This breed of talent leads

19 October 2011

But hold on a minute, despite all the resources the corporate recruiters potentially have at their disposal, it isn’t going to plan…

The answer as to ’why?’ may lie in the current breed of recruitment leaders: from recruitment managers, talent acquisition managers, and HR managers to HR directors.

Consider their narrow vision approach and their focus on career protection, which in turn prevents them from making tough, bold decisions.

They focus on the detail of the applicant tracking system (ATS), rather than the information it can provide. In the corporate jungle they run scared because their leadership has sidelined them to the poor cousin of HR who in turn is the poor cousin of almost every other corporate function restricting their influence and business clout.

They do what they always do until forced by the business with a big stick to do something different. They are reactive. Being forced to do something by a business is not leadership. If people really are an organisation’s greatest asset, then how come the people who lead the function of bringing people into an organisation are sidelined in making decisions? What is really going on here? For all their talk, business leaders don’t actually mean what they say about people. If they did, they would invest heavily in people and systems to create game-changing talent acquisition teams that would engage, collaborate and above all bring the best people to that organisation. Instead, they are underfunded, short-staffed and invest little in IT systems and social media tools.

Business leaders don’t actually mean what they say about people. If they did, they would invest heavily in people and systems to create gamechanging talent acquisition teams that would above all bring the best people to that organisation

In addition, organisations fail to grasp or accept other stumbling blocks. First up, not everyone is looking for a job. Next time your senior vice-president for sales asks why we haven’t found someone, it is because they weren’t where we were looking or worse, the candidates they demand don’t actually exist. Only around 10-15% of the relevant talent for a role are looking for a new one, leaving 85% as passive candidates.
Think about this: 85% of the people you are looking for are not looking for you. Worse, they are not looking at all.

We must look for the ’compelling event’. This might be the moment someone realises they are not going to progress in their current role, or they want to be on the other side of the country, or they need more money or they are bored. By talking to people little and often, even when we don’t have a role, we can spot these moments. We become the candidate’s trusted adviser because we know them and they trust us. We need to be out there talking to people whether we want them today or not. So we need the tools to engage, to remember the conversations we had and be able to get back in touch quickly. Recruitment leaders themselves should be out evangelising. Perhaps this activity will not help today’s ’requirement for closure’ report. But it will in the future, and a ’here and now’ approach kills the effectiveness of so many talent acquisition functions.

Leadership in recruitment comes in many forms from driving the strategy, creating the vision and execution. Are we asking too much of the existing leaders to be able to make the change? They haven’t sold things or marketed things; they are former HR managers or external recruiters and the world has moved, leaving them behind. As a result, there is no plan. Forget the past…lead your team into a socially connected world.

So the question to end: Is your talent acquisition leader ready?

Martin Dangerfield onWhat talent acquisition professionals do can make or break a company

Martin Dangerfield is talent acquisition manager, EMEA, Symantec