European Management Journal Vol. 17, No. 4, pp.
422–430, 1999
Pergamon
PII: S0263-2373(99)00022-5
The Quest for the Best:
Human Resource Practices
to Attract and Retain
Talent
JEAN-MARIE HILTROP, University of Otago, New Zealand
The ability to attract and retain talent is rapidly
becoming one of the key issues for human resource
managers and their organisations across the globe.
This article explores some of the strategies and tech-
niques that organisations are using to cope with
this issue and presents the findings of recent stud-
ies that have assessed the effectiveness of these
approaches. Although the results do not provide
conclusive evidence of the link between human
resource practices and the ability to attract and
retain talent, they strongly suggest that high per-
formance organisations are consistently outper-
forming their competitors on a number of human
resource factors, including the level of teamwork
and openness between co-workers, the training and
development opportunities they offer to employees,
and the degree of pro-activity in HR planning.
Developing this capability begins with the realis-
ation that effective human resource management
underpins the competitiveness of organisations.
 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
Introduction
Superior talent is increasingly recognised as the
prime source of sustainable competitive advantage in
high performance organisations. Underlying this
trend is the rapidly changing business environment
and the growing need for globally aware managers
and professionals with multi-functional fluency, tech-
nological literacy, entrepreneurial skills, and the
ability to operate in different cultures, structures and
markets (Chambers et al., 1998). At the same time, the
signs are that attracting and retaining talented
employees is becoming harder. In fact, a number of
recent surveys suggest that many large organisations
422
 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
Printed in Great Britain
0263-2373/99 $20.00 ⫹ 0.00
are already suffering a chronic shortage of talented
people. In the US, for instance, three-quarters of the
400 corporate officers recently surveyed said their
companies had ‘insufficient talent sometimes’ or
were ‘chronically talent-short across the board’
(Chambers et al., 1998). Similarly, Sparrow and Hil-
trop (1994) alluded to the growing problem of talent
shortages in most European countries. In France, for
example, INSEE statistics show that the proportion of
manufacturing organisations experiencing difficulties
in recruiting all categories of staff rose from 25 per
cent in 1976 to nearly 50 per cent by 1989. According
to Bournois (1993) the greatest problems are in the
managerial and technical labour markets, where the
channelling of investment into new computers and
machinery, increases in production capacity and new
organisation methods have all been associated with
a growing requirement for talented people.
This article explores one of the biggest issues and
challenges now faced by large organisations: how to
attract and retain a critical group of talented people.
As we move into the 21st century, the need for (and
shortage of) people possessing the wide range of
skills and abilities needed to meet the fast-growing
requirements of international corporations will
almost certainly expand. As a result, many organis-
ations will have to develop new strategies to attract
and keep talented employees. This article offers some
views and suggestions on how this can be done and
presents the results of recent studies that have
assessed the effectiveness of these ideas.
The Quest for Talent
In 1998, the American Management Association
(1998) asked 1797 executives and managers in 36
European Management Journal Vol 17 No 4 August 1999
 THE QUEST FOR THE BEST: HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICES TO ATTRACT AND RETAIN TALENT
countries to indicate the current and future impor-
tance of 65 different business issues. The results
showed that as a category, recruitment and retention
issues rank third in terms of increasing importance
over the coming decade, up from fifth in 1997.
There are several reasons for this development. One
of them is the growing gap between the supply and
demand of skilled labour. In Europe, this gap is most
visible in the high technology segments of the job
market, such as software engineering. In fact, while
the share of jobs requiring high technology skills is
growing, the percentage of people in the workforce
possessing those skills continues to decline sharply.
There is no reason to believe that this trend will go
into reverse in the near future. On the contrary: if
information technology is to fulfil the promises that
many experts see in it, it can be expected that compe-
tition for talented specialists in this field will become
even fiercer in the next century.
At the same time, the number of firms that need a
good supply of talented managers and professionals
has been increasing dramatically. Most of this growth
is driven by the on-going shift of employment from
large to small enterprises. As Bert Twaalfhoven
(1998), co-founder of Europe’s 500 Association,
points out: ‘Philips and Siemens aren’t creating new
jobs in Europe. It’s a whole group of hidden per-
formers’. This observation is borne out by OECD stat-
istics showing that the number of start-ups has risen
dramatically during the 1980s and 1990s. As a result,
a raft of small, dynamic companies is emerging that
is increasingly targeting the same types of talent
sought by large companies. As Chambers et al. (1998)
say, ‘Small companies exert a powerful pull across
the whole executive spectrum, offering opportunities
for impact and wealth that few large firms can
match’.
The impact of small companies is enhanced by on-
going changes in the social and economic environ-
ment. For example, surveys of employee values and
expectations show that in the midst of company clos-
ures, rationalisation and restructuring, the traditional
benefits of job security, long-term career structures
and regular promotions are playing a less central role
in many people’s minds and lives. Recent surveys
also suggest that demographic changes are creating a
new generation of highly educated professionals who
want more opportunities for development, auto-
nomy, flexibility and meaningful work. For instance,
a 1995 Fortune cover story on ‘Why Big Companies
Can’t Hire the Best and Brightest’ cited an opinion sur-
vey in which only one per cent of the 1000 adults
said they would choose to become corporate man-
agers. Far more popular were work opportunities in
small and medium-sized enterprises that provided a
high level of autonomy and opportunities for high-
impact jobs (Hall and Moss, 1998). No wonder skilled
professionals and specialists in all disciplines are
being ‘lost’ to small and medium-sized enterprises.
European Management Journal Vol 17 No 4 August 1999
Finally, the ability to attract and retain talent has
become more chancy by the fact that job mobility is
increasing. As Martin (1997) says, switching jobs is
no longer considered a sign of feckless behaviour.
With company tenure averaging around five years,
most people can now expect to change employers a
number of times during the course of their working
life. In fact, a survey by Challenger, Gray and
Christmas (1999) showed that 41 per cent of the man-
agers who lost their jobs in 1998 had worked for four
or more companies during their careers.
This prospect has left lots of people groping for new
ways to picture a ‘successful’ career path. Even the
word ‘career’ is no longer appropriate. As Fisher
(1997) argues, ‘work today is about expanding your
web by making more connections (knowing more
people) and spinning stronger strands (gaining more
experiences and skills). A web is flexible, expandable,
and you can always tear it down and build a new
one elsewhere’. Another way to describe this devel-
opment, from the perspective of the individual, is to
say that we are seeing a shift from the traditional
organisational career to what has been called the
‘protean career’ (Hall and Moss, 1998). The protean
career is defined as a process which the person, not
the organisation, is managing. It consists of all the
person’s varied experiences in education, training,
work in several organisations, changes in occu-
pational field, etc. According to Hall and Moss (1998)
‘the protean person’s own personal career choices
and search for self-fulfilment are the unifying or inte-
grative elements in his or her life. The criterion of
success is internal (psychological success), not exter-
nal’.
How Can Organisations Attract and
Keep Talent?
These developments are forcing companies to think
of new ways to attract and retain talent. As Chambers
et al. (1998) put it: ‘A war once conducted as a
sequence of setpiece recruiting battles is transforming
itself into an endless series of skirmishes as compa-
nies find their best people, and in particular their
future senior executives, under constant attack.’ So
what can companies do to get and keep talented
people? How can they protect themselves against
poaching? Which techniques and approaches are
working well?
The most common advice offered in the literature is
to pay and treat talented people well (Cappelli, 1999).
Some companies are acting on this advice. For
instance, Citigroup, the world’s biggest financial ser-
vices company, recently introduced a new compen-
sation package in an attempt to head off mass depar-
tures. Yet, plenty of studies have shown that in most
countries and industries, pay does not have a strong
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THE QUEST FOR THE BEST: HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICES TO ATTRACT AND RETAIN TALENT
effect on employee attraction or retention. In fact, a
recent survey suggests that ‘low’ pay is low on man-
agers’ lists when deciding to join or leave an organis-
ation (Challenger, Gray and Christmas, 1999). As
long as pay was not seen to be insultingly out of line,
other things mattered much more. The two things
that managers cited most often when discussing loy-
alty were corporate pride and trust in their chief
executive’s ability to take decisions. Pay, as a way of
keeping talent, came third. Furthermore, using pay
as a key method to attract and keep talent may be
costly. As Pfeffer (1994) says, ‘pay is the most fun-
gible of all the resources at an employer’s disposal;
if it is an employer’s sole source of loyalty, then he
always runs the risk of being outbid’.
What Else Can be Done?
Considering the risks and problems associated with
pay as a device to attract and keep talent, some
experts argue that many firms will have to find other
ways of attracting and keeping good people, includ-
ing realistic job previews, good employer orientation,
opportunities for career development, and challeng-
ing work assignments. This suggestion is consistent
with the view that the ability to attract and retain
talented people depends largely on non-monetary
factors such as the quality of supervision and the
extent organisations utilise the skills and knowledge
of their employees. Consequently, the following lists
a number of principles and techniques that have been
suggested in the management literature as strategies
to attract and retain talented workers:
1. Start with the Recognition That the
Psychological Contract is Changing
As mentioned earlier, the tie that binds employers
and employees has become severely strained (De
Meuse and Tornow, 1990). For people who wish to
reduce the risk of unemployment, public companies
offer some respite. But even government agencies can
no longer offer jobs for life and provide generous hol-
iday and retirement terms to long-serving employees.
As a result, most organisations will have to re-exam-
ine their career structures and look for other sources
of ‘security’ to avoid excessive turnover and retain
global talent (Mirvis and Hall, 1994). In companies
confronted with the risk of take-over, downsizing
and even closure, a permanent redundancy policy —
where employees can see at any time what they
would be offered to leave — may be necessary to
reduce the cost of voluntary turnover.
2. Make the Ability to Attract and Retain Talent a
Top Management Priority
The results of a study by McKinsey (Chambers et al.,
1998) suggests that talent has been the most under-
424
managed corporate asset for the past two decades.
As they put it: ‘Companies that manage their physi-
cal and financial asset with rigor and sophistication
have not made their people a priority in the same
way’. For instance, only 23 per cent of some 6000
executives surveyed agreed that their companies
attract highly talented people, and just 10 per cent
said they retain almost all their high performers. Per-
haps more alarmingly, only 16 per cent think their
company knows who the high performers are. And
only 3 per cent said their company develops people
effectively and moves low performers out quickly
(Chambers et al., 1998).
3. Create Policies and Practices That Enhance the
Firm’s Attractiveness in the Labour Market
There is no doubt that some companies are more suc-
cessful than others in their efforts to attract and retain
talented people. In order to find out why, the McKin-
sey researchers compared the HRM practices of
highly successful (‘talent-winning’) firms with those
of laggards. The results show that the following
HRM practices allowed talent-winning companies to
perform better than their competitors:
❖ They recruit continuously, rather than simply fill-
ing openings when they (are about to) occur.
❖ They are good at specifying the type of people and
qualities they need for their business.
❖ They put talented people in challenging jobs
before they are ready for them.
❖ They view mentoring and coaching as essential to
offering effective training and career develop-
ment.
❖ They do not allow poor performers to stay in pos-
ition for years.
These findings place enormous pressure on organis-
ations to improve the ways in which they manage
their ‘human resources’. The key challenge is to cre-
ate policies and practices that enhance the firm’s
ability to attract and keep talented employees. As
already mentioned, merely paying people more
rarely is the most effective way to protect a company
against poaching and many of the incentive pro-
grams companies have used to keep good people are
so often riddled with inner contradictions that they
only end up creating more confusion and frustration.
4. Make Line Managers Accountable for the
People They Need and Lead
According to the McKinsey team, companies should
hold their line managers accountable for attracting,
developing and keeping talent. For example, at First
USA, the ability to recruit talented new people is a
criterion for promotion. However, only 7 per cent of
the managers surveyed believed their companies
European Management Journal Vol 17 No 4 August 1999
 THE QUEST FOR THE BEST: HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICES TO ATTRACT AND RETAIN TALENT
actually do so. As Chambers et al. (1998) say, ‘it seems
that many line managers are not accountable for the
quality of their staff. This was perhaps our most
shocking finding. Things must change’.
5. Create a Winning Employee Value Proposition
To test your organisation’s commitment to the quest
for talent, ask the question: ‘Why would a talented
person want to work here?’ Companies with a good
talent pool have a compelling answer to this ques-
tion. For some (e.g. BMW, Coca-Cola, Procter and
Gamble, Microsoft), the advantage of having strong
brands and products helps to get the best people
interested in working for their companies. For others,
it is a good reputation for training and development
(Hewlett-Packard, Unilever, McKinsey, Anderson
Consulting) and/or the opportunity for gaining
international work experience (Shell, British
Petroleum) that have served as talent magnets in the
labour market.
6. Provide Opportunities for Learning and Self-
Development, Integrated with Career Planning
and Mentoring
Promotion is becoming the motivational currency of
the old era. What matters now is job enrichment,
employability and providing the opportunity for
employees to develop the skills and perspective to
take care of themselves (Noer, 1993). So the careers
of managers and professionals cannot be managed
the way they used to be. Instead training and devel-
opment systems must be designed so that people are
no longer promoted on the basis of their level, pos-
ition or status, but instead on their actual or potential
contribution to the firm.
This does not mean that strategic career management
and succession planning are dead. Rather, it means
that these techniques must be liberated from the
‘Organisation Man’ phenomenon of the 1960s, in
which an employee completely immersed himself in
his company, worked 60- to 70-hour weeks when
needed, and did whatever the company required to
get promoted (Whyte, 1956). In contrast, Hirsch
(1987) likens the current situation to an employment
strategy which professional sports call ‘free agency’.
In this strategy, professional athletes attempt to maxi-
mise their personal status and income by selling their
individual talents to the highest bidder. Their sense
of identity is linked to their profession, rather than
to specific countries, organisations or sport clubs:
they are professional athletes first, a team member
second. Hirsch (1987) suggests (American) managers
may want to adopt a similar strategy in the present
business environment.
European Management Journal Vol 17 No 4 August 1999
7. Provide Information and Support for the
Individual’s Own Efforts At Development
Although organisations and managers cannot do
much directly to develop a person’s ‘protean’ career,
they can provide the necessary information and tools
for self-assessment and development (Hall and Moss,
1998). Some companies have tried to deal with this
issue by making access to jobs more transparent. For
instance, at Raychem, employees can tap into ‘IIINsi-
ders’ (the internal-information interview network), to
arrange interviews with other employees who are
willing to talk about what jobs they do, and how they
got to do them. In addition, there is a growing supply
of books, tools and software (e.g. PeopleSoft,
CareerSearch) to help individuals evaluate and
review their career interests and to discover personal
values, talents and skill requirements. The goal is to
encourage individuals to discover jobs and projects
that they would like to pursue over time. This is more
difficult than it sounds. As Hall and Moss (1998) say,
it means providing resources to help employees
assess their own identities and values so they can be
clear on their own sense of direction, to pursue their
own ‘path with a heart’. And perhaps most difficult
of all, it means being organisationally flexible enough
to enable talented individuals to make changes in
their jobs, careers and working lives based on their
personal needs and wants.
8. Provide Realistic Job Previews
Since the initial stages of employment have been
shown to be highly critical in generating loyalty and
commitment, special attention must be paid to how
people are introduced into the organisation. Research
on the earliest stages of employment has shown that
most people go into new jobs with inflated expec-
tations and that unmet expectations during the initial
stages of employment result in higher levels of
employee dissatisfaction and turnover. To reduce this
problem, new recruits need to be given a ‘realistic job
preview’ which illustrates both the attractive and less
attractive aspects of the job and organisation
(Wanous, 1975). In view of the fact that most turn-
over occurs within the first six months of employ-
ment, more ‘realistic job previews’ and a concern
towards understanding and meeting new employees’
expectations could provide a more positive initial
organisational experience and reduce the cost of early
resignations (Hiltrop, 1995).
9. Create Challenging and Career Enhancing
Work Experiences
The challenge of work experience has been shown to
be one of the most significant factors in the develop-
ment of employee commitment and loyalty (Steers,
1977; Meyers et al., 1989). Given this strong influence,
efforts should be made to design tasks and structures
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THE QUEST FOR THE BEST: HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICES TO ATTRACT AND RETAIN TALENT
that will enable talented employees to feel a sense of
accomplishment, to express and use their talents, and
to exercise their own decision-making powers
(Hiltrop, 1995). By creating opportunities for chal-
lenge and self-development, steps can be taken to
help ensure a high commitment and identification
with the organisation.
10. Redefine the Role of Human Resource
Managers
To support the talent-building challenge, HR man-
agers need to be effective, pro-active ‘architects’ with
personal and business credibility and strong relation-
ships with business units. In this sense, human
resource managers have to become what Dave Ulrich
(1997) has called ‘business partners’ by developing
competence in four principal roles: management of
strategic resources; management of personnel poli-
cies and administration; management of employee
distribution; and management of transformation and
change. As Ulrich argues, HR managers are real busi-
ness partners because they align HR systems with
business strategy, save their businesses money
through more efficient design and delivery of HR
systems, ensure that employee contributions to the
business remain high, and help businesses through
transformations and to adapt to changing business
conditions. In other words, the HR business partner
adds value to a firm through strategy execution,
administrative efficiency, employee commitment,
and cultural change.
11. Build Your Own Talent Pool from within as
Much as Possible
Clearly, there are notable exceptions to this rule. For
instance, recruiting internally may not always be
possible or produce enough qualified candidates,
especially if the organisation is growing rapidly or
is undergoing rapid technological change. However,
relying on internal recruitment and promotion to fill
new or vacant positions has a number of major bene-
fits (Sparrow and Hiltrop, 1994):
❖ It tends to improve morale, commitment and job
security of employees.
❖ It provides more opportunities to assess the abili-
ties of job candidates.
❖ It usually is a cheaper way of resourcing talent
than external recruitment and selection.
❖ It affords more opportunity to control salary lev-
els.
The possible disadvantages are higher levels of ‘polit-
ical’ behaviour associated with internal advancement
and the danger of creating a single mindset among
long-serving employees. Hence, a certain level of
external recruitment may be needed to avoid the
426
danger of complacency as a single mindset besets the
organisation. In general, however, there are plenty
of alternatives to explore before recruiting externally,
including outsourcing, job posting systems and work
reorganisation (Sparrow and Hiltrop, 1994).
Which Human Resource Practices Are
Most Effective?
The above list is based on the assumption that there
is a strong connection between an organisation’s
HRM practices and its ability to attract and retain tal-
ent. But is this link supported by research evidence?
And if this is so, which practices are most effective?
In order to understand better the effects of human
resource practices on the attractiveness of organis-
ations, I asked the HR managers and personnel offi-
cers in 115 multinational and 204 domestic compa-
nies located in Western Europe to complete a
structured questionnaire containing 67 statements
about the management policies and practices of their
firm. A factor analysis of the responses reduced these
67 practices to 11 factors, describing the extent to
which the company was able to offer the following
types of benefits to its employees:
1. Employment security
2. Opportunities for training and skill development
3. Recruitment and promotion from within
4. Career development and guidance
5. Opportunities for skill development and special-
isation
6. Autonomy and decentralisation of decision-mak-
ing
7. Opportunities for teamwork and participation
8. Equal benefits and access to perquisites for all
the employees
9. Extra rewards and recognition for high perform-
ance
10. Openness of information about corporate goals,
outcomes and intentions
11. Pro-active personnel planning and strategic HRM
Figure 1 shows the average scores (or profile) of three
groups of companies on each of these 11 factors. The
first group (High ART) consisted of 69 organisations
that were considered by an independent group of
seven management and executive search consultants
to be ‘superior’ in terms of their ability to attract and
retain talented people. The second group (Medium
ART) comprised 187 companies that were rated
‘average’ on this ability, and the third group (Low
ART) consisted of 63 companies that were considered
‘poor’ in terms of their ability to attract and retain
talented people.
It can be seen that companies in the high ART cate-
European Management Journal Vol 17 No 4 August 1999
 THE QUEST FOR THE BEST: HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICES TO ATTRACT AND RETAIN TALENT
Figure 1 The Ability to Attract and Retain Talent (ART) HRM Practices Profiles
gory scored well above those in the average and low
ART categories on several HRM factors, including
the amount of training, autonomy, and teamwork
offered to employees. Highly attractive companies
also received superior scores on openness, HR plan-
ning and the extent to which employees are
rewarded and recognised for high performance. In
contrast, no differences were found between the three
groups of companies in terms of job security, internal
promotion and access to benefits for employees.
Thus, the results support the view that human
resource practices have a significant effect on the
(perceived) ability to attract and retain talented
people. Apparently, the most effective practices are
the ones that create opportunities for training and
development, enhance the level of teamwork and
participation, and influence the extent to which the
company provides autonomy and decentralisation of
decision-making. Together these three sets of prac-
tices accounted for 68 per cent of the total variance
in the organisations’ attractiveness that was ‘explai-
ned’ by the 11 HRM factors. The level of openness
and HR planning accounted for another 18 per cent
of the variance, and the extent to which employees
are rewarded and recognised for high performance
for 6 per cent. Job security, internal promotion and
the equality of benefits accounted for little or no
effect.
However, it must be noted that other variables may
help to explain the differences between these three
groups of companies. In fact, the total amount of
variance in our measure of attractiveness that was
‘explained’ by the 11 HRM factors was only 16 per
cent. Although this effect was significant (F ⫽ 4.53,
df ⫽ 10, p ⬍ 0.001), the small proportion suggests
European Management Journal Vol 17 No 4 August 1999
that the ability to attract and retain talented people
is largely influenced by other factors.
To test this proposition the author examined the
effect of a number of non-HRM variables on the
ability to attract and retain talented people, including
the size of the company, the nationality of the parent
company, the country in which the company is
located and the type of industry in which the com-
pany is operating. The results showed that only 2.5
per cent of the total variance in our sample of compa-
nies was accounted for by differences in the industry
sector and 4 per cent by the nationality of the parent
company. This suggests that these two factors were
less important than the HRM practices identified
earlier. Yet, there is no doubt that organisational
ability to attract and retain talent was rated higher in
some sectors than others. The most attractive compa-
nies were in high technology sectors (especially com-
puters and telecommunication), while the least
attractive firms were in textiles and engineering.
Similarly, with regard to parent nationality, the high-
est attraction and retention scores were found in
companies that had their headquarters in North
America, The Netherlands or Japan. The lowest
scores appeared for companies that were headquart-
ered in Norway, Germany or Belgium.
Finally, the data support the view that large firms are
better at attracting and retaining talented people than
small- or medium-sized enterprises. Overall, compa-
nies with fewer than 250 employees obtained lower
ART scores than did those with 250 or more
employees. Yet, size alone does not guarantee the
supply of talent. Consider, for instance, the two
chemical companies shown in Figure 2. Both compa-
nies are multinationals with more than 150,000
427
THE QUEST FOR THE BEST: HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICES TO ATTRACT AND RETAIN TALENT
Figure 2 HRM Profiles of Two Chemical Companies
employees world-wide and have their headquarters
in the United States. Yet, according to our panel of
experts, the European subsidiaries of company A
belong to the group of ‘High-ART’ firms, while com-
pany B has difficulty attracting and retaining talented
people in Europe.
The HRM practices of these two companies are also
very different. For example, Company B scores lower
than its competitor on several HR factors, including
the level of teamwork and openness, the opport-
unities for training and development, and the degree
of pro-activity in HR planning. Both companies have
a policy of internal recruitment and promotions from
within. However, unlike its competitor, Company B
does not offer much job security to its employees.
Although these findings do not ‘prove’ the connec-
tion between HRM practices and ability to attract and
retain talented people, they are consistent with the
view that there is a link between organisational capa-
bility and the way an organisation manages its
human resources. In fact, practices such as teamwork,
openness and decentralised decision-making are
highlighted regularly in recent research as the key
processes leading to competitive advantage (Pfeffer,
1994; Marchington, 1995). As Ulrich and Lake (1990)
put it: ‘Building better products or services, pricing
goods or services lower than the competition, or
incorporating technological innovation into research
and manufacturing operations must today be sup-
plemented by organisational capability — the firm’s
ability to manage people to gain competitive advan-
tage. Merely hiring the best people does not guaran-
tee organisational capability. Hiring competent
employees and developing those competencies
through effective human resource practices under-
pins organisational capability. Developing it does not
happen by quick fixes, simple programs, or mana-
gerial speeches. It involves adopting principles and
attitudes, which in turn determine and guide
428
behavior. It is a way of thinking as well as acting,
and it begins with the realisation that there is a strong
link between competitiveness and effective people
management’ (p. 77).
Conclusions
The ability to attract and retain talent is rapidly
becoming one of the core competences of high per-
formance organisations in both developed and
emerging countries. Improving this competence will
be vitally important in the coming decades as demo-
graphic, social and economic developments
strengthen the connection between human talent and
sustainable profitability. Finding a full supply of tal-
ent will almost certainly become more difficult in the
next decades, but research suggests that successful
organisations are preparing themselves for this
development by adopting a number of strategies and
practices designed to get and keep the best. For
instance, to compete for information technology tal-
ent with Intel, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Hewlett-
Packard and other high-tech firms, GE Medical has
re-thought its dealings with each important source
of talent, including recruiters, colleges and employee
referrals. Stealing ideas from supply-chain manage-
ment, GE recently told its recruiters that it wanted to
work only with the ten best of them. The recruiters
received measurements inspired by manufacturing
techniques such as ‘first-pass yield’ and the percent-
age of interviews resulting in offers. Campus
recruiting was beefed up with a combination of
investment, publicity and financial rewards for
employees who refer qualified candidates. As a
result, last year GE doubled its number of referrals,
cut its costs of hiring by 17 per cent, reduced time
needed to fill a position by between 20 and 30 per
cent, and halved the percentage of new hires who do
not perform (Stewart, 1998).
European Management Journal Vol 17 No 4 August 1999
 THE QUEST FOR THE BEST: HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICES TO ATTRACT AND RETAIN TALENT
Internet-based technology is also affecting the field
of recruiting. Indeed, a number of organisations have
started to use the Internet for their international
recruitment (Sparrow, 1999). For instance, Yahoo has
been offering a recruitment service in its Classifieds
section and Unilever recently decided to advertise
global graduate recruitment on the Internet. The
adverts have links to the Unilever home page where
graduates can find out much more detail about the
company and careers in the organisation. Although
it is too early to assess the success of the Internet in
the field of graduate recruitment, there is no doubt
that these technologies allow new and exciting
methods for targeting and attracting qualified people
and winning the war for talent.
Finally, it is worth noting that there is considerable
room for improvement in the way many companies
manage the talent recruitment process. Common
sense suggests that to get the people they need com-
panies should tailor their recruitment and retention
practices to the specific groups of employees they
wish to target. Unfortunately, this does not always
happen in practice. Consider, for example, the results
of a survey we recently conducted among the MBA
students of a leading European business school.
Immediately after the end of each recruitment inter-
views with a variety of companies, the students were
asked two questions:
1. Which of the following 11 job attributes were very
important in your decision to accept or reject a
specific job offer: salary, job security, autonomy,
working hours, social climate, opportunities for
advancement, training opportunities, challenging
and interesting work assignments, level of
responsibility, international career opportunities,
variety of activities resulting from the job?
2. Which of these 11 job attributes were clearly men-
tioned and discussed during this recruitment
interview?
Figure 3 shows the results of this exploratory survey.
It can be seen that there is a huge gap between the
two sets of responses. For instance, in replying to the
Figure 3 Perceived Importance and Discussion of Job
Attributes in Recruitment Interviews
European Management Journal Vol 17 No 4 August 1999
first question, 88 per cent of the students said the
social climate of the workplace was a very important
consideration in their decision to accept or reject a
job offer. Yet, only 23 per cent of the students remem-
bered discussing this specific job attribute during the
interview. Similarly, a number of other job attributes
that students considered important such as inter-
national career opportunities, working hours, job
challenges and training opportunities were either not
discussed during the interview or forgotten soon
after the interview. In contrast, most of the students
remembered discussing less important job attributes,
including salary and promotion opportunities.
These results provide only a crude and subjective pic-
ture of what went on during the recruitment inter-
view, but they do suggest there is a wide gap
between which job attributes company representa-
tives emphasise to attract talent and which attributes
the target persons consider as the most important. In
view of the growing competition for talent, this is a
remarkable finding. If a company does not know
what talented people are aiming for, the opportunity
to put together an attractive job proposition will be
lost and as a result, the best people may well decide
to go to the competition.
To conclude, the results suggest that although the
majority of students were reasonably well satisfied
with the jobs and conditions offered by companies
during the recruitment interviews, there are signifi-
cant problems. Ideally, to win the war for talent, com-
panies should figure out who they are aiming for,
and then make sure the recruitment process and
practices are tailored to the specific needs and expec-
tations of the target group (Chambers et al., 1998).
We suspect that this is how successful managers and
entrepreneurs are able to turn their businesses into a
compelling place for employees, customers and
investors.
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