Gain a Hiring Edge with Talent Competitor Strategies
Attracting top-tier talent today is more challenging than ever. With shifting candidate expectations, skill shortages, and rapid industry changes, businesses must adopt shrewd hiring strategies to stay ahead. One powerful yet often overlooked approach is to factor in talent competitors — companies targeting the same high-caliber candidates. You can position your organization more competitively by understanding and leveraging this insight. Michael Taylor Staffing specializes in helping companies navigate this complex landscape, ensuring you secure the best people to drive your business forward. Read further to discover the advantages of considering talent competitors in your hiring strategy.
When business leaders think about competition, they typically focus on industry competitors—companies offering similar products or services in the same market. These rivals stay top of mind during strategic planning and market positioning. However, when it comes to hiring, your biggest competition may not be who you think it is.
Talent competitors are the organizations that vie for the same skilled workforce—regardless of industry. They may not share your business model, but they actively recruit from the same talent pool. For instance, skilled production workers are sought after by companies in the healthcare, automotive, consumer goods and electronics industries.
By focusing solely on industry competitors, you may unintentionally overlook a broader, more qualified talent pool.
Ignoring Talent Competitors Can Hurt Your Hiring Strategy
Many organizations limit their hiring strategies to attracting talent from industry peers. This approach can have significant downsides.
• A Shrinking Candidate Funnel: Restricting recruitment efforts to industry talent can significantly reduce the number of qualified candidates available. If you expand your search beyond industry borders, you can tap into a wider pool of skilled professionals.
• Revenue Loss Due To Hiring Delays: Every unfilled role represents lost potential revenue, particularly when it comes to revenue-generating or production roles. A broader hiring approach can help mitigate these losses.
• Retention Challenges: Without a clear understanding of what companies other than industry peers are offering, you risk losing employees to talent competitors who provide better compensation, benefits or career advancement opportunities.
• Lack Of Diversity And Innovation: When you only hire from a limited set of industry players, you miss out on the fresh perspectives and diverse experiences that professionals from different industries bring.
How To Gain A Competitive Hiring Advantage
To stay ahead in the pursuit of top talent, you must go beyond industry assumptions and adopt a data-driven approach to hiring. Here are some practical steps to get started.
1. Analyze The Labor Market
Using labor market data can help identify talent competitors and understand where potential candidates are currently working. Being aware of hiring trends, salary benchmarks and workforce availability in your region can then inform your recruiting strategy.
For example, at Advanced RPO, we worked with a medical equipment manufacturer that was struggling with high attrition and hiring bottlenecks. While this client had conducted a competitor analysis to inform pay ranges for entry-level hourly workers, they’d only looked at industry competitors. So we helped them evaluate local talent competitors like retail, hospitality, warehousing and logistics companies.
This expanded analysis uncovered that our client wasn’t actually offering competitive wages. Based on this data and our recommendations, the CEO made a strategic decision to increase the pay range. As a result, the company was able to reduce turnover, fill positions more quickly and boost productivity—directly impacting revenue growth.
2. Benchmark Against Local Employers
Competitive offerings in compensation, benefits and work environment play a major role in a candidate’s decision to accept or decline a job offer. So you need to know what all organizations in your market, regardless of industry, are doing to attract and retain employees. For example, if you’re a retailer looking for front-desk associates, consider benchmarking against local employers that hire for similar roles, like medical clinics, salons, spas and hotels.
3. Leverage Internal Workforce Data
Identifying the backgrounds of successful employees can reveal patterns in previous work experience that help you refine your ideal candidate persona beyond direct skill set matches. With the right data, you’ll be able to expand job profiles so they include nontraditional candidates and/or ones you can train on the necessary skills.
4. Prioritize Skills Over Industry Experience
In many cases, skills like problem-solving, adaptability, decision-making and initiative are transferable across industries. So identifying roles where high-quality candidates can be upskilled or reskilled provides an advantage in today’s tight labor market. If you focus on candidates’ skills and trainability, rather than requiring exact industry experience, you can dramatically widen your hiring pool.
Companies that fail to differentiate between talent competitors and industry competitors risk missing top talent, lengthening time-to-fill and even losing employees to organizations that better understand the broader labor market. By shifting focus beyond industry boundaries and embracing a data-driven hiring strategy, businesses can build a more dynamic, competitive and resilient workforce.
The question is no longer “Who are our industry competitors?” It’s time to ask, “Who are our talent competitors, and how can we out-recruit them?” Understanding and acting on this distinction may be the key to long-term hiring success.
Michael Taylor Staffing is a boutique staffing agency with deep expertise in construction, healthcare, technology, and financial services. From executive leadership to critical functional roles, we specialize in connecting you with the best talent that aligns with your unique goals and culture. Let us help you gain a true competitive hiring edge — reach out today to discover how we can support your next strategic hire. Call 215.429.4085 or connect with us through info@MichaelTaylorStaffing.com