Recruiting & Onboarding

Talent Acquisition: Shifting Expectations, New Challenges

Pritish GandhiDr.•

20 December 2017|

Updated on 6 March 2019

Here's how technology factors are changing the role and expectations of a talent acquisition professional

Business today is highly unpredictable with the VUCA environment. Organizations have to rethink their strategy and realign to ensure they remain relevant. In this fast changing landscape HR and other function leaders need to closely align with business to deliver results

Considering the increased focus on people capability and the asymmetric talent war in the market the role of Talent Acquisition has become critical to organizations. Over the years, the role of the talent acquisition function has changed considerably from a traditional number focussed inward function to a highly quality focused outward function.

Today, the expectation from this function is not only to understand the very specific business requirements in-depth but also step out in the world to identify the right fit through innovative thinking.

The role of technology in enabling innovative thinking, volume hiring and a supreme candidate experience is huge.

Here is a look at how technology can help the talent acquisition function make greater business impact.

Technological levers that can impact:

Right from the sourcing strategy to taking actual hiring decisions, TA needs to evaluate where the true need for technological interventions will work well for the business. Some of the upcoming areas where are huge opportunities include:

Going Mobile: The candidate pool today consists of digital natives. Naturally, mobile is emerging as a platform of choice for sourcing. 80% of job seekers expect to do part of their job search on a smart phone. TA is not only eyeing active job-seekers, but even using mobile channels such as a mobile--responsive website and mobile-based applications to scout for and attract the right talent.

Utilizing social media in the selection process: Recruiters are on the lookout for tech-savvy and contemporary sourcing and selection channels. Social media engagement can be used to communicate the EVP to potential candidates. Recruiters can use tools and scrutinize social media feeds of potential candidates to assess their personality. One lookout area that TA must be careful about is individual-data privacy laws and making sure not to override them.

Building a candidate-centric experience: TA is the fulcrum of the employee value proposition (EVP). Communicating the EVP through the right technology platforms is a must to create a great first impression. Communicating the employer brand effectively (29%) emerge as the no. 2 recruitment priority2. Gamification and an intuitive job portal are other TA means to enhance the candidate experience.

Measuring the business impact: All of the above needs to be continuously measured and assessed to check whether the TA strategy is on the right track. There is a dire need for TA professionals to move beyond HR metrics and think in terms of business KPIs. TA needs to outline the financial, non-financial metrics and qualitative inputs at both individual and team levels, and arrive at business impact such as productivity, potential, sales revenue etc. For this, data mining and data analytics is essential and organizations must embrace people analytics.

We thus see the role of TA specialists taking on a highly tech-centric flavour, thereby creating a talent-pull rather than a push strategy to attract top talent. The TA professionals of tomorrow will be brand evangelists, mastering the art and science of candidate engagement and relationship management.

How Organizations Can Ready to up the Game of your Talent Acquisition?

So what does this mean for organizations and talent acquisition professionals? Here are 3 steps that the talent acquisition function at every organization should focus on:

Aligning TA strategy to the business strategy:

With the technological advancements and business support, talent acquisition function needs to build a holistic view of enterprise wide hiring needs. This will enable aligning resources like people-process-technology effectively and deliver greater business impact. It will also help build functional expertise in the talent acquisition professional.

Become high-tech for high impact:

As discussed earlier, technology is set to transform the talent acquisition function and it is critical for practitioners to transform the recruiting process from transactional to more personalised and relationship-based by leveraging the power of technology. This means more customized sourcing strategies based on higher-value, transformational roles and building innovative ways of reaching out to both active and passive candidates.

Focusing on the continuous development of Talent Acquisition professionals:

Building the above foundations takes expertise and experience. One way for TA professionals to build these is to undertake professional talent acquisition certifications like Certified Talent Acquisition Professional by Aon Hewitt Learning Center that helps TA professionals gain a strategic perspective across the TA lifecycle and covers areas like TA strategizing, workforce planning, employer branding, sourcing, selection, TA analytics, and next generation TA. Only then can organizations expect to get the required top talent for both current needs and future needs.

As the technological, social and economic disruptions impact businesses significantly, it is high time that the talent acquisition function goes back to the drawing board and defines a game-plan that has business, technology and continuous development as the key pillars. If you are a talent acquisition professional, do share in the comments section on how your role is changing and what is it that you are focusing on in the coming year.

This article is curated by Rhucha Kulkarni

Sources:
1 Aon- Reimagining HR for 2025.
2 People Trends 2017

Author

Pritish GandhiDr.

Pooja Chitkara