Recruitment/Talent Acquisition
Jul 15, 2015
Before qualifying as an HR specialist I began corporate life in IT recruitment consultancy. Some of you may be thinking, “how can a nice person like me confess to being in sales”. Well I fell into it and because of my nature to help and support people, it came quite natural. I believe you don’t have to be an aggressive sales person to make it, its about knowing your sales environment and having great customer service skills. Anyway, not to go off point. I have been involved with recruitment for 20 years and this has been my specialist skill. I of course come with many other skills which I will not go into now but to say that recruitment has changed in 20 years is an understatement. When I started out, rules around recruitment were limited. No one cared very much about diversity, hours of work, advertising guidelines etc. Organisations were free to do what they wanted without issue and staff treated unfairly in some cases. Now organisations invest more time in recruitment and take time to assess skills more intently. Some members are trained in this area and external consultants such as myself are used to support their hiring process.
There are a plethora of systems and processes, out their to assist in recruitment, ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems), Psychometric Testing, Assessment Centres, Personality Testing such as Myers Briggs. With all of these things and more at our finger tips, why are some organisations still finding it hard to recruit the right people. It has been my observation over the years that managers’ are not given the right tools to interviewing effectively. Because they are managers’ doesn’t mean they know how to interview. Have they checked their unconscious bias at the door before they enter the interview room? Have they read the CV? have they accepted the support of HR? of course this is not the only reason, there are many more. Recruitment/Talent Acquisition isn’t an exact science, and even if we use all the tools noted above there is no guarantee you will have the right system. Having the right people /person driving your process is key. Ensure company values are built in to the process, be clear about the type of individual you want before advertising, there are so many companies out there who get it wrong and end up wasting time in the process. What have your experiences been and what tips would you give an organisation?