A recent study by PWC found that 63% of CEOs worry that the availability of key skills will undermine their strategies and plans for growth and 93% of CEOs recognize the need to change their strategy for attracting and retaining talent.
Talent Acquisition leaders have been asking for a greater level of respect and understanding from the business in terms of the Recruitment function over the past number of years. More and more studies are finally showing the changing attitudes around the importance of the Recruitment function to an organization’s success.
Unfortunately the realities at most organizations are that their Recruitment function is:
- Not appropriately funded based on the business expectations of the function;
- Inadequately championed at the senior and executive levels of an organization;
- Treated as a transactional, order taking and an administrative process.
There are significant opportunities for HR and Talent Acquisition leaders at every organization to take advantage of the current climate within the business on Recruitment.
Here are my recommended top 5 actions you can do to improve Recruitment at your organization:
5) Focusing on Your Recruitment Strategy – It all starts with a plan. Most organizations currently don’t have a Recruitment strategy in place. The role and expectations of Recruitment continue to evolve but the top 2 challenges of every Recruitment function remain the same:
- Capacity
- Effectiveness
It’s tough to meet the growing expectations of the function when you don’t have the plan, the resources or the budget to succeed. The Talent Acquisition leader needs to take this opportunity to re-contract with the business on their expectations and present them with options on how to enhance the function. Your strategy must be realistic or the function will continue to lose credibility. Don’t try and boil the ocean and place too many stretch goals in your strategy. Your Recruitment strategy needs to come directly from the business, workforce and talent plan. Focus on what is most important for the business rather than trying to cover everything. Recruitment must be an organizational focus and priority – not just an HR one!
4) Targeting Your Talent Sourcing – At the end of the day, the success of Recruitment is judged solely on finding and hiring the right talent for your organization. Don’t be too focused on other outcomes – there is only one outcome that matters in Recruitment, the hire!
With this in mind, I am always shocked with the number of Recruitment functions not focused more on sourcing talent. There are so many organizations simply waiting for talent to come to them through a post and pray sourcing strategy. With so much importance on hiring the right talent for your organization, why are you waiting for talent to come to you and hoping the right person sees your posting. Don’t leave your candidate sourcing approach to chance, change the sourcing mindset of your organization and target the right candidates from the start.
The first thing to do to enhance your talent sourcing is to ensure you are getting the most out of the sourcing tools you are already paying for. Organizations continue to spend a significant amount of money with LinkedIn yet don’t leverage the platform for everything it can do.
The second thing to do is setup dedicated resources focused on finding the right candidates. The best-in-class Recruitment teams have integrated a dedicated candidate research and sourcing approach into their Recruitment practices. There are many talent research and sourcing options to look at to compliment your Recruitment team including utilizing an outsourced approach to targeted research.
Leverage your current top performers within your organization and build a “How can I recruit you again” profile. Understand what makes them a top performer and why they are so good in their roles within your organization’s culture. Leverage this data along with understanding how they would approach looking for a new opportunity thinking of how you can find more candidates like him/her.
Never wait for the right talent to come to you – it is too important to the success of your organization to rely on chance with Recruitment.
3) Developing Your Hiring Managers – Every organization has a handful of great hiring managers with whom the Talent Acquisition team always enjoys working with. These are the hiring managers who recognize the importance and impact great talent has on the success of an organization. Unfortunately the majority of Hiring Managers are a challenge at every organization. From their unrealistic expectations on hiring skills and experience for their open roles, to the organizations’ lack of confidence in their Hiring Managers’ abilities to appropriately interview, assess and select the best candidates for their roles, Hiring Managers are often doing more damage to the hiring process than good.
A few realities exist:
- Most Hiring Managers might only recruit and interview talent once or twice a year and aren’t naturally comfortable or confident in conducting interviews.
- Candidates have access to more tools and training on interviewing than ever before allowing them to be more skilled and better prepared. Websites such as Glassdoor even provide candidates access to the interview questions your organization is most likely to ask them.
- All candidates will exaggerate their skills, experience and accomplishments on their resume and in an interview – how confident are you in your Hiring Managers’ ability to see through the candidate “fluff”.
- The majority of Hiring Managers interview candidates solely for the role they have open today and rarely look at the candidates’ long term potential and organizational fit.
- The goal for every organization should be to develop all of their Hiring Managers to be “great” at conducting interviews and selecting the right candidates.
Best-in-class organizations recognize the importance of investing in their Hiring Managers capabilities through ongoing recruitment and interviewing education, tools and training programs. These organizations use a number of platforms to engage their Hiring Managers to become more effective:
- Talent Scouts – sourcing talent throughout their networks.
- Talent Ambassadors – promoting a positive candidate experience.
- Talent Assessor – acting as a peer interviewer to select the right talent for their organization.
Recruiters also play a key role as a coach and advisor ensuring the Hiring Managers are properly prepared and equipped to conduct their interviews. Finally, the most progressive organizations have integrated recruitment and hiring into their core leadership accountabilities ensuring that talent acquisition is an organizational focus and not just an HR priority.
Stay tuned for the 2nd part of this article revealing my top 2 recommended actions you can do to improve Recruitment at your organization which will be released next week.
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Simon Parkin is the Practice Leader for Recruitment, Talent and HR Solutions at The Talent Company – www.thetalent.co Simon is recognized as a global thought leader in the acquisition and management of 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
For more information on The Talent Company please visit us at www.thetalent.co
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