Talent is a top strategic priority for organizations around the world. However, while talent is a great enabler – even a competitive differentiator – it also presents significant challenges, as virtually all CXO surveys demonstrate. Beyond senior leaders, virtually every business leader and hiring manager wants to attract, hire, engage, and retain the best talent, and studies show that employees also want to be, and work with, effective team members.

A common underlying thread of talent discussions is the concept of an “ideal” or “perfect” employee.

The rise of digital technologies significantly advances our capability to move the ideal talent discussion from gut feel to science. We have the necessary capabilities to apply a more formalized, structured, and analytical approach, intelligently combining multiple digital elements to practically implement the ideal talent concept with far-reaching impact across the talent management spectrum and benefits across the organization.

In this paper, we dig into this concept of ideal talent: what it means, its benefits, and how to implement this ideal by building ideal talent profiles, as well as some best practices.