REC FEST 2022: Boorman advises recruiters during turbulent times

Talent acquisition professionals can expect “a rollercoaster ride for the next few years”.

As the world encounters “crisis after crisis”, recruitment expert Bill Boorman (above, bottom left) gave his gloomy predictions in the final keynote talk at Rec Fest 2022 last week.

Contributing to the turbulence is, and will be, “major, significant political unrest”, said Boorman, which “will affect what’s going on in organisations”.

Boorman, founder of #tru recruitment and talent acquisition meet-ups, was the winner of the Recruiter Awards’ Impact Award several years ago.

Other hurdles for recruiters to deal with:

  • “Recession – and we’re already in it really,” Boorman said, reflecting at least partially on “what Covid actually cost us”.
  • “Stop-start hiring.” As a result, he urged TA teams to get “closer and quicker to candidates than ever before… You have to be ready to move really quickly”. Later on, referencing ‘sprint hiring’, Boorman suggested, “You may have to ‘sprint’ faster than ever before.”
  • “Broken supply chain… Everyone is shopping online, and distribution and logistics are big industries right now,” he said.

He was critical of organisations for ‘Game of Thrones’ hiring practices, “with so many tests! The last one alive at the end” gets the job, he joked.

While most organisations still emphasise employer brand, Boorman said today’s candidates are focused on job brand – location is “absolutely key”, he said, for instance. Candidates want remote working, but they also want to be able to meet in a hub.

Recruiters must also consider the attention economy, made up of anything trying to capture our limited attention, with thousands upon thousands of advertisements aiming to catch people’s attention. “How do you break through?” Boorman asked.

He suggested that TA teams divide their candidate recruitment efforts into two types: the ‘supply chain’ or volume hiring for non-specialist roles, which should always ‘be on’, and the talent pipeline for which campaigns “something special” are designed to target smaller, more niche groups. “Complexity to hire” is a way of looking at which positions fall into which section. The smaller, targeted groups typically make up 20% of an organisation’s hiring, with volume making up 80%.

Boorman also warned that the current climate of candidate shortages and higher than normal numbers of job vacancies meant, “you’re going to be asked to set aside diversity initiatives – don’t put up with that”.

In the ‘start-stop’ cycle of hiring, he urged that TA teams start building their talent pipelines. “When you’re in downtime, pipeline,” he said, and also “be the expert in your business – be able to tell them what’s coming”. 

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