good option. If you're looking for a role that is more multifaceted and that is more engaged with the business and its customers, then having somebody who is, in inverted commas, employed by the organisation may give you more control over that role and how it functions within the business.
Al ElliottSo, taking into account what you just said there, then we've just gone through the pandemic, the C-word, not that C-word, the other C-word, COVID. So, just gone through that. And so, obviously, we've all been used to, not all, but most of us have been used to working from home. How has that changed the way in which employers should be thinking about recruiting?
Leanne ElliottI think ultimately it hasn't. And I think this is the— a lot in the media that frustrates me, and particularly as business, particularly larger corporate leaders who are really using this whole remote hybrid as an excuse for, for the Great Resignation, for everything else. And, and I think the reality is people's attitudes towards work have been changing for a long time. Remote work is not new. We have been working remotely in some capacity since the mid-'80s. This is not a new phenomenon. What's new is the scale on which people are now able to work remotely, or were forced to work remotely during the pandemic. What that's left us with is just an acceleration in time of the evolution of the workplace. We were already on that course. I think it's just sped it up. And now that organisations have shown that it works, have made it work, they have less of a defence when employees are saying, well, I want to work remotely. long term. I've proved it can work, why not? So I think it's more that organizations need to accelerate their thinking, their approach, to match the acceleration that, that work has already gone through in terms of change during the pandemic.
Al ElliottSo you're saying that it's perfectly reasonable to recruit right now, which is— we're currently, if you're listening to this in the future, then it's currently, um, April 2022. It's perfectly okay to recruit And not even mention the work from home or the hybrid situation?
Leanne ElliottIn what way?
Al ElliottSo, for example, I've seen lots of an massive increase in adverts for people who are saying, there's a new job opening, opening. And by the way, yes, you can work from home or work hybrid. Now, what happens if you're an employer who doesn't want that? Is that going to restrict the pool of talent by saying, I want you in the office?
Leanne ElliottI don't think it restricts it, but it will give you It's, it's an equal choice for employers, it is for employees in terms of what work looks like for them. What all the research so far has shown us is that the vast majority— we're talking kind of 3 quarters plus— would prefer some type of hybrid opportunity where there is an option to work from the office for a period of time. It's working out about 50%, 40-50% in the office. And the same at home. So hybrid is the preferred option, but there is no one-fit-all approach for everybody. There are lots of arguments as to why hybrid working won't work for certain people. And within that, complicated arguments either way. So for example, if we talk about women in the workplace, there is evidence and a strong argument that for women in the workplace, working from home has actually been beneficial because they've had more control over their work-life balance, particularly if they are, they are parents, they have more flexibility in terms of childcare and their responsibilities in that respect. So, on one hand, there's an argument and a train of thought that hybrid working or working from home is actually going to positively impact the careers of women in the workplace. The counterargument, and both equally valid, is that without having that presence in the office, particularly if your company is hybrid, then You have to really be reliant on the quality of your managers to make sure that you're kept within the loop, that your development is kept on top of, and then your managers aren't prioritizing people that they can physically see and sit next to in the office. So there is an argument that could be detrimental for women careers, and it is then that kind of double barrier. Equally right, equally valid. There is no one-fits-all approach. Going back to what you were saying about organisations potentially limiting their talent pools. I think the reality is that organisations need to pick a stance. You've seen some big organisations, like Twitter, I think, is one, isn't it, who said everyone can work 100% remotely, 100% of the time, if they want to. Other organisations have called people back to the office. I think the UK Civil Service was one recently that are now calling people back to the office.
Al ElliottWow.
Leanne ElliottOthers are choosing a hybrid policy, Well, I'll dictate how much time one needs to spend in the office. Whatever you decide is going to match you with candidates who want that same experience.
Al ElliottSo, tell me then, so, if, for our listeners who predominantly are going to be service-based industries owners, so, like digital agencies, creative agencies, that kind of thing, then tell me, what is a good recruitment process?
Leanne ElliottThe thing about recruitment, and the great thing about recruitment, is it's science. There is so much evidence and tried and tested processes and approaches that will reliably recruit great talent. I think from my experience, there aren't many SMEs, even large, and I say SMEs, it can be anything up to 500, that aren't really thinking about recruitment in this evidence-led way. And I think, as I said earlier, in the fight for talent, the first thing you need to get right is your recruitment process, making sure that you are recruiting for the right role, the right person in the right role every time.
Al ElliottOkay. So, let's talk a bit more about this right person, right role every single time. Now, you have a recruitment process, well, in fact, we do, because we developed it together, even though That's based on your clever stuff. Um, talk us through that process, and then we'll go through each single step.
Leanne ElliottSure. So, the, the process for recruitment really is, I guess it, it might be turning on its head perhaps what feels intuitive, but the first thing you need to really understand is the role that you're recruiting. So, not the person, the role. How does that role function within your business? How does it contribute to the performance and success of your business? And what Type of experience, capabilities, skills do you need to fulfil that function within the business? This is, in a word, called job analysis. Job analysis is really just about understanding the specific tasks that need to be done and speaking to people. It's impossible for you to try and imagine how this role will function as an individual, even as a leader, even that line manager of that post. You need to speak to people within the team. Where are we missing? Why do we need the extra effort? Where are work demands high? And how is this role going to contribute to that? Once you understand the exact functionality of the role, you can then think about the type of person that you need. And that's when we talk about competencies, the knowledge, skills, and abilities that somebody needs to perform well in that job.
Al ElliottYou're saying that it's almost like a collaborative process for everyone involved in this new role. I mean, I think that's pretty cool. Imagine I haven't had a job since about 1998, but I'd imagine if I was in a company and I could see that we needed someone new, then this just almost like, um, this helps me to understand A, how they're going to fit into the team, B, what the responsibilities are, and C, almost like I'm excited to get this new person because they're going to help me do my job a bit better.
Leanne ElliottAbsolutely.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd I think it can be, it can be understandable to think, you know, And quite one-dimensionally of, okay, well, we need a new marketing or social media assistant, so let's just put out a job for social media assistant and let's be done with it. If you then speak to your team and they say, yes, we do need help with social media, but actually what would be really useful if we also had somebody who can manage certain aspects of the client relationship, or it's more the administrative side rather than the content of the social media, that—
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne Elliottmight potentially shift the role and as well give you clarity over the level of person you're recruiting. It may be that you actually just need a really great office manager as opposed to a social media assistant, and that in itself means that you're— by understanding the role means you're recruiting somebody into the business who's going to have an impact, an impact on your team, an impact on your capacity as a team, and impact on your performance. Did you know that the UK's number one management podcast, that's Us, by the way.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottYeah. And the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network.
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioral science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good looking. And you're not gonna say which. Fel, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in 3s— the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Leanne ElliottThe audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottSeamless. Seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. Uh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, It is.
Leanne ElliottIt's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
Al ElliottIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?
Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back. Definitely come back. Because Nudge isn't as good as this. So come back. I'll cut that out. Keep that in. It's interesting because if you were to look at visually, which you can, by the way, you can go to oblonghq.com/roadmap and you can see that we're talking about the first stage of this roadmap. But there are 3 distinct steps to recruitment. And certainly when I've done recruitment in the past, and I think that most people, they start off with the search. So they go, right, I need, I need a new person. So I'm going to go on to talentjobs.com. or Wicked Jobs or Monster Jobs. It's a long time since I've done any recruitment. I think I've made all these up. But I'll go in there and I'd say, right, and write an advert, and then it'll go, what's the job role? And I'll be like, oh, okay, uh, let's think about this. What you're saying is that's coming last. You start off by defining the job role, and then, then you, you know exactly what you want. You've got collaborative process to get this role. After that, then you go to step 2, which is—
Leanne ElliottYeah, I think just to— you're absolutely right, that is step 1. I think that the final part of that step 1 is to create an attractive offer. So, it's not just about deciphering as a leader what you can afford to pay this role or what that role is worth. And this is part of the fight for talent. It's really useful to speak to either recruiters or do your own research in the market and understand what the kind of going salary is. What is the average salary? Is there a comparative role out there that you can benchmark? What are your competitors? And then in terms of benefits, like you said, is it a remote role? Is it hybrid? Is it pension? Is there training and development budget involved? It's as much about crafting the offer before the role even goes out to market, because so many organisations will get into that trap of, oh, we found a great candidate, but we can't afford them because their expectations are well above it.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottOr organisations will agree to pay that, and then you've got this discrepancy of pay within your business. It's a minefield. So if you've already got kind of a benchmark idea of what that role is worth to you as a business and what it's worth in the market, you're going to be much more confident when it comes to those conversations with candidates later down the line.
Al ElliottI think it's funny, and I'm sure there's a podcast episode in this somewhere, but paying people more doesn't necessarily mean that you attract better candidates. I mean, I've read lots of surveys where, where the benefit that they, or, or the, the thing that they like about their job Money comes like 4, 5, 6, 7 down the, down the list. So what you're saying is that even if you couldn't necessarily afford someone whose expectation is 80 to 100 grand a year, then they might accept 60 if the employer brand is good, or there's a work-from-home element to it, or training development or something like that.
Leanne ElliottAbsolutely. Yeah. And it's really understanding, you know, what, what the drivers are for people or what Drivers fit in with your culture. If you are a hybrid business, um, I know you've, um, there's a blog on our website that you were looking at recently about the— they're called super commuters, which is an option where people will, will live 4 or 5 hours away from where they work, but they'll travel in for periods of time, stay in hotels, and then leave. The cost of that, because their cost of living is so much lower elsewhere, Mm-hmm. Then, you know, it changes things. So, if you've got that option or that flexibility, or as you say, there's other benefits such as training and development, fast-track routes to management potentially further down the line, equity share, or, you know, other benefits like this, then yes, salary isn't the be-all and end-all.
Al ElliottBrilliant. Well, I'm sure we'll do an episode on that at some point. So, we've got step number 1, which is define the job role. Step number 2 is?
Leanne ElliottStep number 2 is to create a process. A thorough job analysis, which is step 1, is going to help you identify the competencies. What I mean by competencies is the knowledge, the skills, and abilities that somebody needs to possess or ideally possesses to perform well at that job or to do that job well. Once we understand those competencies, we can create a recruitment process that's actually going to assess these competencies, rather than just generic skills, strengths, and weaknesses that perhaps more traditionally have been included in job interviews, for example. What we also know about the recruitment process from a scientific perspective is that using mixed methods is more predictive of job performance. What I mean by predictive is that it's no mistake that there are certain recruitment methods that are popular. Such as interviews, such as IQ tests, psychometrics. They're popular because business psychologists, occupational psychologists have shown evidence that candidates that perform well in those types of tasks typically perform well on the job in the future. So that task, whether it be an interview or a job sample test, that's the predictor of job performance. So using mixed methods, so say interviews, a work sample test and a psychometric is going to create a predictive value that is higher than using one method alone. So using a number of methods to assess competencies is a good idea. And typically, as a rule of thumb, if you have a set of competencies, you should be measuring them 3 times in 3 different ways.
Al ElliottInteresting. So, I mean, I've seen you with your spreadsheets, your fancy spreadsheets doing all this. And it does look pretty cool. By the way, I'm sure if you're interested in this, and you want to have a look at Leanne's spreadsheet, then just email us podcast@oblonghq.com. And we'll be able to send you some more information. Okay, so now we're on to step 3, which most people think is step 1. And that is the actual search. So tell us about that.
Leanne ElliottYeah, and I think just to finish up step 2 very, very briefly, yes, it's about having the methods. Yes, it's about having standardized scoring systems to make sure it's fair and equitable. Equitable for all the candidates. And then also making sure you don't go on gut. The number of people I speak to say, I just had a gut feeling they weren't right. And it's like, your gut is the most unreliable predictor of how well this person is going to do in the job that you can imagine. Plus, it's discriminatory, potentially, and biased. So, not a good idea. Have standardised scoring methods for each of your methods of recruitment. And finally, consider the candidate experience. And this might sound a bit I don't know, maybe a bit woo or a bit too nice in a world where you're just trying to recruit somebody for a role. But the reality is that recruitment process, each candidate that goes through it is going to have an experience. And that experience is going to be shaped by the communication styles and the emails. Are they dealing with one person throughout that entire recruitment process as a point of contact, or do they have many? Will you provide them with feedback at each stage of the recruitment process? And it's building this relationship, one, because this candidate might end up being a key person within your business. So, it's good to start building that relationship early. But more importantly, if candidates have a negative experience, that could have a negative impact on your brand.
Al ElliottI think it's, when you put it like that, it just, it makes you think that why would you go on your gut feeling, either positively or negatively, for a potential candidate? If over the next 10 years they work for you and their average salary is gonna be 50 grand a year, this is half a million pound purchase you're making. And you're making it based on, oh well, I had a good feeling about them, or they were wearing my lucky color shirt and stuff like that. So this is, um, I like that there's some science behind this. The nerd in me likes that.
Leanne ElliottAbsolutely. And you know, it doesn't have to be an expensive process. You don't have to, you know, engage specialists all the time. It can be as simple as Using very simple evidence-led techniques. For example, an interview. Typical interview questions tend to be like, well, what would you do if a customer was angry and they got in touch with you? Which is hypothetical, and that is less than useless because we can all hypothetically talk about what we do in an imaginary scenario. So, the better way to ask the question is to ask them to reflect on their previous experiences. For example, that question would be, tell me about a time that an angry customer has contacted you and the steps you took to resolve it. Simple rule of thumb is that one of the best predictors of future behavior is past behavior.
Al ElliottSo, we're coming down to the part that most people start with, which is the search. You have some thoughts on this?
Leanne ElliottYeah, I think the search, and this is probably the bits that are a bit more intuitive, intuitive. You know, think about the places where your candidates are likely to be. Where are they likely to look at job adverts? Is it going to be on Facebook groups? TikTok even. Um, you know, you don't have to always put your, your jobs on the recommended job boards. As you know, we'll broaden your search and you'll broaden your candidate pool in that fight for talent. Second, engage partners. You know, recruiters are the recruiters for a reason, and they charge a lot of money for a reason, because they have access to a strong pool of candidates. Think about partnering with a recruiter if that's something that will work for the role that you're recruiting for. And finally, I think it's looking within your business as well, asking your employees if they have anyone they could refer to the business. Also considering whether, do I have this capability internally that could be developed? It really is a case of thinking outside the box. The talent is out there, they're just perhaps not as easy to find as they once were.
Al ElliottBrilliant. Brilliant. So, we did promise quickly to touch on Gen Z and millennials. So, how do you see that workforce? Just so we can define then, what is a Gen Z? So, I'm a Gen Y because I was born in '77. So then, how does it go to get Gen Z and Millennial and—
Leanne ElliottSo, Millennial is 1980 to 1994 and Gen Z will be probably about '95 to 2010. So, the Gen Zs are starting to come into the workforce now as Millennials have been around for a little while. Ultimately, you know, the workforce changes, and I think what makes me smile is that every, you know, all up in arms about millennials want different things. Yeah, well, the boomers wanted different things. You know, the world had changed fundamentally. The world with technology has changed fundamentally. It's not a case of, you know, you can moan about it, but they are, we are the future. They're our future leaders, so we have a responsibility as professionals in people and culture or as business owners to do what we can to engage and nurture and develop these people. The principles haven't changed, the context has. Interesting.
Al ElliottBrilliant. Okay, I think we'll call that a day for the moment then. So, if you're interested in looking at this, this is step 1 of our Culture Blueprint or Culture Roadmap you can find at oblonghq.com/roadmap. As ever, if you've got any questions, thoughts, feedback, or you might want to have Leanne on as a guest on your own podcast, Then just email podcast@oblonghq.com. Right. Well, we'll see you next time for episode 3, which I think is still to be defined. No, this is episode 3. Episode 4, which I think we've yet to agree on what we're going to be talking about.
Leanne ElliottIt's very exciting. Tune in and find out.
Al ElliottSee you soon. Bye.