2018, the year of acquiring the best talent will once again be our primary focus.
As always, talent acquisition will be on the hot seat everywhere.
Locate, identify, qualify, engage and secure the top performers from the competition and do it faster than ever before.
Here to save the day once again, technology. Let me repeat it “T-E-C-H-N-O-L-O-G-Y” (can you hear titanium clanking from the robots clapping and cheering?).
The evolution of tools and resources driven by “technology” has revolutionised the way we’ve recruited over the past 20 years. These advances have given ALL recruiters the competitive advantage.
From boolean searches, artificial intelligence, databases, etc. (screech, do you hear the brakes?).
Um, wait a second, back up a moment! How do these tools give me the competitive advantage if the recruiter at X Y Z company is using the same tools? Mainly the same search tools, social media presence, and employer branding? Ugh.
[Tweet “If #recruiting tools level the playing field, what must #recruiters do to pull ahead?”]
We’ve been told our life was going to get easier. So easy that eventually, robots will be brought in to do our job and recruiters will be found on the street corners telling stories about back in the day, “when I used a phone book to”
It costs companies millions of dollars each year for unfilled jobs, and these business leaders are desperate for world-class talent who will impact their organisation positively.
As technology is making recruiters lives easier; technology is creating a wedge between the candidate and recruiter. It’s a huge problem, and ultimately, we are to blame.
Technology is driving candidates further into their own “witness protection program.” Why? Because they are:
Candidates are not harder to find; they are harder to engage. Candidates are being bombarded with useless information. Candidates are being stalked about opportunities irrelevant to their career path and Candidates are tired… tired of the robots (humans or machines) wasting their time.
The art of recruiting has been diminished over the years. Recruiters are being assigned more requisitions than ever, and sometimes with unrealistic expectations. New recruiters come into the profession thinking it’s all about the technology, metrics and creating pretty reports. They forget or maybe have not been taught some of the basic principles of recruiting, which is vital for surviving in the recruiting world.
[Tweet “All the #automation in the world is useless if you don’t follow through with #human #interaction”]
All the candidate lists in the world created by search tools are meaningless unless you get a call back. When a candidate decides to respond to your request for a conversation, it’s our job as a recruiter to build the “trust” through personal connections.
We do this by, building rapport, developing relationships and providing an emotional connection while engaging them. These are critical when you are talking to someone about making a life change, as switching jobs is a life-changing event, we need to recognise this and treat it as such when speaking with our candidates.
So, as we begin our journey in the new year, let’s make 2018 the year we form an alliance by bringing robots and people together once and for all so that we can win the war on engaging talent!
Image: From Source
This article first appeared on SourceCon on the 11th of January, 2018
Talent Acquisition (TA) is on the cusp of a new wave of innovation and the 12th Australasian Talent Conference will be shining the light on it – say hi to Artificial Intelligence (A.I.). Find out more.