Couldn't agree more with what Karyn Mullins, president at MedReps, wrote in her post at ERE Blog: 7 Old Recruiting Strategies To Ditch".
“If you are not moving forward, you are moving backward.” ― Mikhail Gorbachev
Gorbachev delivered here a universal truth. Recruiting is a never-ending, ever-changing challenge. Surprisingly this is a fact which seems to be be unknown in many organisations.
To be a valuable partner in your company you have to review and redesign all aspects of your talent acquisition activities continuously.
The dimensions recruiting leaders have to take care about to enable their teams to deliver extra-ordinary performance are
Technical Infrastructure Fight for the budgets to keep your technology as powerful as possible. The most talented recruiters cannot deliver if you do not provide them with tools and instruments. And sorry to say, it's not only a question of money. There are great pieces of technology available for a small amount amount of money. You just have to do some research.
Processes + Policies Check always what you can improve when it comes to processes and procedures. Things which work perfectly today might hinder you tomorrow. What is OK now might be forbidden in future. Ask your internal customers and candidates where you can improve and listen carefully. Too many candidates are getting lost or treated sub-optimal because of this. Again: Put some attention to it. It's not rocket science.
Skills You wonder why "post & pray" still works best in your organization? It´s probably because no one knows how to do it in another way. Invest in your people - it's one of the best ways to spend your budget (and build a highly motivated team as well). Enable them to try new things. Let them learn from others.
Mindset This is a tricky one and it´s the most important one. Too often TA roles are development steps for "real HR". I am convinced that recruiters and HR experts are two different kind of personalities types if they are successful. This is the playground for really great TA leaders: Only if you are passionate about TA you will be able to ignite fire and awake the spirit in your team. Be a role-model for your team, engage heavily, develop your teams and celebrate success. And then start all over.
Let's face it: Talent Acquisition is an extremely agile profession which is getting more and more complex and technology-driven. Our job is it to build our TA organizations to deal with it - starting again every new day.
Photo: Wikipedia Commons