Why do you get few really good responses to your job posting, even though the content of the role is right? And why do experienced professionals sometimes still drop out, even if the interview feels right? In practice, attracting experienced specialists is about more than posting a job online. It takes focus, realism and an approach that aligns with how they make decisions. In this article, we outline the five elements that make the difference.
>> In this article we mean meeting experienced professionals, not everyone with many years of service, but mature specialists with a solid frame of reference and often around ten years of experience.
Many job postings consist of fixed formats that have been around for years. Efficient, but often too generic. They say little about what makes the difference in this role or why this team is looking for reinforcement.
A job posting written for everyone rarely feels written with a clear audience in mind. Experienced professionals are quick to move on when the text says little about context, expectations or the question behind the role.
As a hiring manager, it requires you to be clear about what the role looks like in practice at the time you put the job posting live, what direction you want it to take and what you expect from someone in it.
An experienced professional looks beyond the job title. Of course the content counts, but just as important is the context. How did the role originate? How will there be collaboration? And is there room to actually use my experience?
Experience enables senior experts to see more quickly whether expectations are realistic and therefore they know how to make more conscious choices.
For experienced professionals, a job posting is often the first signal of how an organisation looks at a role. Such a text often comes about in collaboration with several people. Hiring managers provide input and direction, while the vacancy text is drafted and published by someone else.
What makes a difference for experienced professionals are precisely the elements that are often known in interviews, but remain underexposed in vacancies:
This is precisely where honesty helps. Rather candidates who drop out early than a mismatch after a few months. Such honesty strengthens trust and prevents disappointment on both sides.
Experienced professionals are often less actively looking and rarely respond to general job boards. This requires a different way of contact and more time and attention.
Indeed, you can find them on LinkedIn. They have a selective presence there, follow substantive discussions and pay attention to who has something meaningful to say about the profession, the market and the direction of an organisation. They also move into smaller networks and communities, and many conversations arise through existing relationships, not standardised hiring processes.
For hiring managers, this means that visibility alone is not enough. The question is not whether you are present, but how. Experienced professionals hook in on content, context and timing. As a manager, share your vision, the story behind your team and make visible what you are working towards, even when there is no concrete vacancy.
In practice, this is often insufficiently successful. Full agendas and operational pressure make it difficult to pay consistent attention to this. This is precisely why organisations regularly choose to work with recruitment partners who are structurally present in these networks, maintain relationships and can open the conversation at the right time. Not by sending, but by being relevant.
For people with experience, the manager is often decisive in their choice. They consciously look at who their manager is, how decisions are made and whether the person is inspiring in direction and vision, with room for ownership. Based on previous roles, they know which leadership styles and team dynamics work for them and where they are less successful.
Experienced professionals expect a substantive level conversation. Not a test of knowledge or a thirst for proof, but an equal dialogue about vision, approach and results. When conversations turn to tests, this balance disappears and they drop out.
They want to know where there is room to grow, where responsibility begins and ends and how cooperation and decision-making work in practice. When that story rings true, trust follows. And that trust often makes the difference when choosing a next step.
Strong teams consist of different personalities, backgrounds and perspectives, as well as different levels of seniority. The balance between women and men also plays a role. With conscious choices you steer towards a composition in which different perspectives come together. Experienced professionals bring overview, peace and direction. Juniors and mediors provide energy, growth and new ideas.
By consciously managing that balance, you prevent any one role from becoming too dominant and create room for collaboration, knowledge sharing and better decision-making within the team.
Read more about strategic workforce planning.
Organisations that successfully attract scarce specialists often share a number of principles:
These are not extras, but conditions for sustainable cooperation.
Attracting an experienced professional is less about persuasion and more about alignment. By being clear about the role, communicating honestly about the context and having conversations at the right level, trust is created. And that trust forms the basis for long-term reinforcement.