A few weeks ago, Naomi Hanley and I, both Directors @ Charterhouse were delighted to host a virtual event for Talent Acquisitions Professionals. Our aim was to connect Talent Professionals and discuss what we see as some pressure points and how the future of talent could change for the better.

We were thrilled and honoured to have 4 guest Talent Acquisition Leaders, Tara Nguyen @ Origin, Tammany Pyle @ PMI, Gemma Saunders @ Workplace Edit, and Sarah Lundgren @ Lend Lease who shared some of their experiences and insights, huge thank you and grateful we had the opportunity to have such great leaders at our event.

I wanted to take this opportunity to share some key messages from our event, as there never has been a time like now to really network and share our knowledge and insights with the wider community.

The role of recruiting is evolving. 

Recruitment teams will need to develop new skills, master new metrics, and adopt new tools. The role will take on a more visible, strategic one within businesses.

The world that we are in is constantly evolving and changing at such a pace, as business models, markets and goals are rapidly changing. Recruitment teams need to adapt and pivot quickly. You will have to get used to changing your hiring plans, keeping up with technologies, showing the business the impact and how teams are adding value more than recruitment.

One way is to stay agile, instead of hiring with one business line, hone in on general recruiting skills, with a focus on not just executing a hiring plan, but design a hiring plan.   Strategic thinking, problem solving and general business acumen with be key as the ins and outs of recruiting.

Data is such a powerful tool, especially around tracking systems. While time to hire is useful for setting expectations, it does not tell you anything about the business impact. Have a system that automatically calculates stats like time to hire, however recruiters will need to spend more time on calculating more strategic, impactful metrics to advise leaders.

Engaging passive talent, analysing talent data, and advising business leaders will be key for recruiters. You will need to leverage date-driven insights to drive decisions. 

Better tools and technology will be key to boosting your talent team’s performance.

Attracting diverse talent is essential, this gives you flexibility to hire from a much larger candidate pool. 

Diversity does not happen by hiring a mix of race, gender, and culture, it requires a more holistic approach to talent management that focuses on agility. Having a strong recruiting strategy for diversity is sure a way to improve your team’s performance and drive innovation.

Sit down with your hiring managers and identify what it is that they want to achieve. Do they want to hire more women into technical roles? Gather the exact metrics around how many women you currently employ in those roles and set a goal of how much you want that to increase by. Set attainable goals for diverse hires this helps align the mission, both the recruiting team and the hiring manager should understand these goals. 

Create access to data and understanding these goals: How many diverse candidates are in the process? How many progressed to final interviews? By having access to this data, it creates a sense of transparent, teamwork and accountability.

We recognise the benefits of building a strong employer brand to attract and retain the best people.  Employer branding is constantly evolving. The Employer Value Proposition is still not pervasive at the organisational level.  Activate your EVP internally more strategically, not only will this enhance and improve engagement, but you will also remind your people the benefits and satisfaction they gain from working with your organisation. 

A team member may refer other great people to apply for future vacancies.  Use social media for employer branding, it can be an authentic, differentiated, attractive and consistent employer brand empowers your organisation to shape candidate perceptions.

The future of employer branding is taking a holistic approach to creating an engaging employee experience across every stage of the employee journey.  

Putting a premium on some of these key areas and enhancing different skills this will involve culture change as recruiters expand their traditional roles.

Thank you to our clients who attended the event, we look forward to connecting with our next one soon to come.

Kerry Saes, Director - Charterhouse Partnership