Originally posted on the SmashFly Intern Blog.

The World Basketball Championships take place in Turkey from August 28 to September 12. The tournament is considered to be the most prestigious international basketball competition in the world, rivaling the Olympics. The American men’s national team is participating in this tournament and not a single player from the 2008 Olympic gold medal team in Beijing is on the roster, yet Team USA is a favorite to win the competition. From a recruitment marketing perspective USA Basketball has been able to build a strong and deep talent network and enviable employer brand that attracts top talent.

Building a talent network of qualified candidates is a difficult task particularly if you need people with specific skill-sets and qualifications. Take USA Basketball for example, all the players that participated in the Beijing Olympics decided to opt out of the World Championships for various reasons. Most notably because of the physical demands of plying in both the World Championships and Olympics plus playing for their professional teams. Having a second group of qualified players to play in the World Championships is key to the success of the American basketball program. If USA Basketball did not have a strong pool of talent to draw from, they would not be considered qualified enough to be favorites in the tournament.

One of the reasons that USA Basketball has been able build a strong talent network is because of their strong employer brand. Of course representing a country in international competition is prestigious in itself, but USA Basketball has been able to use the appeal of international competitions to its advantage. The brand is so strong in fact that many basketball players who wish to play for USA Basketball are not considered qualified enough to be on the team, yet they still work hard to develop the necessary skills in the hopes of one day making the roster. USA Basketball has created a strong employer brand by cultivating their talent through development camps, associating and partnering with reputable corporations, utilizing the services of experienced coaches and building a culture of winning.

It is extremely important to build a talent network of qualified candidates, however the qualified candidates may not show up until you’ve been successful at creating a strong employer brand. This is a lesson that can be learned from USA Basketball. Will they win the tournament this year? We’ll have to wait and see.

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About the Author: Sean is a Marketing Intern at SmashFly Technologies. SmashFly is the provider of the first recruitment marketing platform called WildFire that enables companies and staffing firms to easily distribute and more importantly measure the performance of their recruiting efforts online.

The WildFire recruitment marketing platform offers every tool you need for your recruitment marketing needs all in one centralized solution including Real-Time Recruitment Metrics, Job Ad Distribution (job boards, social networks, SEM, email & SMS campaigns), Recruitment Opt-In Database, Recruitment CRM, Web Commercials / Micro-sites and Resume Sourcing services.