Episode 2 - Scouting

The top clubs always want to have the best players, and when the transfer window opens twice per season, there is a flurry of activity and acquisition of players at every club.? But this is very rarely a “spur of the moment” action and is the culmination of a recruitment plan that is agreed between multiple personnel in the club - you could call this Workforce Planning!.? The manager, along with their coaching staff, director of football (if there is one) and the recruitment department will formalise their recruitment strategy at some point in time, and players will start to be identified that fit these requirements.? This is where the scouting team comes into play.

Player Scouts will watch players at other teams and create a dossier of players for the club based on technical skills and attributes that have been assessed.? The Recruitment Team and Manager would then evaluate these to match to their current and future plans for the team.? This could be a current requirement - maybe a player has been sold and needs to be replaced.? Or maybe a first team player has a long term injury and cover is needed.? It could also be for a tactical change - bringing in someone with a different playing style, skill set and experience to adjust the team's way of playing going forward.??

So how could this be adapted to corporate recruitment?

Start with a Strategy

Workforce Planning is probably one of the hardest yet underrated things to do for a company.? If you know how many people you want to hire in a year, this can be scoped, planned and resourced accordingly to ensure the best possible opportunity of success.? Yes, the strategy might change throughout the year as business increases/decreases accordingly - which is no different to a football club.? If your facing relegation, do you retain your trust in the players and if you go down then it was the best you could do?? Or do you go into the market and bring in some new players to add some fresh impetus to the squad???

Utilise a Sourcing Team

A sourcer is a critical role in my opinion.? Having someone that focuses on sourcing and screening candidates for active roles or talent pools provides focus and clarity on the task at hand and generates a higher quality pipeline.? This is your scouting team/network.? At a football club, the Scout would not be involved in training sessions, marketing, contract negotiations etc so don’t ask your Sourcing Team to do the same.? Their role is to identify a pool of qualified players that fit the managers plan for the team going forward.? This is a specialism or expertise that keeps developing over time.??

Hire for Role Attributes

Ok, this one may create a bit of debate!? A lot of companies will design an assessment that can assess a candidate's alignment to competencies or behaviours.? This is fine, but can also be a bit too “one size fits all” of an approach.? A football club will identify attributes they need to complement or improve the team and go out to find these in a player.? Left Full Backs are mostly left footed.? Central Defenders are generally taller (will leave the Lisandro Martinez debate for another time).? So whilst being adaptable and resilient are great behaviours to have, the core attribute required for the role to support the team is more critical.

Build that Database

Recruiters will usually focus on the main requisition(s) at hand and whilst they will speak to many talented candidates, the ones they pass on are rarely recorded or returned to - unless they appear for a different search.? This is where Football Scouts do things differently.? They retain the data for everyone they watch and continually update and refresh this going forward as they know the data can be used in the future.? They don’t want to start building the player dossier from scratch every time as this will take too much time.? So ensure your ATS or CRM has the capabilities to manage this in a simple and efficient manner.

Final Thoughts

A football club's scouting department will be different for each team.? Which is no different to different companies' talent acquisition function being set up and operating differently to others.? And whilst the outcomes and processes may be different, the foundations and goals are generally the same - find the best players.? And there are some great takeaways here that can be adopted by TA Teams.? The ones that do this the best and find the right formula will, like the top football clubs, come out on top!