A look at LinkedIn’s recently released Talent Trends 2014 report provides some interesting data about what’s on the minds of today’s professional workforce.
As the study confirms, we live in an age of unprecedented transparency: “More job opportunities are viewable online, and the available context – information on the company, its culture, and the team including the hiring manager – has never been richer.”
LinkedIn’s platform itself proves this point, and this ever-increasing transparency is certainly changing the landscape of talent acquisition. It asks to us to consider how the talent, people, are approaching and considering new careers.
Why talent brand is so important
Perhaps one of the biggest changes has been a move towards proactively seeking the best talent for the position. LinkedIn’s 2014 report surveyed over 18,000 fully employed workers in 26 countries, to shed light on professional attitudes towards job seeking, job satisfaction and career evaluation.
The LinkedIn report dives into many areas of the professional workplace’s approach toward careers, one such area being the importance of talent brand to professionals.
Globally, professionals agree that the most important factor in considering a new job is whether their prospective company is perceived as a great place to work or not. (And to be clear, LinkedIn’s definition of “great place to work” does not synch up completely with the Great Place to Work Institute’s definition.)
When respondents of LinkedIn’s report were asked which of the following was most important if they were to consider a new job, 56 percent said “the company has a reputation as a great place to work,” while 20 percent said “the company has a reputation for great products and services,” 17 percent said “the company has a reputation for great people,” and 7 percent said “the company has a reputation for being prestigious.”
When looking at countries where talent brand/being a great place to work is most (100 percent) and least (0 — zero — percent) important, the global average was 56 percent, with high outliers being Denmark at 62 percent, Brazil at 61 percent, and the U.S. at 60 percent. Outliers on the low-end included Japan at 39 percent, Turkey at 35 percent, and China at 33 percent.
People want “more than just a job”
Talent brand, which LinkedIn equates with being a great place to work, is clearly important to today’s labor pool when planning a career or a job change. This line of thought underscores why it’s more necessary than ever to communicate and share a corporate mission and values.
People want their work to have meaning to them, to be “more than just a job.” They want to trust their leaders and have a sense of camaraderie or family with their co-workers.
The majority of people surveyed in LinkedIn’s report (85 percent of active job seekers and 90 percent of passive job seekers) responded that they are passionate about the work they do.
Learning, growing, and caring
Additionally, 85 percent of active and 91 percent of passive job seekers stated that they are constantly learning and growing at work, and 84 percent of active and passive job seekers reported that they are comfortable promoting themselves and their ideas at work.
The clear results of this data are that professionals today care deeply about their work, and want the companies they work for to support this passion.
Being a great place to work is a strong factor in their search for new jobs and careers – and besides being a critical selection criteria, being a great place to work is an essential foundation for success in today’s talent acquisition and retention challenges.
This originally appeared on China Gorman’s blog at ChinaGorman.com.