5 Learnings from Sourcing Social Talent 2017 Auckland

If you haven’t yet gotten your ticket to Sourcing Social Talent 2017, you will be sorely missing out, judging from what was seen and heard during the Auckland leg of the conference series yesterday.
Recruiters and Talent Leaders from Auckland spent the day crowd sourcing, brainstorming and learning from each other to equip themselves with the latest knowledge on how they can source and engage diverse talent. Keynote speakers, Carmen Hudson of Amazon & Microsoft fame, and SourceCon editor Shannon Pritchett, wowed the audience with their enthusiasm and in depth analysis of the current sourcing trends. They also offered useful tips on how a modern recruiter can succeed in today’s highly connected and diverse world.
Feeling left out already? Don’t worry, the Melbourne and Sydney legs of the conference series are coming up so there’re still opportunities to catch up! Just to provide you a sense what to expect and to whet your appetites further, here’s a very brief summary of some of the key lessons from the event in Auckland:

 “Never do diversity simply because others are doing it.” – Carmen Hudson

Words of wisdom from Carmen Hudson. Diversity is the buzzword everywhere these days but is your organisation ready for it? Are you up to the challenge? Before you jump headlong into this, have an honest conversation with your company’s senior executives so that you can avoid unrealistic expectations and promises.

 “Better diversity leads to better innovation.” – Carrie O’Meara-Malcolm & Kirsty Towers

Carrie O’Meara-Malcolm and Kirsty Towers from the Xero Talent team shared their organisation’s journey towards hiring for diversity and offered many great learning points – including this one. Using a whole-of-company approach, the team created buy in from senior executives and developed a comprehensive talent management strategy that ensured that they not only attract diverse talent but also retain them.

 “If you can teach your team anything, teach them empathy.” – Troy Hammond

Troy Hammond, in his straight talking no nonsense style, shared with the audience this thought-provoking idea on how empathy is key to inclusion and diversity. If recruiters could just take a step back to understand and share the feelings of another, the chances of hiring great diverse talent increases manifold. Smart thinking!

 “One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to hiring for diversity.” – Carmen Hudson

You are sorely mistaken if you think that you can use the same sourcing strategies to hire diverse talent. Carmen Hudson reminds our audience that they cannot be lazy if they want to attract high quality, diverse talent simply because they are not your usual candidates and they cannot be found at your favourite haunts. Also, hiring for diversity often times requires high levels of communications with the senior executives and usually involves testing water and a lot of push backs. If you are lazy, you can forget about being successful.

“If you behave like a robot, you will be replaced by one.” – Shannon Pritchett

Famous last words from Shannon Pritchett during the 2015 Sourcing Social Talent conference series that rings true till this day. Message personalisation is key to helping you stand out from your competition and more importantly, key to surviving a world that’s being taken over by artificial intelligence and chat bots. Using standard pick up lines such as “Hi there, I came across your profile on LinkedIn…” just doesn’t cut it anymore and recruiters and Talent leaders need to put in more effort in order to cut through the clutter and attract the candidate’s attention.
So, there you go, some valuable lessons gleaned from Sourcing Social Talent Auckland. More to follow next week, as we bring the event across to Melbourne and Sydney so do look out for it.

Very limited tickets left for the Melbourne and Sydney legs of the conference series so you have to hurry and make your reservations. Click on the banner below for more information: