The Mind of the Competition

There’s no question that staying focused on your hiring search is more important than playing a game of ‘Keeping up with the Jones’, but knowing what your competition is up to in their hiring process can help guide your own candidate search. It’s not just about being competitive, it’s about knowing how your competition works and using it to your advantage in hiring the perfect candidate.

An article from ERE.net discuss the importance of competitive intelligence in the hiring process. Competitive intelligence is defined as “The action of defining, gathering, analyzing, and distributing intelligence about products, customers, competitors and any aspect of the environment needed to support executives and managers in making strategic decisions for an organization,” per the article’s source Wikipedia.

Knowledge of your competition is a crucial tool in other areas of running a successful business. You wouldn’t sell a product without first conducting market research, or pitch your own company without discussing your merits over the competition. So why shouldn’t you know what the competition is doing when hiring a candidate? You absolutely should know what the competition is up to when hiring for an open position.

In order to gain an edge over the competition, you need to know what they are doing and what they are looking for in a candidate. Scour job postings for your competition to see who they are identifying as an ideal candidate, and what they are offering. You may still feel more confident about your hiring process, but you may also see flaws in your system. The ERE article suggests that top hiring managers and recruiting firms approach the hiring process like they would any other area business–with reports, analysis, competitive intelligence, and trend data. Hiring a candidate sets the tone for your entire business so it makes sense to do your research not only into the candidate, but into your competition. Knowing what the competition is doing is the best way to identify the candidate of your dreams, and then get the candidate to accept an offer with your company.

Competitive intelligence can give you an important edge in your hiring search. Knowing how your competition thinks, and what they offer, can either reinforce what you are already doing, or give you ideas on staying on top of the competition.

How do you use competitive intelligence in hiring for open positions? Let us know in the comments section below.