By Richard Matthews, Founder, Granite Consulting
As Conference Chair, each fall, Richard Matthews, founder of Granite Consulting, looks forward to bringing HR, recruitment and talent professionals across Canada under one roof to gain insight on innovative recruitment practices and tools from Canada's top employers at the annual Recruitment Innovation Summit.
The industry has embraced the Summit as an opportunity to share best practices, learn new techniques to improve their quality of hire and learn about the best technologies for sourcing candidates.
One of Matthews’ favourite things about the conference is being part of some of the great conversations he has with recruitment leaders and practitioners about the market, the trends and the candidates.
“This year in particular, I really wanted to take the time to hear what people are saying, hearing and fearing about talent acquisition,” he said.
Matthews’ key findings that he took away from various conversations at the Summit:
1) Social media, like job boards beforehand, are not the “silver bullet” in recruiting. Yes, we have found new, improved and quicker ways to “connect,” but recruiters still need to engage, screen, profile and build trust bridges between the candidate, the recruiter and the organization. If you’re one of those recruiters who blasts their message out to every one of your 5,000 contacts and waits to see what happens next, your luck is going to run out. Sooner or later, you will be asked to explain how you recruit top talent and to elaborate on why you do this better or differently than the rest; so, you better start thinking about that. To the talent acquisition leaders out there, there is no way that your team does this and gets top talent, right?
2) Affordable recruitment technology is available. Organizations are getting smarter, more strategic (process and metrics) and want to maximize their recruiters’ time, energy and efforts. Automation allows organizations to focus on real recruiting and not the administrative tasks that often slow things down. As you go down this path, beware that your “automation” does not impact or tamper with brand, culture and the candidate experience.
3) Candidate experience is hotter than ever. Social media has significantly increased the various ways in which we connect with people and invite them to take a look at “who we are”. There are only a few organizations that are tying their outbound messaging to their inbound experience. There is a very powerful opportunity here for organizations to create a strong and noticeable brand, build talent pools and identify talent scouts, potential customers or goodwill ambassadors. Organizations need to remember that it only takes one bad experience, by one candidate who tells a few people, to damage your brand.
4) Where is all the great recruitment talent? Simple. 80 per cent of them are working their butts off and delivering great results to their current employer. However, there is another 20 per cent who are actively engaged in a search, but there are a ton of mid-low level recruiters clogging up your systems, slowing down your process and making you ask the question, “Where are the good ones?” Finding talent for your team requires effort, dedication, time and commitment.
5) Candidates are getting smarter. Candidates are weary of the “apply online” method. We all have heard the term “black hole” of recruitment and candidates have no faith in the online process, so if they really want the job, they will research, find out who the hiring manager is, call them directly and deliver their own message as to why the two of them should connect and talk about their “fit.” This method can be debatable. On one hand, the research, dedication and resourcefulness of the candidate should be applauded. On the other hand, are hiring managers ready for the potential onslaught of calls from candidates who think they’re qualified?
6) Doing more with less. How often do we hear, “Mary was let go and they are not replacing her;” “We have to find a less expensive solution;” or the straight and to-the-point, “We have no budget?” Often enough. The kicker is that any organizational leaders will tell you the most important asset in their company is talent, yet many organizations do nothing to support that statement. It’s up to the recruiting leaders to get the “ear of the leaders” to let them know what we are capable of and start investing (time, energy and resources) to talent acquisition in our companies.
Richard Matthews has been part of the Canadian Recruiting landscape since 2000 and is the founder of Granite Consulting, the online communities RNG/HRNG and the annual Recruitment Innovation Summit(s). He is known as a thought leader and expert in social and professional networking, He is one of Canada's leading resources on recruitment strategy, best practice and process.
Richard can be found attending, hosting and speaking at the latest recruitment industry events, authoring articles, sharing industry insights and building the Granite network.