How to Position Your Business to Attract High-Calibre Talent
If you have ever asked, “Where are all the good people?”, you are not alone. Technology businesses of every size are competing for software engineers, product specialists, data professionals, designers, go-to-market talent and leaders who can make a real difference. A vacancy can sit open for weeks, applications can miss the mark, and the people you most want to speak to may not be actively looking at all.
It is tempting to treat this as a sourcing problem. More often, it is a broader attraction problem: the role is unclear, the employer’s story sounds like everybody else’s, or the search keeps returning to the same familiar networks. Between Jermaine’s 27-plus years in recruitment and Elly’s focus on personal service, we have seen that the strongest results come when commercial clarity and genuine care work together.
So, how do you attract the right people without turning recruitment into a numbers game? Start by making every part of the process worth someone’s time.
1. Define the impact before you define the person
A strong talent attraction strategy begins before a job advert is written. Get clear on what the business needs this person to achieve.
Ask practical questions:
- What should be different six or twelve months after this person joins?
- Which skills are genuinely essential on day one?
- Which skills could be learned with the right support?
- What decisions will this person own?
- Is the salary aligned with the level of responsibility and the current market?
- How are we different, and what is our EVP?
This sounds simple, but it prevents a common problem: building an unrealistic wish list around a “perfect candidate” who may not exist. It also makes the process fairer. When a hiring team agrees on the evidence it needs in advance, candidates can be assessed against the same relevant criteria rather than against shifting expectations or personal instinct.
For more practical guidance on moving from a clear brief to a consistent selection process, read our five-step guide to hiring the right candidate first time.
Be careful with the idea of “culture fit”, too. It can quietly become a search for familiarity. Look instead for values alignment, the behaviours the role requires and what a person could add to the team. The aim is not to hire people who think and sound the same. It is to build a balanced team with the capability and trust to perform.
2. Turn your employee value proposition into something real
An employee value proposition, or EVP, is the answer to a candidate’s reasonable question: “Why should I build the next part of my career here?”
It is not a paragraph full of words such as innovative, dynamic and fast-paced. Candidates have read those words hundreds of times. A useful EVP gives them something specific to understand and believe.
For a technology business, that might include:
- the product or problem the team is working on;
- the level of autonomy people have;
- how leaders communicate during growth or change;
- the learning, mentoring and progression available;
- the approach to flexible or hybrid working;
- pay, benefits and the wider employee experience; and
- what inclusion looks like in everyday decisions.
Most importantly, the promise must match the reality. If the advert describes flexibility but the interview process suggests presenteeism, people notice. If a company talks about development but cannot explain its career pathways, people notice that too. Employer branding is not a campaign applied to the outside of a business. It is the honest story of the experience inside it.
That is why attraction, retention and development cannot be separated completely. What you say during hiring creates an expectation. What happens after the person joins either builds trust in that expectation or breaks it.
3. Reach beyond people who are already applying
The best person for a role may never see the advert. They could be doing good work elsewhere, open to a thoughtful conversation but not spending their evenings scrolling through job boards.
Attracting passive tech candidates takes more than sending a generic message with a job description attached. Good outreach shows that someone has taken time to understand the person’s experience and the possible relevance of the opportunity. It should be clear about the role, the organisation, the location or working pattern and, wherever possible, the salary range. It should invite a conversation, not create pressure.
Focused market mapping and specialist networks help you understand where relevant skills sit, what candidates value and whether the brief is realistic. They also help a hiring team look beyond the same companies, universities and personal connections it has relied on before. Depending on the need, Boost Talent can support contingent, retained, subscription or executive search across contract and permanent roles.
The model matters, but the relationship matters more. The more deeply a recruitment partner understands your direction, culture, pressures and people, the more accurately they can represent you in the market.
4. Design fair representation into the process
Fair representation does not happen because a company adds an inclusion statement to the bottom of a job advert. It comes from a series of deliberate choices, from the brief to the offer.
For founders and growing teams, our guide to building an inclusive hiring strategy explores inclusive job adverts, structured interviews, wider sourcing and the measures that help reveal where barriers remain.
Start with the essentials. Remove inflated experience requirements and criteria that are not connected to performance. Use plain, welcoming language. Explain the process and ask proactively whether candidates need reasonable adjustments.
Then look at how decisions are made:
- Use a structured scorecard linked to the role outcomes.
- Ask each candidate the same core questions.
- Where practical, involve more than one perspective in assessment.
- Review representation at each stage, not only in the initial applicant pool.
- Give candidates a clear route to request adjustments or ask questions.
- Keep assessment tasks relevant, proportionate and respectful of people’s time.
This is not about lowering the bar. It is about making the bar visible, relevant and equally applied so that more capable people have a fair chance to show what they can do.
5. Treat candidate experience as part of your reputation
Every person who enters your recruitment process will leave with a view of the business. That includes the people you do not hire.
A good candidate experience is not complicated. Tell people what to expect. Keep the number of stages proportionate. Prepare interviewers. Start on time. Communicate when plans change. Give a realistic sense of the role and environment. Close the loop when the answer is no.
When feedback can be useful, make it human and specific. A candidate has invested time and emotional energy in the process. Silence may be administratively easy, but it can damage trust quickly. Remember, too, that candidates are making a decision. Give them access to the manager, explain the priorities and be candid about the challenges. Rigour and kindness are not opposites.
6. Measure quality, fairness and long-term fit
Time to hire is useful, but it cannot tell you whether the process produced the right result.
A more balanced set of talent attraction measures could include:
- qualified candidates by source;
- representation through each assessment stage;
- candidate feedback;
- offer-acceptance rates;
- performance against the role outcomes; and
- retention at six and twelve months.
The purpose is not to turn people into a dashboard. It is to see where the process is helping or hindering them and make better decisions. Data should open a conversation, not replace one.
Attraction works best as the start of a relationship
Skilled professionals are not attracted by louder adverts alone. People respond to a clear opportunity, an honest employer story, respectful communication and a process that gives them a fair chance to be seen.
For us at Boost Talent, that is what ethical technology recruitment looks like in practice. It is targeted search and market insight, but it is also care, transparency and accountability. It is helping a client make an important hire while remembering that every shortlist contains people, not products.
We are proudly Leeds-founded, working with start-ups, scale-ups and enterprise organisations across the UK, Europe and the US. We also commit 5% of our profits to grassroots work that helps close the regional digital divide, because access to technology careers should extend beyond the people who already have a way in.
If you are building a team and want a recruitment partner who will understand the business, represent it honestly and care about what happens after the placement, we would love to talk.
Frequently asked questions on attracting the right talent
How can a company attract the right talent?
Start with a clear, realistic role and a credible employee value proposition. Use targeted outreach to reach passive candidates, communicate salary and working expectations clearly, and run a structured, inclusive recruitment process. The experience should show candidates what the organisation values in practice.
What makes a strong EVP for a technology company?
A strong tech EVP explains the work, mission, autonomy, leadership, development, flexibility, reward and employee experience in specific terms. It should be based on the reality employees experience rather than a generic list of claims.
How can we improve representation in tech recruitment?
Widen sourcing channels, remove unnecessary requirements, use consistent assessment criteria, offer reasonable adjustments and review representation at every stage. Fair representation depends on the whole process, including who progresses, who withdraws and whose evidence is valued.
At Boost Talent, we help businesses attract, assess and secure exceptional talent through tailored recruitment strategies.