Five minutes with: Robert Stone, Head of Talent at McCann Group

Robert Stone, Head of Talent at McCann Group, defines ‘Talent’ and the challenges that surround it. 

What are the biggest Talent challenges you currently face? How will you overcome these?

1. Talent Attraction

To be honest at least 90% of my hires still originate from headhunting or referrals rather than direct applications. Currently within the industry there is a lot of noise regarding ‘employer branding’ which I personally believe is a buzz word that is getting used too loosely.

I am frequently hearing people say, ‘I am struggling to find the best talent because I don’t have a big budget to successfully implement my strategy’. If you are relying on a smoke and mirrors campaign that purely involves advertising, fancy content and out of the box experiences then you are truly in trouble.