WHAT’S THE LATEST IN
CANADIAN RECRUITMENT?
strategy
As conference chair, each fall I
look forward to bringing HR,
recruitment and talent professionals
across Canada under
one roof to gain insight on innovative
recruitment practices and tools from
Canada’s top employers at the annual Recruitment
Innovation Summit. The industry
has embraced the Summit as a prime
opportunity to share best practices, learn
new techniques to improve their quality of
hire and learn about the best technologies
for sourcing candidates.
One of my favourite things about the
conference is being part of some of the
great conversations I have with recruitment
leaders and practitioners about the
market, the trends and the candidates.
By Richard Matthews, Founder,
Granite Consulting
RECENT AND DEVELOPING TALENT ACQUISITION TRENDS
This year in particular, I really wanted
to take the time to hear what people are
saying, hearing and fearing about talent
acquisition. Below are a few key findings
that I took away from my conversations:
1. Social media, like job boards beforehand,
are not the “silver bullet”
in recruiting. Yes, we have found
new, improved and quicker ways to
“connect,” but recruiters still need to
engage, screen, profile and build trust
bridges between the candidate, the recruiter
and the organization. If you’re
one of those recruiters who blasts
their message out to every one of your
5,000 contacts and waits to see what
happens next, your luck is going to
run out. Sooner or later, you will be
asked to explain how you recruit top
talent and to elaborate on why you do
this better or differently than the rest;
so, you better start thinking about
that. To the talent acquisition leaders
out there, there is no way that your
team does this and gets top
talent, right?
2. Affordable recruitment
technology is available.
Organizations are getting
smarter, more strategic
(process and metrics) and
want to maximize their
recruiters’ time, energy
and efforts. Automation
allows organizations
to focus on real recruiting and
not the administrative tasks that
often slow things down. As you go
down this path, beware that your “automation”
does not impact or tamper
with brand, culture and the candidate
experience.
3. Candidate experience is hotter than
ever. Social media has significantly increased
the various ways in which we
connect with people and invite them
to take a look at “who we are”. There
are only a few organizations that are
tying their outbound messaging to
their inbound experience. There is a
very powerful opportunity here for
organizations to create a strong and
noticeable brand, build talent pools
and identify talent scouts, potential
customers or goodwill ambassadors.
Organizations need to remember
that it only takes one bad experience,
by one candidate who tells a few people,
to damage your brand.
4. Where is all the great recruitment
talent? Simple. 80 per cent of them
are working their butts off and delivering
great results to their current
employer. However, there is another
20 per cent who are actively engaged
in a search, but there are a ton of midlow
level recruiters clogging up your
systems, slowing down your process
and making you ask the question,
“Where are the good ones?” Finding
talent for your team requires effort,
dedication, time and commitment.
Illustration by Alex Slobodkin/Photos.com
HRPATODAY.CA ❚ JANUARY 2014 ❚ 45