Your Recruitment Strategy Has Holes, Have You Noticed Yet?

If I told you that you could 3.5X your revenue growth and 2X your profit as a business by excelling at one thing that is within your capability, would you, do it?

I hoped you’d say that ??

What is this one powerful thing?

Becoming proficient in Recruitment! As evidenced in a Boston Consulting Group ‘Creating People Advantage’ research study which you will read about further below.

In 20 years, I’ve never seen a job description for a managerial role that included the requirement to demonstrate effective Recruiting skills. To manage people, yes, but never to possess the skills2recruit talent.

We already know the impact of vacant roles (75% drop in productivity) & recruiting the wrong people (30% of annual salary) therefore both financial & non-financial costs are considerable for a business.?

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This should mean that the number one piece of knowledge transfer from a senior manager to a manager, when appointed into a management role, should be communicating the framework for effective talent attraction & selection which the business has developed.

We also have the term ‘Talent Acquisition' & it seems to be used interchangeably with ‘Recruitment’.

There is however a difference.

What is talent?

It’s an innate propensity towards something, a natural aptitude that emerges effortlessly.

I like the word talent because it’s a natural propensity, which can more easily be honed with time & practice into mastery.

This means that when we use the word ‘Talent acquisition’ we are looking for people anywhere on that spectrum from having a natural propensity which may be as yet unrefined or even undiscovered through to the development of this talent into a ‘skill’ all way through to mastery of a specific talent. Making it part of a talent strategy and planning process.

Talent must be viewed as the most indispensable ingredient for success, but success also depends on how that talent is managed – Allan Schweyer        

However, most job advertisements demand very specific skills.

Recruitment by skills match is the easiest way to recruit. In fact, it requires very little expertise on the part of the person doing it. It’s a tick the box exercise. I know because I made my very 1st placement more than 20 years ago using this approach. I matched the skills of the lovely Elizabeth I placed into an Analyst role with that specified on the JD.

?I’ve come a long way since but alas it’s not an uncommon approach to recruiting still being used every day.

When you are hiring ‘talent’ you need to be open to the direction in which this person may go as a result of developing them with training, guidance & opportunities. They need to be offered the flexibility to experiment in different roles, potentially, until they find their niche.

Hiring talent means doing values-based recruitment & this starts with the embedding those values into the design of the actual job advertisement, then assessing at interview if the person truly shares the company values, has a mindset for growth, has the grit & stamina to ‘get it done’ & to learn & grow into new roles in your business. One eye has to always be on the potential to grow.

The Latest Boston Consulting Group People Advantage Report

Figure 1: BCG creating people advantage reports 2021

The results of the latest BCG report Creating People Advantage Study June 2021 speaks to exactly these points.

You can’t figure all this out with a sole skills acquisition approach.

This places a greater onus on the hiring manager & talent acquisition teams for 2 reasons. Firstly, they need to have done their due diligence in terms of the big picture & the vision they have for their team.

What are the skillsets inherent in the team already, what’s missing, are the skills required for a new person, are they complementary skills to the rest of the team?

Or are you looking for individuals who must ‘have it all' and if so, why?

It’s true that in some sport like football anyone can score a goal but it’s the responsibility of the Striker. Are you trying to recruit a team of Strikers?

It’s worth bearing in mind that if you have recruited a star ‘striker’ then you need to get out of way and let them do their job. This means backing them up, providing the resources, not second-guessing them and allowing them to do what you hired them to do.

It will bode well to also remember that everyone wants to be the ‘hero’ in their life story.?

Do you know enough about the person, hopes, dreams, desires or pains to understand what being the ‘hero’ would look like to them? Has your job advertisement spoken to all of these? If you have recruited someone you hope will be that ‘hero’ in a specific role then the business can’t decide to withdraw support or move the goalposts.?To do that says that the business thinks it’s the ‘hero’ and in which case the talent will likely walk right out the door!

Train your Managers & Talent Acquisition on Talent Attraction & Selection using business vision & values - based recruitment.        

The 2nd reason is if a hiring manager has given the vision of the team great thought and then chosen to have individuals with the full complement of skills is it because the hiring manager doesn’t want the responsibility of having to manage & choreograph moving parts?

?This would require strong leadership skills & strategic thinking. People with that full complement of skills are likely to want to do it their way unless you can show otherwise.

Leadership & hiring managers need to be honest with themselves about their own skills or lack thereof.

In conclusion, irrespective of whether a business intends to nurture and grow talent from within or buy it, talent attraction & selection needs to be enshrined in the JD of the Managers so that they are measured & incentivised to ensure this outcome is given priority alongside other key deliverables.

Talent Acquisition teams need to have updated their own toolbox of talent attraction skills instead of relying on methods that may have worked in the past but need to be updated & applied to be effective in the current market.

Few if any Hiring Managers are ever trained in talent selection yet they often hold the deciding vote with little questioning by leadership on how their choice supports their overall team vision & the business vision.

?The key question then is: Isn’t it time we prioritise the training of hiring managers alongside TA teams on talent attraction & selection skills?