hrandtalent

Recently I facilitated a session on “Recruitment Trends and Best Practices” for a large group of senior Recruitment and HR leaders from a large global technology company at their annual HR Leadership offsite in Chicago.  This organization is one of the better ones I have worked with in terms of their focus and investment in talent.  They understand that the acquisition, development and engagement of talent is the number one priority for their HR team.  Their partners in the business look to them as experts in talent.  They don’t care about the traditional recruitment metrics so many companies get too focused on such as “cost per hire” and “time to fill”.  They see the acquisition and development of talent as an investment for their business and not as a cost.  Anyone who has worked with me knows that I share a very similar view when it comes to talent so working with this client over the past few months has been a great experience for everyone involved.

During my session with them, we spent a great deal of time discussing one of my favourite subjects – the candidate experience.  I could tell right away by the audience’s initial reaction to this subject that this wasn’t one of their leading practices…..which puts them on par with most organizations.  In their goal to invest and build a robust recruitment function focused on the acquisition of the best talent in the market they had neglected to look at their process from the candidates perspective.  A successful recruitment function must take into consideration the perspectives of the recruiters, the business leaders and the candidates in terms of each stakeholders’ experience throughout the process from beginning until the end.  Not a lot of organizations take the time to understand what their candidates go through in their hiring process – if they talk to any candidate, it’s usually the one who is hired so tough to separate the great feeling of being hired versus the actual experience they went through.  I have written a lot over the past years that organizations need to take the time to understand their function from a candidates’ perspective – it’s just not about the impact to recruitment but to your business as a whole.

This is a very reflective exercise for the HR and Recruitment leaders from the companies I work with on this subject.  We all have the advantage of being a candidate at some point in time so we have walked in their shoes and need to remember what was it like for us as a candidate.  Getting back to this session I was facilitating, we discussed all the areas of the function and process that they were concerned with in terms of a potential negative candidate experience.  What was very interesting to me was the one area of the function they failed to identify as possibly leading to a negative candidate experience was through their extensive use of search firms.

This organization leverages and invests in as many sourcing channels as possible to find talented candidates.  They partner with a large number of search firms not afraid of the monetary investment in this pricey sourcing channel.  Their interview, assessment, and selection process is one of the more comprehensive I have seen.  Everything this organization does within their recruitment function aligns directly to their HR Mission Statement of acquiring, developing and engaging top talent but when I asked the question of what was the experience of their candidates when sourced and presented by their search firm partners, none of the leadership team could answer.  They estimated that around 40% of their hires were through search firms and nobody had even thought about the impact to a candidate’s experience.

Again, thinking about the candidate experience in dealing with search firms can be a very reflective exercise.  Most of us have likely been contacted by a search firm or independent recruiter at one time in our career.  My experience has been both positive and negative – there are a few firms I really respect and appreciate the way they dealt with me but there are a larger number of firms who were frustrating to deal with as a candidate.  The great firms were the ones who treated me as a candidate with respect and provided timely and honest feedback and communication.  The poor firms  were the ones who seemed to be playing games with me and lacked transparency and timely communication.  How well do you know your search firm partners and the way they deal with your candidates?

Most organizations fail to realize that the search firms they partner with on candidate searches are an extension of their own employer and business brand.  You have given the search firm the authorization to represent your company in the market.  Search firms touch so many candidates throughout a search and most companies don’t spend the time to understand the search firm’s process and candidate messaging.   We hold our internal recruiters to high standards in terms of the way they communicate and manage candidates so why don’t we hold our search partners to the same standards.  When’s the last time you asked a candidate presented to you by a search firm how their experience was…..especially the candidates who didn’t get the job?

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Simon Parkin is the Practice Leader for Recruitment and Talent Management at The Talent Company – www.thetalent.co     Simon is recognized as a global thought leader in the acquisition and management of top talent and has successfully transformed the Talent function for organizations of all sizes. Simon works closely with clients to build, develop and innovate their Recruitment, Talent and HR functions. He is a former global leader of Recruitment and Talent for a Fortune 100 company. Simon is a featured speaker at a number of HR and Recruitment conferences across North America and an author of many acclaimed articles on innovative Recruitment, Talent and HR trends and best practices.  Simon’s full profile can be found at http://ca.linkedin.com/in/simonparkin1

People who know me know how important integrity is to me.   People close to me within my network definitely think I take too hard of a stance on others who have let me down through their actions and subsequent lack of integrity.  I am a very trusting person and want to always be able to take people at their word.  But once a person fails to live up to their word I have a very difficult time looking beyond that experience and continuing our professional or personal relationship.  It’s different from someone simply letting you down on something they committed to you on – it goes beyond that.  I think it’s the fact that you will never fully be able to trust that individual ever again in what they say or do.

I googled the word “integrity” and found the following definition –  “adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.”  I like this definition.  That to me should be the benchmark we need to adhere to and take full personal accountability for it.  It sounds simple enough and the best thing about integrity is that we as individuals have complete control over our own integrity.  We have nobody to blame but ourselves when we act without it.

Unfortunately there are a number of people who I have worked with in the past who have let me down with their dishonest actions.  I think back to my experiences as a senior recruitment and talent leader working with my teams across the world for one of the top global organizations – and I was fortunate to work with so many great people.  But I often recall the few instances that I came across people on these teams who acted with a lack of integrity in their roles.  As a believer in ongoing performance management and working closely with any team members to get them back on track when there was a performance issue, it was difficult if not impossible to help someone when it involved an issue of integrity.  I just don’t think someone can change when they have acted without moral character or honesty.  It becomes more of a trend rather than a one-off “I made a mistake” action.  It’s usually premeditated with the person knowing exactly what they are doing.

Can people change when it comes to a lack of integrity?  I find that when confronting someone on this issue, they simply continue to deceive and get deeper and deeper into their deceptions.  Mark Twain had a great quote on integrity – “If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.”

As a Recruitment and HR professional, integrity is core to what we do.  Our clients we support in our organizations look to us as experts in talent.  The candidates we deal with everyday look to us as an organizational ambassador for the company they want to be a part of.  Our colleagues depend on us to perform a job that is critical to the talent success of the company.

As a leader, integrity gives us credibility with the people we lead.  If our actions as a leader lack honesty than we lose the respect and trust of the people who we as leaders have to count on for our success.  You just can’t recover as a leader when your team loses the trust of your character.  They will always be questioning your words and actions in their minds and looking for every reason not to trust you.

When we lose credibility with any of the people we work with, we lose our ability to be successful.  It’s difficult to recover when someone you work with loses confidence in your integrity.  Your reputation is completely crushed as word of your actions will spread quickly across the organization.  With social media platforms bringing everyone closer together it’s easy for the HR and Recruitment community to hear about your reputation and actions from the people you used to work with.  So more than ever you need to ensure  your reputation isn’t tarnished and the best way to do this is to simply act with character and integrity in everything you do.  None of us are perfect and we do make mistakes.  But when it comes to your integrity, it’s your personal and professional brand at stake.

“In looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don’t have the first, the other two will kill you.” — Warren Buffet

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Simon Parkin is the Practice Leader for Recruitment and Talent Management at The Talent Company – www.thetalent.co     Simon is recognized as a global thought leader in the acquisition and management of top talent and has successfully transformed the Talent function for organizations of all sizes. Simon works closely with clients to build, develop and innovate their Recruitment, Talent and HR functions. He is a former global leader of Recruitment and Talent for a Fortune 100 company. Simon is a featured speaker at a number of HR and Recruitment conferences across North America and an author of many acclaimed articles on innovative Recruitment, Talent and HR trends and best practices.  Simon’s full profile can be found at http://ca.linkedin.com/in/simonparkin1

I consider myself a strong networker…….meaning I give as much or more back to my network than I ever ask for or receive.

I am often asked to conduct networking 101 sessions for corporate HR and recruitment teams and provide one-on-one coaching to business leaders on the art of networking.  The number one rule I always spend the most time speaking about is to never take advantage of your network and never make it a one-sided relationship.  You can’t be selfish when you venture into the world of networking.  You can’t go into a networking relationship without understanding that it takes work on both sides of the relationship to make it work.  The beauty of a great network is that they are there for you when you need assistance…….but only if you have been there for them when they needed you.  Networking has to be a win-win relationship.

Over the years I can think of so many people who have approached me and asked for my time to help them with something they need.  It might be to look at their resume and give career advice, provide them with interviewing coaching, introduce them to someone in my valued network or provide insight into a challenge they face within their current role.  I will always go out of my way for my network as I know first hand on how supportive and valuable a great network can be especially over the past year.  The fact that so many people in my network take time out of their busy days to take an interest in something important to me speaks volumes as to the benefits of building and supporting a great network.

Unfortunately on the flip side, I have also come across many people trying to take advantage of our networking relationship.  It is always disappointing to come across these individuals within your network who you only hear from when they need your help with something important to them and these same people never even have the courtesy to respond to you when you reach out to them.  Maybe I am just too trusting a person and try to look for the good in everyone but it shocks me when these people continue to ask for my help and advice.

There is one person I hear from every 3 years when she is unhappy in her job.  She is now at a VP level and I in the past I have always ensured I was there to support her with what she needed from me.  Twice over the past 5 years I have actually introduced her to the person who gave her a job…..so I definitely feel I have done a great job in supporting her the best I can.  The sad thing is that over the past few years whenever I have sent her an email I have never heard back from her.  So this past week when she reached out to me for help after not hearing from her since 2009 when I helped her with her career without any business interests for me, I thought “to hell with this person……..she doesn’t deserve to be in my network”.  It’s always a tough call especially when you run a small business and you always think there might be some business to gain from the relationship……..but my experience has tought me people like this will always tease you with the potential but never deliver so it’s not worth it.

My response to her was simply:

“Great to hear from you – it’s been about 3 years since we last spoke when you joined ABC company.  Unfortunately my time is at a premium these days and I am working closely with a number of great people in my network on various initiatives so am not able to provide you with the support you need.  All the best to you with your next venture.”

I guess I could have been a bit more punishing with my words but that’s just not me.  For someone like her who always had access to me for support, I hope she has enough self-awareness to realize her mistake……although I wouldn’t put money on that myself.

The moral of the story…….ensure you support your network as much as your network supports you.

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Simon Parkin is the Practice Leader for Recruitment and Talent Management at The Talent Company – www.thetalent.co     Simon is recognized as a global thought leader in the acquisition and management of top talent and has successfully transformed the Talent function for organizations of all sizes. Simon works closely with clients to build, develop and innovate their Recruitment, Talent and HR functions. He is a former global leader of Recruitment and Talent for a Fortune 100 company. Simon is a featured speaker at a number of HR and Recruitment conferences across North America and an author of many acclaimed articles on innovative Recruitment, Talent and HR trends and best practices.  Simon’s full profile can be found at http://ca.linkedin.com/in/simonparkin1

In conversations with HR colleagues from different organizations over the past ten or so years, I’ve continually been surprised at how many of them are unhappy with their own HR leader, whether that leader is a manager, director, or senior executive. I guess some HR leaders forget that they are typically held to a higher standard than leaders in other areas. Why?
Because HR professionals generally understand what good managers are supposed to do (because we coach other managers on this), and when their own leader doesn’t follow those best practices, it can lead to professional frustration and sometimes even anger.

The best HR leaders I’ve seen are great at seeking input, gaining alignment, and setting clear direction with a short list of priorities that clearly support the organization’s strategy and annual plan.  They make sure each member of the team, right down to the most junior, understands their role in delivering on that short list of priorities.

Also important is creating an atmosphere of shared responsibility which requires candid two-way feedback. Being direct with my staff and expecting them to be direct in return has always been a key part of my approach—and this approach has worked well. Getting to know your team members on a personal level and letting them know a bit about you helps with
achieving this kind of license, both speak up and also to create the willingness to listen to and accept feedback.

Once the team’s direction and alignment has been set and communicated, good leaders get out of their team’s way, and focus on sponsorship and barrier removal.  Especially in multi-nationals with head offices in other centres, the role of “chief deflector” is a key leadership responsibility.

The best HR leaders really understand their organization’s business, the ins and outs of its P&L, and what it is trying to achieve over the long haul. Yes, being able to help solve a short-term crisis is valuable, but those who ultimately keep the long term in perspective–even while putting out fires–tend to be the best.  This is a perspective that good HR leaders
impart to and continually reinforce with their team

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Stephen Gould has been recognized as an influential HR leader in Canada for over 15 years.  He was most recently the Senior Vice-President, Human Resources at Purolator Courier Ltd where in addition to leading the Human Resources function, he was also responsible for Engineering and Quality, Environment Health & Safety, Corporate Communications, Corporate
Social Responsibility and was the company’s Chief Privacy Officer.  Prior to his role with Purolator Courier, Stephen was the Vice President of Human Resources at American Express.  Steve has also held several senior HR leadership roles within the PepsiCo organization and McDonnell Douglas Canada. Stephen has been a speaker at numerous conferences in Canada on the topics of Being a Top Employer, Employee Engagement, Talent Management and The Healthy Workplace.  He was also featured in Aspatore’s  “Inside the Minds” series, in their book
entitled “Managing the Human Resources Team”.

Having led a number of large HR teams, the best HR people have a distinct set of characteristics, skills and perspectives. The characteristics are typically a strong intellect, an open mind, a core set of immoveable values and a sense of humour. A balanced & open mind is necessary because there are almost alway multiple sides to every workplace problem that HR is asked to help resolve. A sense of humour is important simply because human nature at work can sometimes drive a person crazy and it’s important not to take every situation too seriously.

Great HR people tend to have similar skills as well….strong critical thinking, problem-solving and influencing skills in particular. Influencing and problem-solving skills are important, because often HR professionals are asked to help solve problems that line managers can’t or don’t want to solve. Being able to show managers that taking the high road usually works.  Critical thinking skills are also key as HR-related issues tend to be complex and it’s valuable to be able to sort the wheat from the chaff. Rarely does a cookie-cutter text-book solution work as every situation has different context and nuances.

A balanced perspective is key for success, as is the ability to see the big picture and keeping the core business strategy front of mind. The best HR professionals understand the business, keep an eye on the big picture and look for long-term solutions. They have a high internal standard for their work and always stick to their core values.

Seems obvious doesn’t it? But……….important to help HR professionals understand early in their business lives what will ultimately lead to a successful and meaningful career. Or if you’re looking to recruit a new HR professional, it might be useful to test for some of these attributes in your recruiting process.

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Stephen Gould has been recognized as an influential HR leader in Canada for over 15 years.  He was most recently the Senior Vice-President, Human Resources at Purolator Courier Ltd where in addition to leading the Human Resources function, he was also responsible for Engineering and Quality, Environment Health & Safety, Corporate Communications, Corporate
Social Responsibility and was the company’s Chief Privacy Officer.  Prior to his role with Purolator Courier, Stephen was the Vice President of Human Resources at American Express.  Steve has also held several senior HR leadership roles within the PepsiCo organization and McDonnell Douglas Canada. Stephen has been a speaker at numerous conferences in Canada on the topics of Being a Top Employer, Employee Engagement, Talent Management and The Healthy Workplace.  He was also featured in Aspatore’s  “Inside the Minds” series, in their book
entitled “Managing the Human Resources Team”.

Yikes, Canada Post is on strike! Predictable perhaps still unnerving to their management, employees, the government, their business customers, their suppliers and the public of course.

Now, the communication process becomes as important as the actual discussions at the negotiating table, as all those stakeholders will start to bring pressure to bear and will be asking with increasing regularity…”what’s going on?” and “when will this end?”.  You can bet that both Canada Post and CUPW have very detailed communication plans that were developed months ago. They will have plans for both a strike and for the eventual settlement.

If you are involved in collective bargaining, do you develop a detailed communication plan for both a settlement or a strike well in advance?  Or do you wait and see what happens and then decide what to communicate and to whom at the last-minute depending on the outcome? If you do, then you’re not alone, but I suggest that you reconsider the next time.  Many companies wait and then assign someone, usually junior, to “put something together” at the last-minute.  If it’s a strike, then there is a ton of stress, and so much to do that the communication
material is likely to be inadequate and not well-thought through.  Or it becomes really expensive, because you have to ask a third-party to do it for you, like a PR firm or a lawyer. In the
stress of the moment, it’s also possible that you might forget to communicate to someone and if that turns out to be an important stakeholder, like a key customer, then there could be longer-term ramifications.

It’s important whether you’re dealing with a small scenario or a large one, to develop a detailed communication plan in advance as part of your overall contingency planning…..when you can think clearly and seek lots of input from the management team.  When I was at Purolator, we always followed this process, without guessing what the likeliest outcome was going to be….the plan covered a range of possible outcomes. These included scenarios such an 1.agreement without a labour disruption, 2.a labour disruption itself, and 3. an agreement following a labour disruption.

Within each of those 3 scenario, a good plan considers key events that may occur within each, and what the type of communication would be – either proactive or reactive and whether internal, external or both.

The plan should identify all key stakeholder groups/audiences as well as the types of communication tactics and methods that will be used. Audiences could include any of the Board of Directors, senior management, all management, customer-facing employees, all employees, the HR team, key customers, all customers, suppliers, shareholders, strategic partners,
the Union, the Media and the list goes on. It just needs to be thought through well in advance.

So for each key event, the relevant audiences should be identified in detail as well as the type of communication to be used. The expected tone of any communication should be discussed and agreed upon in advance so that it doesn’t become an emotional decision in the heat of the moment.  There is no better high in labour relations for management than a settlement and no bigger low than a strike, so emotions are always going to be there.

Finally, an effective plan should also specifically outline the approval process, so that key messages don’t get jumbled and “rogue” communication that is off-strategy doesn’t start happening.

If you’re an HR professional involved in labour relations, I suggest that you watch the communication tactics during the CPC strike on both sides.  And if you have staff reporting to you who are in labour relations, you may want to encourage them to do so as well, especially those new to the game for their professional development. It will be fascinating.

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Stephen Gould has been recognized as an influential HR leader in Canada for over 15 years.  He was most recently the Senior Vice-President, Human Resources at Purolator Courier Ltd where in addition to leading the Human Resources function, he was also responsible for Engineering and Quality, Environment Health & Safety, Corporate Communications, Corporate
Social Responsibility and was the company’s Chief Privacy Officer.  Prior to his role with Purolator Courier, Stephen was the Vice President of Human Resources at American Express.  Steve has also held several senior HR leadership roles within the PepsiCo organization and McDonnell Douglas Canada. Stephen has been a speaker at numerous conferences in Canada on the topics of Being a Top Employer, Employee Engagement, Talent Management and The Healthy Workplace.  He was also featured in Aspatore’s  “Inside the Minds” series, in their book
entitled “Managing the Human Resources Team”.

One of my biggest complaints about recruiting is the lack of respect given to candidates throughout a recruitment process. Whether it is from the lack of candidate respect by the behaviour of a poor recruiter or an unengaged hiring leader who fails to realize the importance of good recruiting, or simply from an overall poorly constructed recruiting process of an organization, 99% of the candidates applying to your company are most likely to walk away with a bad taste in their mouth.

So why is this a big deal if your company just hired a superstar new employee? I am all about outcomes when it comes to recruiting. I believe recruitment doesn’t spend enough time looking at their outcomes and too much time looking at their process efficiencies. But there are multiple outcomes to recruiting that must be continuously evaluated. The first outcome of recruiting is the quality of hire which is and always should be the primary goal. But a close second must be the experience of both the candidates and the business – both of these parties need to be considered the true clients of recruiting. Recruiters need to remember who their clients are and often forget where the candidates fit into this mix.

I was speaking with a friend this morning who was excited about her first interview with a large organization with a significant consumer service brand for a marketing role. She had confirmed the phone interview with the recruiter at the organization yesterday and was spending a great deal of her time preparing for the interview. The recruiter had committed to calling her at a specific time and when that time passed by 30 minutes and she still hadn’t heard from the recruiter, she texted me for my advice. My advice was to call the recruiter right away and find out what happened.

My friend followed up with me shortly after and was clearly not impressed with what she heard. Apparently the recruiter simply forgot about their scheduled interview (she forgot to check her calendar although was sitting at her desk working on her computer – no apology was given). My friend made sure the recruiter knew that they had just wasted not only her time for the scheduled interview but also the time she spent preparing. She declined rescheduling the interview with the recruiter as she was not impressed with being dealt this way. What is interesting is that it wasn’t only the recruiter she wasn’t impressed with……her negative impression was of the organization as a whole. She saw this recruiter as an agent for the company and quickly drew this conclusion. She is a current consumer of a service provided by this organization and has been for the past 20 plus years spending over $200 annually with them. Maybe current is the wrong term to use as she cancelled her service with this company later today. This story was also broadcasted on her Facebook profile to over 400 of her “friends” to view and comment on. So not only is she not impressed with this organization but her friends now have a negative reference on the company and not just on their recruitment efforts…….but of the company as a whole.

This company clearly hasn’t made the connection between candidates being current or potential customers and the impact that a poor recruiter will have on their organization’s bottom line in terms of lost sales and customers. So many organizations focus their sales and marketing messages on a customer centric approach and for some reason they fail to include their recruiting efforts and candidates into this mix. Corporate recruiting needs to be seen as an extension of their organization’s overall brand and held to these high standards. Recruiting will never make every candidate happy but treating every applicant with the proper respect regardless of their skills and experience will go a long way in protecting their organization’s brand.

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Simon Parkin is the Practice Leader for Recruitment and Talent Management at The Talent Company – www.thetalent.co     Simon is recognized as a global thought leader in the acquisition and management of top talent and has successfully transformed the Talent function for organizations of all sizes. Simon works closely with clients to build, develop and innovate their Recruitment, Talent and HR functions. He is a former global leader of Recruitment and Talent for a Fortune 100 company. Simon is a featured speaker at a number of HR and Recruitment conferences across North America and an author of many acclaimed articles on innovative Recruitment, Talent and HR trends and best practices.  Simon’s full profile can be found at http://ca.linkedin.com/in/simonparkin1

The number one question HR professionals in Canada ask me everyday is “When will the market heat up for HR talent once again?”

The HR Talent market has been through a roller coaster of demand over the past few years. Many organizations cut back on resourcing within HR starting in 2008. Many areas of HR were hit very hard including Talent Development, Talent Management and Recruitment. Many senior HR roles were eliminated as part of a corporate wide cost cutting exercise. Many
organizations moved to an HR Business Partner model of HR to continue to provide an HR presence at the leadership table but with so few HR support roles remaining, there was a limited focus on new HR initiatives. HR was asked by their organizations to ”do more with less” – and as most of my network would more accurately put it “do more with a lot less”.

There were still a high number of open HR roles in the market during the recession but the over-supply of available and interested HR talent at all levels made it a very competitive recruitment process. Companies had a difficult time selecting talent for HR roles as there was so much interest and competition. Certain HR disciplines continued to be in high
demand even through the past couple of years. Compensation continues to be the toughest area of HR for companies to recruit for. There seems to be an under-supply of good Compensation talent in the market in Canada and I don’t think this has changed since I started in HR 15 years ago.

I am definitely seeing the number of open HR roles and newly created HR roles on the rise once again in Canada. Companies are beginning to dedicate more new headcount back into HR and increasing the overall HR budgets once again. Of interest to me is what HR will do with this new headcount and budget – does HR look for new ways to innovate and structure
their function and service offerings or will HR re-deploy in the same manner as was the case before the tough economic times. I am hoping HR leaders take the time to look for new ways to innovate their function within their organization.

So what’s the market like for HR roles today?

Definitely the hottest area of HR roles are the ones below the manager level.  There seems to be an under-supply of HR talent looking for new opportunities with 2-4 years of experience. This seems to be the toughest of the HR roles to fill for organizations today (aside from the before mentioned Compensation roles).

The trickle up effect is also beginning and hopefully soon the other more senior levels of HR roles will also experience an increase in demand. There seems to be a few more HR Manager, HR Director and VP roles being recruited by organizations in the market today – but still a lot of supply of interested and available talent for those roles. It isn’t just the HR talent who are currently out of work looking for new roles, now it is the HR talent currently employed beginning to look for new opportunities again after a few years of restlessness and not wanting to move in a tough economy.

The one aspect of the HR talent pool that is still a question mark for me is how many of the HR Consultants, who started their own HR consulting practices over the past few years, will want to or be enticed to go back into an HR corporate role?

The second most popular question I am asked every day is “What can I do to improve my chances of finding a new opportunity?” My advise is always to be patient and continue to leverage your networks. The market is only going to get better but ensure you don’t jump into a new opportunities for the sake of jumping…..ensure the role and the organization are a good fit for you.

What trends are you seeing in the HR talent market?

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Simon Parkin is recognized as a global thought leader in the acquisition of top talent and has successfully transformed the Talent function for organizations of all sizes. Simon is the Managing Partner at The Parkin Group Ltd. and is focused on working closely with clients to build, develop and innovate their Recruitment, Talent and HR functions. He is a former global leader of Recruitment and Talent for a Fortune 100 company. Simon is a featured speaker at a number of HR and Recruitment conferences across North America and an author of many acclaimed articles on innovative Recruitment, Talent and HR trends and best practices.

How successful is your Employee Referral Program (ERP)? What percentage of your total number of Top Talent hires come from your program? How are you driving your Top Talent to refer other Top Talent to your organization? These are all questions we need to continue to ask ourselves if we want our ERP to continue to provide new Top Talent to our organization. The 3rd question I pose is the most critical – how do we drive Top Talent within our organization to refer and recommend Top Talent in other organizations? Top Talent is our goal and an effective ERP should be measured on the programs ability to source new Top Talent to our organization.

We know that an effective Employee Referral Program can be the most efficient and lucrative talent sourcing pipeline for organizations. In my experience, I have seen more ERPs fail then be successful. But how do we define success when it comes to ERPs?  Most organizations spend a lot of time and money on launching their programs with great pomp and ceremony only to have the marketing of the program dwindle after the first few weeks and months and the program quickly becomes forgotten by their employees. Other organizations will continue to push the program to all of their employees increasing the resume flow of warm bodies and good talent coming through this sourcing pipeline. But isn’t our main goal as Recruiters to source great talent? What separates a great Recruiter from a good Recruiter is simply the ability to recruit great hires versus good hires.

To enhance our ERPs we need to acknowledge a couple of key principles which I continue to observe within our industry:

1. Top Talent will refer other Top Talent.

2. New Hires have access to a Top Talent pool of candidates from their previous organization.

As Recruiters we need to increase our focus on these two principles. We need to become more aggressive when it comes to our ERPs and sourcing top talent within the talent marketplace.

If Top Talent within our organization will refer other Top Talent then we should be sitting down with our Top Talent on a regular basis and solicit them to be our Recruitment Champions within the external talent marketplace. They likely have access to talent pools they aren’t even aware of. Not only is their current networks of friends and acquaintances a potential goldmine of talent but they are hopefully active in growing and building onto these networks via associations or even external training seminars. We need to be coaching them to think like Recruiters and to always be on the lookout for new Top Talent throughout their daily activities.

New Hires are also a great source of Top Talent. Think of the information they have the ability to provide to us including the Top Talent details from their previous employer(s) as well as access to a new network of potential referrals. New Hires should have a great relationship with Recruiters who have helped nurture them throughout the hiring process. There is a bond New Hires feel with Recruiters and we need to leverage this bond to further our Top Talent agenda. Don’t be afraid to sit down with New Hires within their first few weeks on the job and solicit names and warm leads of referrals. New Hires will also be able to provide referrals of past colleagues across a number of different job streams so if the New Hire is a Marketing Manager, don’t limit your questions to other marketing related positions – chances are great they have access to contacts outside of marketing including sales, finance, etc.

Referrals are just the beginning. It is still up to us as great Recruiters to effectively utilize these referrals and place them into our pipelines of potential Top Talent. Even if our Top Talent or New Hires have provided us with just a list of names, great Recruiters are able to initiate, build and maintain a relationship with these new candidates until the right opportunity becomes available.

And don’t just limit referrals from your own employee base, successful headhunters also use candidates for referrals to grow their pipelines. There are numerous ways to leverage your Employee Referral Program into an even better Top Talent sourcing pipeline.

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Simon Parkin is the Practice Leader for Recruitment and Talent Management at The Talent Company – www.thetalent.co     Simon is recognized as a global thought leader in the acquisition and management of top talent and has successfully transformed the Talent function for organizations of all sizes. Simon works closely with clients to build, develop and innovate their Recruitment, Talent and HR functions. He is a former global leader of Recruitment and Talent for a Fortune 100 company. Simon is a featured speaker at a number of HR and Recruitment conferences across North America and an author of many acclaimed articles on innovative Recruitment, Talent and HR trends and best practices.  Simon’s full profile can be found at http://ca.linkedin.com/in/simonparkin1

One of the continuing challenges facing the Recruitment function is moving from the traditional, reactive and primarily transactional focus to a proactive and enhanced recruitment model.

Think about when you sit down with your hiring leaders to scope a new open position and the role details. When you ask the hiring leaders for a proposed start date for a new hire, how many of them responded with “ASAP” or “yesterday”? How many of your hiring leaders complain about the time it takes to recruit talent externally? And how many of us recruiters continue to get frustrated with these unrealistic pressures from hiring leaders? We know that for the most part, top external talent just doesn’t fall into our laps.

Effective sourcing takes time especially for tougher and more specialized positions to fill.

Over the past few years, I have been working with clients to build and develop effective proactive pipelines of top external talent. Building this type of pipeline isn’t for the light-hearted; it takes time and effort and requires planning, proper resourcing, as well as a skilled recruiter. The planning and the resourcing are the keys to success – proactive pipelining cannot be successfully implemented without the appropriate amount of time devoted to this initiative by a skilled sourcer and recruiter.

The return on investment of proactive pipelining is more than worth the effort. I have witnessed first hand the enhanced quality of hire via this proactive channel as time is no longer the recruiter’s enemy. Beyond quality of hire, the average time to fill a position is reduced by on average 10-12 days as the sourcing of the top external talent has already been completed prior to the position becoming open.

So how do you get started with building these proactive pipelines of external talent? I look at it as a simple 5 step process:

1 – Plan

2 – Identify

3 – Build

4 – Manage

5 – Execute

1 – Plan

By far the most important step of this process is the planning. Within the planning stage you need to determine what position or positions you plan on building these pipelines for. I would recommend selecting only a few positions, those you and your business deem “critical” to your organization’s success and bottom line either now or within the next year. Determining what positions are “critical” is a difficult task. If you ask any hiring leader they will say that all of their open positions are “critical”. This will force you to walk a political tight rope to prioritize “criticalness”. You should work with the top-level business leaders to determine which positions they think are “critical”. Once you have your critical position(s) identified, you need to invest your time into understanding all about the position and why it would be attractive to potential candidates. Remember, as it is proactive, you are recruiting for a position that isn’t currently open. Knowing all the features and the upside of the position will allow you to effectively sell the potential opportunity to the top talent.

2 – Identify

Once the planning is complete it is time to identify the top external talent in the market. This is where your skills as a top recruiter will come into play and requires you to be at the top of your game. I always go by the rule that the majority of the top talent in the external market is passive and not actively searching for a new opportunity. Your typical transactional and reactive recruitment sourcing channels won’t effectively work, so don’t count on simply posting the position to job boards as a solution to attract top talent. Be aggressive. Use your
networks and referrals to determine who is at the top of their field within the market. Who is the top talent at your competition, or within a recognized leading top talent organization within your geographic area? Get out of the office and do some true recruiting to identify those resources outside your organization that will bring value and success to your company.

3 – Build

This is when you worry about getting them interested and excited about your organization. You have identified the individuals you think are the best of the best for the skill set you are
looking for. Now it is time to determine the ideal approach to contact and sell to this talent in order to effectively build your proactive pipeline. Again, this is where a recruiter must be a “salesperson” and effectively sell the talent on the organization and the opportunities potentially coming in the future. You must be honest and set expectations that you are recruiting proactively for future opportunities and they have been identified to you as top talent within the market. Don’t be too aggressive with the candidate and always ask if it is alright to keep in touch within an agreed upon timeframe. Also use this opportunity to network further and ask for referrals for other positions you are recruiting for. Be careful to ensure the communication with these candidates is very positive and is a “win-win” for both the candidate and you as the recruiter.

4 – Manage

By “Manage”, I mean, effectively manage your pipelined candidates. You need to ensure you nurture and speak with your pipelined candidates on a regular basis as was established and agreed upon when you first spoke with the candidates. If possible use technology to effectively document and track your pipeline – this is where a CRM tool could be effectively
used by recruiters similar to the way salespeople use this tool for building and managing sales pipelines.

Steps 2, 3 and 4 are ongoing. You should always be on the lookout for new top talent externally and ensure you are effectively building and managing your pipelines. Again, this is an investment and will pay off when your organization most needs it to.

5 – Execute

Step 5 is sometimes forgotten and it is simply to execute once one of your critical positions becomes open. Your sourcing is hopefully already complete and now when your hiring leaders answer your “when would you like the person to start” with “ASAP” you can pull out a slate of pre-sourced and qualified top external talent and sit back and relax………ok, maybe not relax but you will be feeling very good about your efforts as will your business leaders.

And of course, you need to continually monitor the success of your proactive pipelining efforts – how are you going to show your business leaders the ROI of your efforts?

Obviously there are many more details within each of these 5 steps to effectively build proactive pipelines of external talent and I hope this high level description
provides insight into how to further add value to your organization’s hunt for key talent.

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Simon Parkin is the Practice Leader for Recruitment and Talent Management at The Talent Company – www.thetalent.co     Simon is recognized as a global thought leader in the acquisition and management of top talent and has successfully transformed the Talent function for organizations of all sizes. Simon works closely with clients to build, develop and innovate their Recruitment, Talent and HR functions. He is a former global leader of Recruitment and Talent for a Fortune 100 company. Simon is a featured speaker at a number of HR and Recruitment conferences across North America and an author of many acclaimed articles on innovative Recruitment, Talent and HR trends and best practices.  Simon’s full profile can be found at http://ca.linkedin.com/in/simonparkin1