This is a guest article written by Matt Johnston, President of JobTracks. JobTracks is an essential link in meeting the staffing needs of employers in the title, escrow, real estate and hospitality professions. He can be reached directly at: .

Most Title Insurance Managers assume elite employees are passive – that they are employed by great companies, are not actively looking for new opportunities and are locked into a career path at their current company.

However, JobTracks research reveals that top performers, like all job seekers, seek to actively orchestrate their career path. To understand the job search behaviors of these sought-after candidates, we surveyed Title Insurance hiring managers to find out the key attributes of their top performers. Next, we surveyed our job seekers over a six month period and identified employees that have displayed top-performer skills at their previous or current company.

The results of our survey shed light on how top performers search for jobs and offer 2 important takeaways into how employers can attract more top title talent to their organizations.

1.     Be Visible: Top talent actively search for jobs frequently

The best is always looking to get better. Almost 80% of top performers we interviewed said they search for jobs at least a few times a year. Of our top performers who were actually hired within the past year, this number is even higher: (96%) took an action (updated their resume, joining new groups on LinkedIn, resumed contact with old coworkers at new jobs, etc.) to find a new job in the six months prior to being hired.

The best candidates are not waiting for luck. They’re monitoring opportunities for the one that meets their needs and goals, and they’re using online tools to do so. The go-to places where these employees most often cited were:

1. Online job boards
2. Company careers pages
3. LinkedIn
4. LinkedIn groups for networking
5. Related networking organizations

2.     Differentiate Yourself: Top talent has different motivators

Top title talent is never easy to find, and they are in greater demand than ever. They have plenty of options available, and they can afford to wait for the opportunity they want. Compared with other job seekers, top performers rank company culture and reputation 1^st, interesting and challenging work 2^nd followed by compensation as the 3^rd most attractive reason for taking a position.

Winning the war for talent is hard, but not impossible. More and more companies have begun to reshape their culture, mission and recruitment efforts in order to optimize their exposure to lure top title talent when the opportunity strikes. Are you ready to do the same?