TPBO Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Dr Florian Kaefer reflects on the making of Talent Attraction Leaders 2026 and what emerged along the way.
When we began this edition, the question seemed simple: which places are doing interesting work on talent attraction? We asked our international community for nominations and looked more closely at the examples that emerged across Europe and North America.
What became clear early on was how much the term covers. In some places, the focus is on helping employers recruit internationally. Elsewhere, the work centres on retaining graduates, supporting newcomers after arrival, or making a region visible to people who had never considered it. Some organisations are based within universities, others within economic development or investment promotion agencies, while elsewhere the work sits closer to housing, immigration or integration.
What stayed with me was how much of the real work sits behind the public proposition. We notice the campaign, the website, the message about careers and quality of life. But attraction does not end when someone becomes interested. A move can involve an employer, a university, immigration authorities, housing providers and local government, and for the person deciding, the boundaries between them matter less than whether the process feels manageable. Can they find the information and support they need? Can an employer recruit them without getting lost? And what happens once they arrive, when they are trying to find work for a partner or build a network in an unfamiliar place?
We explored some of these questions in more detail in our analysis of what 43 places reveal about the changing nature of talent attraction. The edition itself also brings together recent academic research on talent attraction and a look at what five major global rankings can, and cannot, tell us about how places compete for talent.
We did not set out to create a ranking. The 43 places featured here operate in very different circumstances, with different mandates and constraints, and comparing them on a single scale would have told us little. What interested us was the chance to look sideways: to see how others have framed a problem you may recognise, even when their context is nothing like your own.
Sometimes that is enough to make you look differently at your own work. You may find an approach you can use directly. You may find one that would never work for you, and still think differently because of it.
The edition was developed over the past months with contributions from practitioners, researchers and members of the wider TPBO community. My thanks to everyone who nominated places and shared their work, to Saskia Ruttkowski, who led the project with patience and persistence, to Divyangani Sharma at IdeaWorks for the layout and design, and to Steve Duncan of C Studios, our agency partner for the edition.
Leaders in Talent Attraction: Europe & North America 2026 brings together in-depth showcases, interviews, research and perspectives from across Europe and North America.
The edition is now available for free download at placebrandobserver.com/talent-attraction-special.
You’d like to be involved in future publications? Reach me at florian@placebrandobserver.com
