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Craft Your Success Story
Talent Attraction Through Storytelling
Key takeaways:
You don’t have something for everyone. That’s okay.
Highlight a variety of community champions.
Equip partners and stakeholders to amplify stories.
Authenticity, consistency and quality are key.
When Winona Dimeo-Ediger meets with a client to talk storytelling for talent attraction, one question comes to mind. “What is possible here that isn’t possible anywhere else? That’s one of my favorite questions to get people brainstorming and get them started on this type of storytelling,” said Dimeo-Ediger, the co-founder and chief creative officer of RoleCall, a talent attraction firm.
When it comes to telling your community’s story, especially if the goal is for people to relocate there, cliches won’t cut it anymore. It’s okay that there’s not something for everyone. Elaborate on what makes the quality of life great. Be specific about those big-city amenities you get with a small-town feel. “People are not looking for a perfect place to live. They’re looking for a place that wants them there and is inviting them to make it better,” Dimeo-Ediger said. “The things you do have are for someone and you’re missing out on that by trying to talk to everyone.”
Here are a few ways to start (or improve) your own community success story.
You don’t have something for everyone. That’s okay.
A marine biologist won’t find many job opportunities in Indy. Joe Pellman knows this, and he’s okay with it. But if you’re looking at the motorsports industry or the marketing software sector, Indy might be the place for you. “It’s good to tell a story, but it’s even better to understand your unique story,” said Pellman, the executive director of regional image marketing for the Indy Chamber. The chamber’s current campaign is centered around living, working and creating at the speed of Indy because there’s only one home of the Indy 500 race. “That allows us to tie back to a central theme that we’re known for,” he said.
For talent attraction to work, chambers must go beyond sharing their great quality of life. Using data and research to uncover strengths and opportunities is the start of the process for DCI, an economic development marketing firm. “In our talent research, we’ve found that more and more people are moving to have a better quality of life,” said Patience Fairbrother, vice president of talent attraction. “But what does that even mean? It means something different to just about everyone.”
Fairbrother said being specific about the types of jobs available and unique lifestyle attributes can make a bigger impact on the target audience. “The most successful campaigns we’ve seen have been hyper-targeted,” she said. “Regardless of budget, if you really focus your efforts on one thing, you can often be successful even if you’re not working with much.”
Highlight a variety of community champions.
Jessica Heer wants you to say yes to Dallas. Since 2016, storytelling for talent attraction has been a focus of the Dallas Regional Chamber. The campaign features a vast array of individuals to share their own Dallas story. “It makes it more authentic,” said Heer, the senior vice president for regional marketing and talent attraction. “Our storytelling is done through individuals, whether they’re natives or newcomers.”
By seeing others living in a place, it’s easier to imagine themselves relocating. “People like to see themselves in the place where they’re going to be,” she said. “The best way to do that is to have an offering of people who might be like them.”
The same goes for Indy. The chamber’s Indyfluncer network is a group of residents that is willing to connect one-on-one with people interested in a potential move. When planning LifeInIndy.com, the team made a promise that at least half of everything published would be created by the people who live and work in the region. “Every neighborhood article on LifeInIndy.com is by someone who is living there now or who has recently lived there,” Pellman said.
Equip partners and stakeholders to amplify stories.
The Life in Indy initiative was born from an effort to attract Amazon during its HQ2 search. The regional approach led to a collection of stories, media, data and assets that led to the launch of the initiative’s website, a storytelling hub. The Life in Indy library, consisting of over 1,400 multi-media assets, is available for public use for personal or commercial purposes. “Visual storytelling is really important,” Pellman said. “We wanted to provide a vessel for all our local organizations, employers and even individuals to leverage in visually telling that story.”
When it comes to talent recruitment, companies may be able to see a job, but they have to sell the city, too. “The employer is not always going to be a subject matter expert in how to sell the place,” Pellman said. In Dallas, the initiative included the goal of an employer toolkit. A council of members in the human resources and recruitment field provided insights and assistance. “The toolkit includes key messaging and marketing materials,” Heer said. “It also includes some focus areas on recruiting international talent and hiring diverse tech talent.”
Authenticity, consistency and quality are key.
Consistently sharing authentic and quality stories keeps your talent attraction campaign moving in the right direction. If you’re not already sharing stories of your chamber members, start there. “An easy place to start is the board of directors,” said Heer. “An interview with a member can have a lot of legs to it. It can have the corporate piece, when you tell the company’s story, but it can also be the individual’s story. It becomes two pieces of content.
It's okay to acknowledge that your town isn’t perfect. “If places can find their real voice and be authentic even about their flaws, the things they lack, they’ll be a lot more resonant with prospective residents,” Dimeo-Ediger said.
Consistency in key messaging is important, too. “Making sure everyone is singing from the same songbook is a challenge, but it’s also a great opportunity to say, ‘We’re going to own this,’” said Fairbrother. And even if it’s on a quarterly cadence, keep the stories coming. “You have to be consistent about it,” said Pellman. “Start with quality and then move to quantity. It’s better to have one great story than seven mediocre ones.”
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