{"id":768,"date":"2019-02-02T18:19:14","date_gmt":"2019-02-02T18:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/?p=768"},"modified":"2024-08-04T07:19:12","modified_gmt":"2024-08-04T07:19:12","slug":"reflections-from-past-year-in-talent-acquisition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/reflections-from-past-year-in-talent-acquisition\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections From Past Year In Talent Acquisition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>2018 was quite an interesting stretch year for me working deep in APAC talent acquisition (TA)\u00a0world, and I thought of putting down some reflections.\u00a0 Unlike my\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pulse\/another-yearquestions-reflect-tojo-eapen\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2015 reflection<\/a>, this\u00a0post focuses on\u00a0the core TA work mostly.<\/p>\n<p>So, here we go:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Talent acquisition is very much a team sport. To close a strong new hire, having a great\u00a0recruiter is just not sufficient. It is\u00a0equally important to have a highly engaged hiring manager, aligned interview panel, recruiter and coordinator\u00a0who work together\u00a0in synch.<\/li>\n<li>TA exists to deliver value for the business. When the focus\u00a0moves heavily to costs and metrics,\u00a0it is easy to lose sight of what the stakeholder values.\u00a0 Many times, working closely with a business stakeholder requires a deeper understanding of their context beyond the process\/numbers, and flexibility to change views or approaches.\u00a0 Vice versa, it may also require the leaders\/hiring managers to stay\u00a0flexible\u00a0to\u00a0change\u00a0past views.<\/li>\n<li>From a process perspective, aligning an interview panel at the beginning of an interview process on\u00a0key assessment areas, clarity on each member&#8217;s expected area(s) of assessment saves a lot of time in the end during the debrief to get to a hiring\u00a0decision.<\/li>\n<li>Stakeholders in general\u00a0prefer transparency, proactive communication, sense of urgency, commitment to close roles\u00a0and visibility on progress from TA.<\/li>\n<li>Sometimes, activity on a requisition goes slow for a while\u00a0and at other times, it\u00a0picks up at short notice with high urgency, depending on stakeholder engagement or organizational dynamics.\u00a0 Candidates\u00a0may\u00a0notice this change in pace\u00a0as well\u00a0and it helps for TA\u00a0partner to manage expectations on timeline proactively and continuously.<\/li>\n<li>One of the key actions for a TA leader is to continuously influence key stakeholders to explore\u00a0different\u00a0approaches, ways of working and establish a constant, trusting feedback loop.<\/li>\n<li>It is very difficult, almost impossible\u00a0to keep\u00a0all stakeholders\u00a0happy always as the demand cycles, priorities\u00a0and markets\u00a0shift.<\/li>\n<li>Internal and external networks of contacts are always very helpful, especially for sharing learning\/experiences\u00a0and, to connect with new candidates\u00a0and partners.\u00a0 Internal referrals can make a big difference.<\/li>\n<li>How a TA team or hiring panel interacts (or don&#8217;t)\u00a0with candidates or external partners reflects the company&#8217;s true employer brand\/culture and the individual brand\u00a0as well.<\/li>\n<li>Candidate drop offs after\u00a0offer acceptance\u00a0are part of TA partner&#8217;s life (bigger than\u00a0initially expected) and therefore managing the risk also becomes\u00a0relevant.\u00a0 It was surprising to note how some experienced candidates in India disappeared after accepting an offer and became unreachable afterwards.\u00a0 Shortsightedness is surprisingly common.\u00a0 Most criticisms on social media are about recruiters or companies but there is another side to the discussion with many unprofessional candidates.<\/li>\n<li>It is always relevant to keep candidate\u00a0pipelines active. Also from a candidate&#8217;s perspective,\u00a0important for final round candidates to remember that the TA team can always reach out to them sooner than expected, when someone drops out\u00a0or the same role may open\u00a0up\u00a0few months later.<\/li>\n<li>Many candidates try to reach out\/connect with recruiters\u00a0on LinkedIn.\u00a0 For this approach to be more effective and workable\u00a0(especially for an unknown connection), it would help the candidate to proactively do background research\u00a0on open roles listed by the organization and specify interest and role.<\/li>\n<li>While exploring partners or agencies, it&#8217;s not enough to\u00a0see the big staffing brand, rather the\u00a0experiences relevant to area of work and attitude to support.\u00a0 Great partners are flexible, exhibit strong ownership and partnering abilities on the requisitions they work on. They also respond well to improvement feedback and suggestions, thereby building trust.<\/li>\n<li>Piloting a new approach is\u00a0a great\u00a0way to explore a new approach before institutionalizing.\u00a0 We piloted a new AI\u00a0tool with a partner who was willing to flex outside their norm\u00a0and we ended up extending the contract.<\/li>\n<li>Workforce planning is not just about headcount and financial planning.\u00a0 If we lose the perspective on type of skills, criticality and labor market dynamics, it is equivalent to running half blind.<\/li>\n<li>If there is no ongoing hiring\/development program for\u00a0young talent, it will be more expensive for an organization in the long run\u00a0to pay\u00a0premium\u00a0for\u00a0hiring lateral talent.<\/li>\n<li>As with any other function, there are always different styles and preferences at play &#8211; within the team, outside with stakeholders and partners.\u00a0 One needs to continuously learn and adapt to the different styles at play to make the most and work through the difficult ones.<\/li>\n<li>Team members tend to respond better if they feel their inputs are heard, trusted, supported and if they have autonomy, growth and learning.<\/li>\n<li>When there is a mistake on your\/team&#8217;s side, it helps to discuss with the\u00a0team in a safe environment,\u00a0own it and initiate corrective actions to avoid them in future (rather try to hide or mask it).\u00a0 There is something to improve continuously.<\/li>\n<li>As operational as talent acquisition may seem to be, there is always a\u00a0strategic perspective to ensuring a credible\u00a0TA function.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Best wishes for a great 2019&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2018 was quite an interesting stretch year for me working deep in APAC talent acquisition (TA)\u00a0world, and I thought of putting down some reflections.\u00a0 Unlike my\u00a02015 reflection, this\u00a0post focuses on\u00a0the core TA work mostly. So, here we go: Talent acquisition is very much a team sport. To close a strong new hire, having a great\u00a0recruiter [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,26],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hr","category-recruitment","tag-talent-acquisition","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":769,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions\/769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}