Why Ignoring The 70/30 Principle Costs Your Company Talent

Candidates are a lot choosier today when sizing up potential employers and positions

These days, people shop for jobs like how they shop for cars and appliances. And with more than 10 million jobs to choose from in the U.S. alone, it is a buyer’s market out there with a ton of options. This means employers have to be more persuasive than ever when it comes to “selling” their organizations and their jobs.
 

You already know how we got here: via a perfect storm of forces, including a global pandemic, an aging workforce, and fundamental shifts in people’s priorities and perspectives. The Internet has driven us to this buyer’s market as well. Social media, LinkedIn, employer review sites, and even employers’ own careers sites have all given job seekers an incredible amount of information for making employment decisions. With just a few clicks, people can gather insights into a company’s mission, culture, work environment, people practices, compensation and benefits, and so much more.

All of this has produced more informed job “consumers,” which is a good thing. However, they are a heck of a lot choosier when sizing up potential employers and positions—which is exactly why every employer should seriously consider "The 70/30 Principle".

What Motivates Job Seekers?

I came across The 70/30 Principle in a Gallup report. Basically, researchers wanted to know what motivates consumers to stay loyal to a brand. Do they make decisions rationally, utilizing tactics like cost/benefit analysis? Or are feelings, impulses, and even passions part of their process? It is not hard to see how these apply to job seekers and employer brands, right? Why do candidates select one company or one job over another? What inspires loyalty to an employer? Do salary and benefits mean more than emotional connections to work and employers?

Gallup’s researchers found that roughly 70% of consumers’ decisions are based on emotional factors and only 30% are based on rational factors. Two Gallup studies provide some fascinating evidence. In the first study, the paper states, “Gallup scientists wanted to know which factors drove customer engagement for a luxury hotel brand. Were physical attributes, such as the condition of the room and furnishings, most important? Or were emotional attributes, such as feeling welcomed and valued, more important? Ultimately, Gallup found that emotional elements accounted for 65% to 70% of the variance in customer engagement.”

In the second study, researchers examined the brain scans of customers with high brand engagement “and found that when asked about the brand, the emotional centers of their brain (particularly those associated with a passion) were activated.”

I believe The 70/30 Principle is just as valid for job candidates and employees as it is for consumers—a belief supported by a growing body of research.

As a 2022 Entrepreneur article reveals, rational aspects of work like salary still matter to today’s job seekers. “But salary aside, candidates are looking for purpose-driven work,” it states. In other words, the emotional aspects of work (such as feelings and passions) matter too. When it comes to considering a job, the Entrepreneur article says, candidates are now asking questions like, What is this job for? and Why would I do this?

“Employees want to work for an organization they believe in and whose values match their own,” notes Entrepreneur. “They also want assurance that their company will look after their well-being. This includes not only their physical health, but also their emotional, financial, social and career wellness.” Very clearly this is a mix of rational and emotional aspects of work.

The article goes on to say that the emotional and less-purely-rational aspects of work are especially important to people 45 years and younger, and it cites research conducted by Blue Beyond Consulting and HR research firm Future Workplace, who found that 52% of workers “would quit their jobs if their employers’ values did not align with their own.”

A 2022 McKinsey report stated, “It is no longer a surprise that people seek more from their employers than just a paycheck and a safe place to work. A preponderance of evidence suggests that ‘good work’ also means satisfying employees’ psychological needs.” McKinsey’s analysis of the reasons behind record numbers of employees leaving their jobs or quitting the workforce shows “the most important factors were social and psychological, including not feeling valued by their organization or manager or not having a sense of belonging at work.”

The Entrepreneur and McKinsey pieces are just two examples of research supporting the validity of The 70/30 Principle in recruiting and TA. Talent Board’s own research also corroborates the fact that candidates’ feelings about a company play a huge part in their decision to apply for and/or accept a job.

As I mentioned in a previous article, candidates researching employers want three things right up front: 1) an understanding of a company’s values and culture; 2) insight into the employee experience at that company, and 3) a sense of whether they connect with the overall brand. In short, candidates want information that goes way beyond the purely rational (a job description, a company profile, etc.). They want to get a real sense of the environment they will be working in, the people they will be working with, and the organization they will be working for.

Our latest Candidate Experience Benchmark Research found that 48% of North American candidates wanted more information about company values than they were typically getting from potential employers (up 37% from 2021); 29% wanted more information on company culture; and 27% wanted more information about diversity and inclusion initiatives. Yes, these are a mix of the rational and emotional aspects of work, but I think, they clearly shine a light on the emotional connection candidates want to their work and their employers.

How to Start Building Emotional Connections

In general, a few of the most effective tactics successful companies leverage include:
 

• Showcasing current employees sharing their personal experiences in their own words on videos and in social media posts. Nothing is more authentic to job seekers than hearing current employees tell their stories.
• Giving feedback to job candidates at each stage of their experience. Feedback is sorely lacking in most candidate experiences, yet it is essential to helping people understand why they are moving forward or not in the recruiting process. Beyond providing a measure of closure to unsuccessful candidates, it can also help them do better in their future job-seeking experiences. Our research shows that providing feedback not only builds emotional connections, but also helps boost an employer’s perceived fairness.
• And, finally, being transparent about pay scales and practices is a winning tactic because it hits home both rationally and emotionally. And, like providing feedback, it is something that many companies simply do not do, so it makes a major impression on potential employees.

The 70/30 Principle may have been conceived for consumers, but it is a potent concept that talent acquisition teams everywhere should embrace. Indeed, the wisdom of treating job seekers and employees like customers and consumers has been validated many times over. If you would like to read more about it, check out the KPMG paper, “Candidates as Consumers,” which contains a number of great insights. In addition, it offers some key questions that TA teams can ask themselves to improve the emotional connections they’re building with candidates. These questions include:
 

• What perception exists—both in the market and internally—about what your company currently offers to prospective employees?
• What unique characteristics distinguish what your organization offers from that of known, and unknown, competitors?
• Are you clearly articulating and marketing these characteristics with a compelling talent brand that attracts targeted talent populations?
• Is your employee value proposition aligned with the employee experience?

Be safe and well.

Author Bio

Kevin W. Grossman is the President of Talent Board and the Candidate Experience Awards. Kevin has over 23 years of domain expertise in the human resource and talent acquisition industry and related technology marketplace. He’s been a prolific industry writer since 2004 and his first business book on career management titled Tech Job Hunt Handbook was released in December 2012 from Apress. His second book titled Candidate Experience: How to Improve Talent Acquisition to Drive Business Performance will be released in 2022 by Kogan Page. Connect Kevin W. Grossman Follow @KevinWGrossman