Recruiting professionals need to change their approach toward how they view the function. A recruiter’s new role is that of a brand manager. Effectiveness of recruiting depends on how an employer is able to project a positive brand image to the target market. The People Matters Talent Acquisition Conclave 2014 brought together visionaries and recruiting leaders from several large organisations and shared three key lessons.

“Experience is the brand”

Rajdeep Endow, Managing Director, Sapient India says that a recruiter needs to continuously think about how to make a candidate experience exciting and positive. This needs to start from the point where a candidate has submitted an application until the point where they are offered a position or rejected. This requires a deep understanding of the several touch points on several mediums- electronic and physical.

“Focus more on passive candidate sourcing”

Naveen Narayanan, Talent Acquisition Head at HCL says that recruiters always face time and cost challenges. They, therefore, take the easy route and source candidates from the active pool. But in order to really make business impact, the real metric is “effectiveness.” As a result, recruiters should shift their focus from the active to the passive talent pool. LinkedIn’s research indicates that while 4 out of 5 candidates are passive, two-thirds of them are open to discussing suitable opportunities. It is in this pool that the recruiter need to make maximum impact.

“Define the purpose of the organisation’s talent brand”

Smriti Handa, Talent Acquisition Head at Airtel says that having a clear definition an employer brand gives a sense of purpose to the recruiter. An employer brand is simply the number of quality talent that wants to join an organisation. For an organisation which has a well-established consumer brand, it is of primary importance for the recruiting function to leverage its existing brand power to create a strong talent brand.

Lastly, recruiters need to shed traditional processes and mind sets in order to become effective brand managers. Peter Drucker famously quoted, “If you want to do something new, stop doing something old.”