Six Critical To-Do's on Talent Acquisition Leaders' Plates

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 Over the next two years, leaders of talent acquisition teams are going to have their hands full.  As if their hands aren't full now, by the way.  But the game is going to get more complex for a variety of reasons and, if leaders and their teams aren't prepared, it's going to be an avalanche of high visibility problems.  As TA leaders (and their bosses) plan their approach, here are six important to-do's:

1.  Upskill the team.  There will no longer be room on TA teams for recruiters who aren't adept at - and willing to - source passive talent, cold-call prospects, conduct challenging, effective interviews, influence hiring managers, negotiate and close the sale, etc. 

2.  Engage hiring managers more meaningfully in the process.  Enlist their help to fill jobs through their own networks of specialized talent.  If they don't have networks they can share now (e.g., a LinkedIn profile with lots of connects), then TA has to influence them to start building them.

3.  Honestly and objectively determine if your current recruiting approach and structure is going to deliver the results you need.  Consider two different recruiting approaches — and perhaps two entirely different TA teams — structured to fill traditional jobs which garner many applicants, versus those that are unique, hard-to-fill and require the sourcing of passive candidates.

4.  Place greater emphasis on the use of objective, predictive selection assessments, since we all know interviews are about as predictive as drawing names out of a hat.  And like it or not, early attrition (for any reason) is a reflection on the quality of the TA group's efforts.

5.  Improve your processes for managing internal talent.  For three reasons, this is key:  1) Tenure among employees in general - particularly younger ones, will become shorter as they become frustrated more quickly about mobility.  Which means employees will seek other jobs within the organization more often.  2)  The way in which talent is identified internally by Talent Management teams (think slates of candidates for key roles) will have to become more integrated with the TA process for sourcing external talent, and 3) employees will insist on receiving more timely and informative reasons as to why they weren't chosen for roles to which they applied.

6.  Create a rigorous management process for leading your TA team.  Leaders with larger, more dispersed teams — some of whom they’ve never met in person - are going to find it more difficult to set goals, assess performance and drive results.  But having a structured approach to communication, feedback loops, stakeholder input, measures and metrics, and performance management, will make this task easier.

In my book, it's not too hard to predict some aspects of the future state of talent acquisition. What is difficult, however, is figuring out how to manage these challenges.  Each requires a thoughtful, planful approach mapped out now - since delaying isn't going to help us avoid anything.

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The Intersection of Talent Acquisition and Talent Management

Talent Acquisition for Millennials