Talking Sourcing Social Talent 2015 (#SST15)

3 days, three events, two countries.
The Sourcing Social Talent (#SST15) conference hit the road during the last week, visiting Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland in a whirlwind tour across Australia and New Zealand and they were a great success.
The objective of #SST15 was to bring together the best international and local sourcing and social recruiting experts to share their everyday challenges, expertise, innovation and stories. Through this, we aim to impart useful knowledge and assist our delegates in becoming a little more innovative and collaborative in their roles as sourcers and social recruiters.
With Bill Boorman, Chris Hoyt and Shannon Pritchett leading the conversations and supported by our generous sponsors and speakers from Australia and New Zealand, the event provided powerful insights into today’s state of recruitment. Delegates also learnt about the different online tools that could help to facilitate their sourcing process and how to combine creative arts with data to find critical talent.
Many tough questions were asked and interesting opinions were exchanged in what was a hugely enriching and rewarding experience for all delegates. Here’s what I’d learnt from the three events:
 
[bctt tweet=”Martin Warren went on a whirlwind trip around OZ and NZ to talk #SST15″]
 

1. As with the theme of the conference – “Art meets Science”, sourcing has indeed become BOTH a Science and an Art

Science is using the data to create and execute a targeted sourcing approach, whereas Art is crafting compelling messages to engage your target audience. Recruiters today need to be part data scientist and part artist.
 

2. Innovation and collaboration is key

Keep experimenting and working with your colleagues to fine tune your recruitment strategies. As the saying goes – two heads are better than one. Also remember that it is OK to fail.
 

3. Speaker Shannon Pritchett said – “You don’t need to learn Boolean but you will need to understand it.”

If you want to be able to identify the needles in the haystack, then you need to know how to execute your search using Boolean to cut through all the noise quickly, so you can spend more time with the candidate.
 

4. The job ad is well and truly alive – but it’s only one part of the story

Doug Blue, Product Director from Seek, shared some great insights about the current landscape for the employment marketplace and how today’s media environment is changing previous conventions.
 

5. Which is more important – source of hire or experience of hire?

Great question posed by Chris Hoyt during his keynote. Candidates come from so many different sources these days, so does source of hire really matter anymore? Experience of hire is a much more meaningful metric for ALL stakeholders.
 

6. Candidate experience, candidate experience, candidate experience – I think you get where this is going!

Great discussions on why, as an industry, we need greater focus on the candidate experience. Statistics and stories were shared about the candidate experience and how we are disengaging many candidates. The one thing that resonated with me was how many of our candidates are customers as are their friends. They will share how good or bad their experience was.
 

7. The cost of candidate resentment vs. improving candidate experience

We often consider candidates good enough to be our customers but not good enough to be our employees, and treat them accordingly. But have you ever stopped to think what effect this can have to your company’s bottom line?
Candidates are human beings and we should never forget that! Elaine Orler ran a great breakout session on calculating the cost of candidate resentment where she also introduced The CandE Awards.
 

8. Digital disruption is everywhere

There are so many cool tools available online that can help simplify your daily work processes. The challenge for recruiters and HR, then, is in identifying the ones that can get the job done for you. We will let you figure that one out!
 

9. Shannon Pritchett said, “If you work like a robot, I will replace you with one!”

HR technologies are disrupting our industry and automation within the recruitment process, when used productively, will allow recruiters to focus more time with the candidate and create a better experience for ALL stakeholders.
However, do remember that nothing can replace the warmth of a human touch and HR technologies should be used as a means to complement your daily exchange with the candidates. If you allow technology take over the entire recruitment process, you are no different from a robot and you lose your value as a recruiter.
 

10. Is this the most exciting time for HR ever?

Sean Hall from LiveHire posed the question during the conference, “In this digital world of transformation as recruiters and HR professionals we can choose to be disrupted or disrupt ourselves. What will you do?”
A key point for all to ponder as we come to terms with how digital technologies have helped to change the way we live our lives. But one thing that came through loud and clear for me from #SST15 was that recruitment will never be the same.
 
[bctt tweet=”Martin Warren reckons these are the most exciting times for HR.”]
 
Visiting three cities in six days was a lot of fun, and I had a great time sharing great insights with the delegates, making new friends while enhancing existing ones.
In our own way as recruitment and HR professionals, we are charged with building the capability of organisations we work for and that, in itself, is a privilege and huge responsibility.
I sincerely hope that you had gotten as much out of Sourcing Social Talent 2015 as I had. Until next time, see you at #SST16.