Invited Open Houses – The Best Way To Sell Exceptional Candidates (They work by involving the entire team in the selling effort)

The best candidates will only join a great team, and open houses excel at revealing why a team is amazing. They sell candidates on the team’s strengths even better than CEO calls and peer interviews.

The Primary Goal Is To Sell The Attendees On The Team

In today’s competitive talent marketplace, it’s a struggle to close all candidates. However, most find closing exceptional candidates in areas like AI, data security, or quantum computing almost impossible. So, whenever you need to sell a hard-to-convince “must-have” exceptional candidate, it makes sense to use every selling and convincing tool you have. My best recommendation is to use an invited open house (IOH).

My research shows IOHs are most effective at convincing candidates that they are about to join an amazing team. Of course, selling the candidate “on the team” is essential. Exceptional candidates simply won’t even consider a job unless they know the team around them will be great.

I have been recommending this approach for decades… since I was the Chief Talent Officer at Agilent Technologies. We found the IOH was the most effective selling approach for convincing/selling high-value employed targets who were skeptical about their future team. And to this day, I still recommend this simple but powerful approach without reservation.

The Key Design Features Of An Invited Open House

Invited open houses work because they have many effective design features. Most of them are face-to-face gatherings held after work hours in an informal setting, usually on the company’s site. The entire team and the manager share information and answer questions.

Usually, five or fewer prescreened exceptional candidates are invited, though some events host only a single candidate. Invitees are typically assigned a peer buddy who ensures they continually mingle and meet all key people. A short presentation usually covers the team’s most exciting current and future work and accomplishments. Although the event is clearly related to recruiting, no formal recruiting takes place during it.

The Many Benefits That You Will Receive From An Invited Open Houses (IOH)

There are numerous reasons why an open house (IOH) is one of the most powerful prospect/candidate selling approaches. The most powerful reasons are listed here.

Invited Open Houses Work Because…:

• They are billed as an educational event – Even a hint that this is a recruiting event would prevent some currently employed individuals from participating. This event needs to be designed and billed as an educational, learning, and benchmarking event. The most important educational element is the relatively short presentation by the team, designed to excite participants and discuss the team’s current and future work. The event also emphasizes the exchange of information and ideas. Your teammates will likely learn about some of the best practices at the companies where your invitees work.
• It will be clear to invitees that the company values them – The fact that the company invests a lot of time and money into putting this event together makes the invitees realize that the manager, team, and company are already willing to invest a great deal in them. Most invitees assume this heavy investment will continue if they join the company.
• The event focuses on selling “this amazing team” – Joining a great team is essential for most exceptional candidates. Team members are encouraged to brag a little about themselves and the team, discussing the team’s amazing collaboration, freedom, and level of innovation.
• Team members will begin to build trust relationships – Top candidates require a trust relationship before they say yes. Each team member is encouraged to be transparent and honest in their conversations with invitees. And because the invitees interact with other professionals who do the work of this team every day. Most invitees will believe they are getting the unvarnished truth from their peers ( they may not get it from managers and recruiters). And this higher level of frankness and candor will help to begin many new trust relationships.
• Team members are welcoming – Most exceptional candidates want to feel both welcomed and needed. Team members are encouraged to make that happen. The full participation of the entire team in the event also helps to reveal that welcoming attitude. It’s also likely that your diverse invitees will especially appreciate being so clearly welcomed. And that may improve your diversity recruiting.
• It relies on face-to-face interactions that are the most powerful – Not only is the IOH approach unique (since most candidate selling is now done remotely), but as any salesperson can tell you, face-to-face selling is by far the most effective selling approach.
• The event allows the invited to “feel the excitement” – Unfortunately, it’s almost for a potential applicant or candidate actually to experience the excitement and camaraderie within their future team. However, this event is designed as a “show and tell” celebration of the team’s work. Invitees will be able to “feel the excitement” of working with this team for the first time.
• No time will be wasted on mediocre candidates – Only high-value recruiting targets that your company would like to hire are invited. The team will be able to focus 100% of their time on a few exceptional candidates. 
• Attendees will talk about this event – Since so much prospect/candidate selling now occurs remotely, you can be sure that this startlingly unique event will impress those who are invited. But you can also count on them spreading the word about it to their colleagues and friends. And that brand building will help to spur future applicants. 
• Invitees also get a chance to visit your facility – Most open houses are held at the primary corporate facility. The event’s location will allow curious candidates to witness your facilities firsthand. 

Implementation Tips To Consider

For those considering implementation. Here are some implementation tips to consider.

You will need to make a compelling business case for team participation – Although you might not encounter any resistance, an IOH will require most team members to remain after work for a couple of hours. So, providing each team member with a compelling business case that demonstrates how effective these events will be makes sense. And how each team member will directly benefit from higher quality innovative teammates and shorter position vacancies. So once the event is announced, the manager must ensure that most team members enthusiastically attend.

You must prepare a compelling “show and tell” presentation – A primary component of the IOH is an educational presentation. Pretest yours until you are assured that it will effectively highlight the exciting things your team is working on and planning. 

Assign each participant a peer buddy – You don’t want participants hiding in the shadows. So assigning each invitee a peer will ensure that each target continuously meets the right people. And if your event allows remote participants, you absolutely must assign them one of your most effective peer buddies. 

Let invitees view a profile highlighting your team members – Allow invitees to learn more about your team and its members by providing a profile before or during the event. Let the participants scan through your team’s profile, which is usually a snapshot compilation of the first page of each team member’s LinkedIn profile.

The event must provide participants with something to talk about later – A secondary goal should be to expand the impact of the IOH beyond just that day. You can do that by ensuring that the event contains several WOWs that everyone will remember (i.e., an appearance by your CEO). Other memorable components that will likely be talked about include memorable food or drink and giving out impressive product samples. Or the fact that the event was held in a memorable location or restaurant.

There are time and location variations – Although most open houses are held at the company facility beginning at 6 o’clock. You can hold them during work hours if your invitees can attend. It is also not uncommon for them to be held before, during, or right after major professional conferences that are held in other cities.

You can protect your team secrets – Obviously, you want to minimize the loss of company secrets during the event. But you must be flexible. It is absolutely essential that you show your participants at least a peak of your most exciting work and plans. So, if you’re really nervous, have your invitees sign an NDA agreement.

How many to invite? – Most IOHs invite no more than five exceptional prospects, though some are held exclusively for one exceptional individual.

You must continually improve – To ensure that your open house events continue to improve. Develop performance metrics and survey your invitees and team members who attended to identify what worked and what could be improved.

Final Thoughts

I think it’s time for smart talent leaders to realize that today, the most poorly designed and executed element in recruiting is no longer sourcing or the interviews. It’s effective candidate selling. 

One primary reason for this failure is that the selling function is not data-driven. However, another reason why it’s ineffective is the fact that almost all candidates are selling through some form of electronic media.

With that overwhelming focus on virtual communication, I have found that many candidates are now much more open and less resistant to non-electronic ways to learn about your job and the company. Those non-electronic selling approaches include direct snail mail, delivered FedEx packages, one-on-one meetings over coffee, and, yes, face-to-face invited open houses. 

If you only do one thing, I urge you to ask around among your colleagues. Don’t be surprised when you discover that most who have attended IOHs have nothing but praise for them.

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