It occurs to me that talent acquisition strategies have
shifted dramatically with the growing popularity of social media. Mature organizations no longer just look at
recruiting, hiring and onboarding as individual functions, but as a
process. Best-in-class organizations
integrate the entire pre- and post- hire processes and onboarding in ways that
engage the candidate and lead to successful outcomes.
End to end, holistic onboarding practices that involve the
candidate in meaningful ways result in higher retention rates, increased
numbers of qualified internal candidates being placed, and year-over-year
improvement in hiring manager satisfaction.
As organizations calibrate and
mature their processes, they have validated data upon which to link talent
acquisition initiatives with organizational profitability (mainly cost control
and lower time-to-fill). In addition,
social media can be leveraged to build a community of talent; candidates who
are a better organizational fit self-select “in” to the community.
A September, 2012 study conducted by Madeline Laurano of the
Aberdeen Group indicated that, for companies to achieve Best-in-Class
performance in Talent Acquisition, they must:
·
Strengthen employer branding initiatives through
a positive candidate experience,
·
Identify critical roles in the organization and
concentrate on filling those roles with quality hires, and
·
Invest in innovative technology such as social
media platforms, candidate relationship management and video tools.
I recently heard a story of an internal candidate who was
promoted. While the promotion was a good
thing, the story was less than stellar.
A job had been posted for months, internally, and this candidate was not
identified although he’d been on a “people to watch” list and had earned both “exceeds
expectations” and “distinguished” performance ratings previously. This
candidate used an internal search tool and found a job for which he was a 90%
positive match --- yet no recruiter had identified him. How often is that same scenario repeated in
company after company? Talent
Acquisition Partners must continuously build and cultivate relationships with
top talent inside and outside the organization.
Talent Acquisition Partners only have insight into those high potential
candidates if their Talent Management and Executive Development partners share
data. According to trend data,
Best-in-Class organizations are 48% more likely than Industry Average or
Laggard companies to prepare for future business requirements in two critical
areas: talent pipelines and workforce
planning. Talent Acquisition strategies
cannot be successful without HR understanding the interdependencies of these
functions and activities.
Data would suggest that organizations who execute on these
strategic activities are also able to achieve better business results such as
customer retention and customer satisfaction.
You see, Centers of Excellence, Profit Centers and Business Units impact
one another in ways we may not have thought.
For example, a strong brand can help drive quality talent to an
organization by defining and translating the company’s image, organizational
culture, and reputation. It can also be
the foundation of a positive candidate experience. Best-in-Class organizations have a clearly
defined employer branding strategy that aligns with marketing and communication
initiatives. If your organization lacks
such a strategy, look to your Chief Human Resources Officer to explain “why not”.
On the social media side, about half of all organizations
are using social media to simply broadcast jobs to candidates. Where organizations are leaving money on the
table, so to speak, is when they fail to engage candidates in regular,
meaningful interaction. Does your
organization have a social media tool that allows you to post openings on your personal
social media sites, thereby reaching a broader audience for referrals? Would you find that valuable?
Traditional organizations still measure cost-per-hire and
time-to-fill; they probably always will.
However, Best-in-Class organizations cited “Quality of Hire” as the most
critical HR metric in place today. Quality
of Hire metrics ensures that the sourcer / recruiter isn’t just looking for
warm bodies to fill openings. Quality of
Hire metrics holds managers and Human Resources Business Partners accountable for
successful onboarding and makes them become more involved in the process.
Think about your organization and what a maturity continuum
might look like. Phase I might be to
assess the process, the players and tools available aligned against a Talent
Acquisition or HR strategy. Phase II
might be to bring some additional structure to the process and to train /
educate the various partners (including hiring managers) about the
process. Phase III could include
becoming more involved in the organization’s overall talent processes,
including a strengthened partnership with Talent Management to identify talent
pools for hard-to-fill or “critical roles” identified during succession
planning or talent review discussions. A
fourth and final phase might involve strategic alignment with business
processes and decisions, so that Talent Acquisition has a seat at the table to
steer strategic discussions, rather than being on the backend of the process,
taking orders.
