How to use your Company Vision as a Tool for Attracting Long-term Talent

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What are the chances that you’re familiar with these statements? 

• Disney: “To make people happy”
• TED: “ideas worth spreading”
• Nike: “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world”

These are a few examples of company vision statements — one-liners that explain what a company is trying to achieve and the reason why the business exists. Vision statements help communicate who the business is to the public and help direct internal efforts towards a shared purpose. But vision statements have even more potential. They can play a big role when it comes to attracting talent to your company. When you get the right people through the door that want to support you in seeing your vision come to life, you’re bound to enjoy strong employee engagement. In this post, we’ll explain how you can use your company vision to reel in like-minded talent who will be committed to your company long-term. 

Why your company vision matters when it comes to talent

Times are changing. In the past, people may have viewed their jobs as a means to an end (a paycheque), but new generations are redefining what’s important in a working relationship with their employers. 

Research is telling us that talent is far more interested in working with companies based on company purpose and meaning associated with their roles.

1. 1. A Deloitte report found that almost two-thirds of millennials chose to work with organizations that were purpose-driven over those that were not.
   
2. 2. A Robert Half survey found that having a sense of purpose at work is one of the six factors that drive employee engagement.
   
3. 3. A Forbes study found that employees who find their company’s vision meaningful have engagement levels of 68% (18 points above average).

In a nutshell, when employees are in alignment with your company’s vision, they are more likely to feel engaged in their roles knowing that what they do every day matters. When they can truly connect with your company’s purpose, they are also more willing to give discretionary effort — and that is going above and beyond the minimum required of them in their roles. 

So company vision is becoming extremely important to talent. By incorporating your company vision in your recruiting efforts, you’ll be working towards attracting quality candidates who will naturally turn into engaged employees. Strong employee engagement can lead you to improved productivity, lower staff turnover, and the development of a strong company culture.

Let’s get into how you can start making the most of your company vision. 

Where to use your company vision in your recruiting efforts 

1. In your job descriptions

Job descriptions are often the first time potential candidates discover your company. Sharing your company vision here can help your company stand out when they’re flicking through dozens of other job ads. If a reader can connect with what your company is set out to do, you’ll already be getting ahead by steering talent away from competitors and straight to you.

Here’s the thing though — don’t just copy and paste your vision statement in the company biography that lives within all your job descriptions. If you want to reel in the right candidates, you need to explain how the role they’re interested in contributes to your company’s larger purpose. When you make this explicit link between job responsibilities and the difference they’ll be making to your company (or better yet to the world as a whole), you’ll be able to attract the kind of talent that wants to make a difference when they come to work.

Here’s an example of how we did this when hiring for our Content & Community Manager role:

The job description read: 

“As the Content and Community Manager at Bucketlist, you’ll:

• • Help us change the nature of work, build culture, and connect employees.
• • Support building Bucketlist into one of the leading voices in the world of employee culture, experience, recognition and rewards.”

2. On your careers page 

The second most common place that talent looks up to learn more about work life at your company is your careers page. You have even more room to expand on your company vision here by sharing more on your employee experience, mentioning your company core values, or giving them more backstory on how the company began and where it plans to go next. 

Here’s an example of a careers page by Venngage who states “We’re helping people around the world visualize their ideas!” 

And here’s another example by Thinkific. Notice how the y include their vision statement right at the top by saying: “Helping people see the lasting change that education can make on their business, their audience, and the world could seem like a tall order. But we’re getting there by hiring the most brilliant, caring, and hardworking people.”

3. In your interviews 

Your interviews are the best place to assess culture fit and see whether or not the candidate has the potential to be an active player in helping your company fulfil its vision.

At Bucketlist, we make the most of this stage of the hiring process. In fact, noy only do we have a mission statement; we outline our 3-year vision in a document that we send to candidates so that they can get a clear idea on where we’re headed in the years to come. We send them this company vision document ahead of their second interview, asking them to come to the next meeting prepared with questions to ask about it and their idea of where they would fit into these goals. How they approach this task in the second interview really helps give us a feel for their long-term fit with the company.

We also use the interview stage to ask talent the simple yet very telling question, “Why do you want to work here?”. This is one of the most effective questions for helping us sift through talent who are just looking for a pay cheque and those who believe in what we do, which in our case is building strong company cultures. How a candidate answers this question tells us a lot. 

Let’s say that one of them answers: “I want to work here because your office is close to home and I can bring my dog.”

And one of them answers: “I want to work here because in my experience working in toxic cultures as well as thriving and supportive cultures, I feel that company culture is extremely important to business. I’d love to be working for a company that’s in alignment with this idea and that is working towards creating positive change in organizations.” 

Which of the two candidates would you be more inclined to hire? It’s a no-brainer! 

3 tips for writing your company vision 

So what next? If you’re just starting to craft your vision statement, here are a few tips to get you headed in the right direction. 

1. Keep it short and sweet

Vision statements should be no more than a line or two long. The goal is for it to be memorable. Remember the Disney and TED ones above? Use those as a benchmark for length and simplicity.

2. Make sure it's inspirational

The best vision statements are known to elicit a feeling rather than sound like an objective. When writing your vision statement, it’s best to focus on the feeling.

3. Broader is better

Get too specific and you might lose people who can’t relate. Your vision statement should be broad enough that it relates to many roles and stakeholders

Need more help defining your company vision? Download the Bucketlist 3 year vision document below for more guidance.

Get a copy of our 3 year company vision below!