Getting to Talent Acquistion 2.0

Shortly after stepping into the talent acquisition lead at Nielsen, I was asked to prepare a presentation about  "Talent Acquisition 2.0."  I spent a month studying how companies across industries were running their talent acquisition functions.  I found an incredible amount of innovation, propelled by web-based solutions and networks.   But I also learned that the fundamentals of attracting and assessing talent are still important... potentially even more now than before. 

The following is a recap of my findings.

What's Talent Acquisition 1.0?

It's not really possible to talk about "talent acquisition 2.0" without defining "talent acquisition 1.0."  Recruiter.com's definition of "talent acquisition" is "the process of finding and acquiring skilled human labor for organizational needs and to meet any labor requirement."  Simply put: taking open roles and finding the right people to fill them. 

Historically, the process looked something like this (c/o a PeopleSoft manual)

A job opening was created and posted, candidates saw the posting and applied, a recruiter would screen them and route the ones that made the cut to the hiring manager, interviews would commence, and hopefully an offer and shiny new employee would come out the other side.  If applicants were hard to come by, an external recruiter or agency would be engaged to try to source candidates from their rolodex.  

What are the potential problems with this approach?

• It's reliant on a steady flow of job applicants.  In a highly competitive job market (like the one we're in right now), it's hard for most companies and jobs to break through and attract candidates.  Think about how many companies are clamoring for data scientists, UX designers, or app developers.  Or mid-to-senior level diverse talent in general.  With such high demand, how realistic is it to expect them to show up at your door as a result of some posting? 
• Hiring managers are potentially in for a long wait.  Even if you are able to attract applicants, it could take awhile for enough to show up to find a fit.  Compounding the issue is that there can be a sizable upfront lead time between when talent is needed and when the job opening is actually posted; with gaps due to communication and paperwork, you could be starting significantly in the hole.
• You'll miss out on "passive candidates"- people that are not actively looking around for jobs.  LinkedIn estimates that only 12% of those in the workforce are "active candidates"... meaning that by just looking at candidates that apply, you're cutting out the other 88%.  And passive candidates are often some of the best - performing well in their jobs, working at places doing everything in their power to ensure they're not "active."
• The candidate experience can be poor.  A linear process of apply-screen-interview-decide with largely unknown candidates is a bit like trying to rush someone from setting up a first date to deciding to get married.  It's tough for both the company and the candidate, and the potential for confusion and miscommunication is rife throughout.

Of course, the talent acquisition community has not been blind to the problems cited above.  For decades, they've called the process "post and pray" pejoratively.  Post the job, and pray that people showed up.  They weren't "okay with it," and they were constantly looking for ways to optimize the process-  witness the way the talent acquisition function at companies flocked online during the early days of the web to promote their jobs.

They just didn't have a way to get around the issue that there wasn't a good, way to proactively find and connect with talent at scale.  Nobody had cracked the "google search" for talent.  And even if they had, they'd still need to find a way to convince the talent you found to listen to you.

Enter the advent of the first big professional job boards, and then LinkedIn as the professional database and network to rule them all (for now anyway).  Back in 2004 as part of LinkedIn's Series B pitch, Reid Hoffman framed it in one slide better than I ever could in a bunch of words. 

Hoffman made that slide back when LinkedIn was a little over a year old and had about 400,000 users, almost all in the US.  They last reported nearly 400 million users globally, which amounts to fairly comprehensive coverage of white-collar professionals in most major economies.  

And as important as coverage is, the strength of the network - creating an environment where people are open to connecting to and sharing with others - is just as critical, and arguably a lot harder.  Not surprisingly, this is something that LinkedIn is continually working to enhance (e.g., profile completion, reminders to maintain / renew connections, evolution toward a content network) and safeguard (e.g., limiting spammy InMails, protecting member privacy).  

The existence of LinkedIn (and others like it, especially those trying to address the needs of historically underserved / underrepresented groups) unlocks the capability to be much more proactive in identifying, communicating with, and attracting talent.  And it's this capability that under girds everything that's being done in "Talent Acquisition 2.0"... either to utilize it or to reinforce it. 

What's Talent Acquisition 2.0?

As an industry, we're still trying to figure out what Talent Acquisition 2.0 actually looks like.  Nobody has it nailed.  However, looking across companies, some common characteristics have emerged that are helping it take shape:

• More proactive in sourcing talent.  Companies are trying to take advantage of the ability to efficiently find and connect with passive candidates.  Many have set targets for their ratio of passive:active candidates, and dedicated sourcing groups within talent acquisition teams have grown increasingly common.  As an example, Zappos has actually gone to the extreme (as they often do) of pulling the vast majority of their job reqs offline, investing in the creation of a talent community and rescoping their recruiters' roles as primarily sourcers instead of primarily screeners.

• Out front and authentic.  Every company markets itself in some way today; you'd never get any business otherwise.  However, NOT every company markets itself as an employer, providing a distinctive and compelling pitch to candidates.  Effective sourcing requires a strong employer brand and talent marketing effort, whether you're trying to drive candidates to your job postings or trying to get them to respond to a recruiter about a specific opportunity.  And the marketing needs to be not only captivating enough to its target group to break through, but also authentic to the brand in order to be believable.  Two examples from last year that stood out to me were 1) a series of ads from GE targeting millennials that emphasized the major impact you can have working there vs. the latest consumer internet startup, and 2) an Uber ad focused on drivers that tugged at the heartstrings.  

• Candidate-focused.  Companies are significantly improving the candidate experience- streamlining it and making it more intuitive- by effectively applying technology.  For example, video interviewing can cut down on travel logistics-driven delays; allowing candidates to apply on mobile devices and using their LinkedIn account can make the process quick and painless.  Companies can also use assessment tools tailored for specific types of candidates / roles (e.g., HackerRank for software engineers) to provide a process that makes sense to candidates that is also more predictive of candidate success on the job. 
• Socially-powered.  Just because someone looks good on paper doesn't necessarily mean they're a qualified or desirable candidate.  Companies are trying to go beyond the bullet points by tapping into their employees knowledge and networks.  Digital platforms can make employee referrals- historically an incredibly time-consuming process to manage (from processing, to screening, to compensating employees for the ones that pan out) - much easier.  Additionally, as recruiters connect to others in the company on LinkedIn, they can find common connections with candidates and turn cold leads into warm ones, dramatically increasing the response rate.  
• Increasingly data-driven.  Talent acquisition teams are tapping into the dramatically increased amount of candidate data- from 3rd parties and from their own records- in a variety of ways, including: identifying where to source (schools, companies, geographies); assessing candidates (skills, behaviors); and optimizing recruiter performance.  For the modern talent acquisition effort, employing hiring analytics is a must.

What's needed to make Talent Acquisition 2.0 work?

Based on the characteristics above, you could make the case that Talent Acquisition 2.0 calls for a lot of new capabilities and ways of working. 

• Talent Acquisition 2.0 has a lot to do with putting technology and networks to work.  If you want to get to 2.0, you need to be comfortable and competent in these areas.  
• Under Talent Acquisition 2.0, the definition of "talent acquisition" needs to expand beyond the traditional view of "recruiting" (screening and interview process management) to encompass a broader array of responsibilities: sourcing, user experience design, employer branding and talent marketing, analytics.  
• These competencies may be foreign to some talent acquisition professionals, creating near-term challenges for them as they get up to speed.  But I hope that will be exciting for many of them, as they represent opportunities to continue to learn and make the talent acquisition function overall even more important for companies. 

Yet despite all this change, my main takeaway is actually that what's required to get Talent Acquisition 2.0 right is largely the same as what it took to succeed in 1.0: the basics. 

• The people in the talent acquisition function of your company need to have a strong understanding of the job requirements (demand) and the available talent (supply)  
• They need the skills to be able to effectively bring the two together (forming relationships, making connections) 
• And they need to be focused on producing quality hires - matching the right person with the right role  

The innovation of Talent Acquisition 2.0 can help you make your process better.  But if you don't get these basics right, it doesn't matter how "digital" you are.  Your talent acquisition process will be fundamentally flawed and ultimately fail... it would be like building on top of a leaky foundation.

The always colorful Lou Adler goes deep on the topic of quality of hire in this video.   It's an hour well spent if you have the time.  And if you don't, I'll leave you with my synthesis: the basics of hiring are logical and timeless.

The views expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my current or past employers. If you would like to read more of my writing, you can follow me on Twitter at @chrislouie.

You can also read a few of my other LinkedIn posts:

• Approach Talent Acquisition Like a Value Investor
• Attracting Talent is a Team Sport
• Why I "Took a HR Job"