Knowledge Infusion Center of Excellence: Consultant's Corner : Tags : talent

I spent the last several days working with a client to select a Talent Acquisition solution that will enable and fuel their pipeline of external talent. The two days of evaluation covering multiple vendors was a tough slog filled with equal amounts of delight and disappointment. As in any vendor evaluation, the client was able to get a first hand look at each vendor's ability to fulfill their business outcomes and determine what gaps may exist between stated requirements and product capability.

At the end of the two days, the team of evaluators launched into a spontaneous review of career websites across multiple industries. Taking advantage of the projection system, we looked on screen and walked though the candidate experience as they made their way through the career website, reviewed job openings and finally applied online. Needless to say, the exercise was eye opening.

Short of a few bright spots, the sites that were viewed offered an overall candidate experience that was down right awful. You could tell that little attention was paid to the candidate during the implementation. Instead of being top of mind and the primary driver, the candidate experience was an afterthought that resulted in confusing steps, circular navigation, and no compelling reason to continue with the process.

Given the talent crisis that has been much publicized, corporations must take the necessary steps to ensure the process to apply for a job online is simple and easy. As the war for talent heats up, candidates will have little patience with sites that are confusing and don't follow an intuitive path. They'll also make decisions about that prospective employer simply based on the experience they have on the careers site. Those companies that pay close attention to the candidate experience and make it simple and easy to apply online will produce a significant advantage in attracting and hiring top quality talent.

4 Comments Permalink Tags: war_for_talent, technology, vendor_evaluation, talent_acquisition, candidate

Knowledge Infusion has several clients who are focused on improving their ability to attract and hire top talent within their organization. Typically the work begins with business process design, selection and implementation of technology to support the processes and ongoing deployment excellence. Through the discovery process, we often here the same struggles from hiring managers that the process takes too long, it's cumbersome and the quality of candidates are far less than par. These are the same struggles that we heard 10 years ago. With access to millions of candidates via online recruiting, employment branding, and sophisticated software applications that many organizations have invested in, one would think that corporate recruiting as made progress.

I came across this Lou Adler Article on ERE this evening and found it very applicable to the work that KI does in helping organizations with the evolution of their corporate recruiting functions. Lou Adler is a well respected professional in the recruiting space and I encourage you to take a closer look at his article. I have highlighted the six stumbling blocks and provided some commentary on how these hold true in the work that we are involved with.

The Six Key Stumbling Blocks:

Lack of end to end perspective: Corporate recruiting teams and hiring managers lack consistency in how they screen, interview and evaluate candidates. Often times the disconnect is a waste of time for all involved in the process.
Little hiring manager accountability: Managers are busy and would rather have zero involvement in the process, with the expectation that they will get the best talent to fill their open positions.
Technology is not effectively utilized: The technology has come along way and the vendors have done a very good job at staying ahead of the curve. The HR and recruiting communities are still lagging when it comes to understanding the best use of technology in the recruiting process.
Inadequate or inappropriate training: Recruiters are often times the first impression the candidate will have of your organization. How much time have you spent training that person on the organization, products, services, business operations? Can they talk intelligently about what the company has to offer, are they skilled in assessing job fit, competencies, personality and cultural fit.
A weak or non-existent workforce planning process: Is recruiting at the table with business leaders, finance and operations when the headcount planning process is underway? Typically recruiting gets a spreadsheet at the end of the year with a list of budgeted positions that will be filled in the upcoming year. In some organizations this is the workforce planning process. We see a tremendous need in the marketplace for assistance in developing strategic Workforce Planning processes.
Lack of effective leadership: Organizations who are making progress and creating the evolution for corporate recruiting have made significant investments in hiring top talent to lead and manage this very important function. It requires a champion of change and visionary to move the leaders within the business in a new direction.

Are these stumbling blocks true for your recruiting organization? Please share thoughts on how you have overcome these challenging's and evolved into a world class recruiting function!

0 Comments 0 References Permalink Tags: recruiting, knowledge_infusion, talent_acquisition