Just like a soccer team works hard to maintain its formation and presses ahead with full force, a talent acquisition team must go all out these days to have a chance at winning – when competing for top talent.
In Ruchi Dubey’s article, she mentioned several challenges and global phenomenon that are simultaneously happening across companies and nations. Recruiters must now face a very active and mobile talent pool along with emerging markets, fierce business competition, technological advances, and demographic changes.
And if that wasn’t enough, employers must also look at issues regarding lack of relevant skills, retention and workplace satisfaction. If last year was a moment of revelation on the changing business and technology world, today’s talent acquisition team needs to work harder to win the very best of global talents.
A talent acquisition team must adapt quickly to a globally competitive and fast paced business environment to be successful in hiring in the 21st century. Recruiters and hiring managers must now transform into a dynamic team of individuals that are attuned to the changes around them.
Everyone must focus on the goals that are in line with the organization’s long term objectives instead of focusing on hitting individual targets. This can bring about a team ‘hiring’ culture which is a good bet against the rapid changes in way companies and individuals engage. When goals are eventually achieved, incentives and rewards play a great role in keeping top performers motivated. Such high-performing contributors can be moved to leadership roles where they can be given opportunities to share best practices and help in further improving the talent sourcing and recruitment cycle.
Any talent acquisition team that still sifts through stacks of paperwork or email folders is clearly wasting time, energy and resources. As a result, hiring goals might never be achieved. As a talent acquisition team leader, don’t be afraid to take risks and introduce newer ways of addressing traditional problems. There is an urgent need for companies to revamp existing hiring processes and one of the best ways is to do this is by acquiring recruiting software and technology that has been built for this era.
Teams must equip themselves with and adapt to technologically advanced hiring capabilities. This includes modern applicant tracking systems and recruitment management software that help with the processing of large amounts of applicant data while helping teams work smarter and faster. The use of a cloud-based platform can make any team become more efficient in reaching its targets and enabling team members to work collaboratively at any time from wherever they are, using any mobile device.
In addition to transforming old processes and using new technology, talent acquisition teams must also quickly adapt to newer ways of thinking about hiring, during this time of change and tough competition. A talent acquisition team that resists change and still follows outdated processes is sure to have a hard time in making any recruitment effort work at all.
A special report from BLR publications on the story of Boston College Dining Services is a great example of how creativity in hiring (plus a little out-of-the-box mindset) can work for an organization. Serving 22,000 meals a day, the BC Dining Services has over 1000 employees (both part time and full time) with only 2-3 vacancies on average. Now that’s an impressive recruitment and retention feat. How did they do it? They tapped a network for culinary students from nearby local schools and colleges, invited them for talks on food and other topics such as resume building. This group was a great pool to source as job applicants. As a result, they hired many of them to work for BC Dining Services. She also worked with community centers and hired retirees on part time basis. The good combination of old retirees teaching and training young workers has worked for this institution ever since.
Start by setting up regular team meetings with the sole purpose of challenging the team to come up with really creative ways to hire the best people. Any talent acquisition team that wants to succeed must never be afraid to test new ideas.
Companies that fail to act and are unable to equip their teams with the right recruitment management capabilities and skills will find it very hard to hire effectively in this disruptive and changing business landscape. Now more than ever, the spotlight is beamed at recruiting, which has become one of the most important tasks within an organization. Recruiting teams must therefore get their act together quickly or their organizations risk to incur high costs due to poor recruiting practices.
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Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash