This week in HR, I am focusing on Recruiting, particularly the strategies people use to source candidates. There is so much talk about the “Great Resignation” or the enormity of open jobs and the availability of talent (AKA unemployment rate). There is universal anxiety about talent acquisition and retention. Employers can’t singlehandedly change the fact that the government incentivized abstaining from work at home for over a year with additional unemployment insurance funds, they can’t assuage worker apprehensions about COVID, employers don’t even know where many of their workers are, and they can’t predict the end of the pandemic. These uncertainties lead me to think about what employers can control and how I can help them maintain the flow of business.
Given the talent anxieties posed above, I think talent acquisition is a good place to start. I used to be a high-volume recruiter in legal services, and I recruited attorneys and data analysts, engineers, and project managers all over the world. One thing I know that I know is, if you can’t source talent, you can’t recruit, vet, and hire them.
Question: Do people even apply to your open roles? If your recruiters are saying, “We posted the role, but no one good is applying,” there are a few possibilities:
For problems that you may not be able to fix immediately or ever, like low pay, take a hard look at your employer brand, this is the value you give your employees and customers, but it’s also how your message about your employer/employee value exchange that transcends dimensions of wages. Reassess roles on an annual or biannual basis to continuously recalibrate the skills you need versus the skills you ask for on Job Descriptions. Consider alternative working situations, whether you go where the talent are through moving your business operations to markets where talent congregate or allowing remote work for hard-to-fill roles (with a very close look at how you plan to maintain engagement through culture for remote workers and office workers) for a problem related to the availability of talent in your targeted fill market.
The point is you have to get creative. As someone who worked almost entirely from home for the majority of my professional career, I know it can be challenging on all sides. Synergy, sometimes, is hard to achieve when connecting across global time zones is challenging. Having remote workers is more than safe, it can be a competitive advantage for your business if you find the right talent. But you must know what your need is so your recruiting efforts are fruitful and produce long-term results. Sourcing to the right parameters is the only real way your talent acquisition will add value to your organization.
We have to start looking at talent sourcing/talent acquisition as not something that happens accidentally or only as needed, reactively. Talent acquisition will always be haphazard and fatalistic if it is not part of a larger business strategy that includes regular workforce planning. Sourcing talent, when you don’t have a clear understanding of why you need to fill certain roles is inherently reactive (whether skills-related, pursuant to product development and evolution, or succession planning / backfilling)…it all can be so much more enlightened and proactive when you have an intentional plan about where you are taking your business, where your workforce needs to be not just today, but tomorrow.