In a recent episode of Talent & Growth, we sat down with Tim Sackett, who is the President of HRU Technical Resources. 

We spoke about everything TA related – retention, how TA impacts HR, and additionally what skills TA professionals need in their toolbox to make an impact on recruitment beyond just standard hiring.  

We’ve picked out our top three highlights for you below – we hope you enjoy them. 

What skills do TA professionals need when looking at retention?  

“I think they have to be better at the data side. We have so much data disposal at our hands, and we don’t pay attention to it.  

Obviously, the technology you use can help you. So, if you get in and start using some machine learning technology, and bring talent pools into one data set, it’s going to help you to be better. I think part of this is just to be a fan of data and be willing to dig into it.  

We see more and more, especially on the enterprise side, where talent leaders are hiring business analysts, data analysts, they’re really starting to figure out “hey, we actually have really dynamic data that we should be paying attention to”. I think the other piece is that you have to start thinking like a marketer!” 

What top-line advice do you have to get people started? 

“I think one is to sit down and have a conversation about retention with HR and hiring managers. If TA is leading that conversation, or, you know, inviting people to the table, that’s the best thing to do.  

Also, measuring your progress. I’m a big believer in that – things that are more specific to accountability and outcomes of individuals. I think we do too many soft measures around compensation for our leaders, that when they build them at the beginning of the year, they almost always already know that they’re going to get the bonus.  

A great example for TA is hiring manager satisfaction or days to filing a role, when both of those measures have almost no impact on the success of TA. Just because you hire someone faster or slower, doesn’t mean that person will be better. It has no correlation to success.” 

Do you feel like right now is a real opportunity to become a strategic partner to a business working in TA?  

“Yeah, I constantly tell people that I believe talent acquisition has actually stepped over HR in terms of respect and responsibility within the organisation. If I sit down with most CEOs, all they want to talk to me about is talent. And not because that’s my background, it’s because if I talk to them just one on one, they say “hey, we need more talent, we need to increase our talent, we need to do all this stuff” – they don’t consider that to be HR to them. HR is benefits, and it’s learning.  

Recruitment to them is also like marketing; it’s strategic, and they want to be very close to that. I definitely believe we see more and more of these organisations hiring a chief people officer, we’re going to have someone that takes care of all the people and our employees.  

But, we also need someone who is super strategic and can be good at actually attracting talent -  and that’s talent acquisition.” 

You can listen to the full episode here.  

On Talent & Growth we speak to talent leaders about the challenges they face and their solutions for attraction and retention. If you’re interested in hearing about how companies are building a more diverse talent pool, how you can attract top people from the big players, ways to create a more inclusive interview process or learn about the latest and greatest automation software to make your life easier, then this is the podcast for you.

In episode 36 of Talent & Growth, we sat down with Beckie Taylor, who is the Co-Founder of Tech Returners.

They look to provide skilled tech professionals returning to the industry with accessible opportunities to refresh their skills and reignite their career.

We talked about a range of topics, and we’ve highlighted our favourite three areas for you today!

What are the challenges for companies when it comes to recruiting diversely?  

“I think we’ve always started with the word diversity, and then inclusion. But I think we almost need to reframe it the other way around. So, I think any organisation that wants to increase diversity needs to ensure that they’ve got an inclusive culture, because you could do all the work in terms of partnering with initiatives, but if you haven’t got that inclusive culture infrastructure, then they’re not going to stay with you.  

So, I think in terms of any organisation, look at areas in terms of how you can improve your inclusive culture. And, I don’t mean just writing a policy and having a tick box exercise. Think about the real purpose of why you want to do this.  

My frustration is when I speak to organisations all the time, they ask “how can I get more women in the business” and I say tell me why you’re doing that; is that because every other company is saying it? Is it because you read it over social media? Because that won’t work. You need to make sure it all matches up. So, I do believe, inclusion first, and then focus on diversity.” 

What can businesses do internally? 

“I think there are quite a few tools and techniques. I think one of the main ones is making sure people have voices. You might have one idea about what inclusion and diversity mean to you, but the two people sitting next to you might not.  

So again, creating that psychological safe space around people putting forward ideas and suggestions. And I’ve always been a massive advocate of the feedback loop.  

So, a lot of companies do ask for feedback, but then don’t take any action. So I obviously urge people who are going to create that inclusive culture and ask for feedback about what people want, even if you’re not going to take that idea forward, you still need to say why and get them to understand it. 

How do we then tailor our approach to attract more females into our tech teams? 

“Content is key, and having managed talent acquisition teams for many years, I think it’s always been, a difficult one, because you’ve got teams wanting to produce content, but there are barriers – not having time to write a blog, or not wanting their face on social media. You have to bridge those two teams together.  

If you share the why, and what you’re trying to do in terms of the bigger overall picture, the actual reason and purpose and the benefit of doing it, people can be more receptive.  

 
So, I think definitely content. Also, look at all the initiatives that are out there, and not every initiative will be right for your organisation. Do a market analysis of all the initiatives are going out there, and find what’s right for your organisation.” 

To listen to the full episode, click here. 

On Talent & Growth we speak to talent leaders about the challenges they face and their solutions for attraction and retention. If you’re interested in hearing about how companies are building a more diverse talent pool, how you can attract top people from the big players, ways to create a more inclusive interview process or learn about the latest and greatest automation software to make your life easier, then this is the podcast for you.

We were thrilled to host Hung Lee on our latest podcast episode. For those of you who don’t know who Hung Lee is, he’s incredibly influential in the recruitment space, and we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to pick his brains on a number of topics!

We’ve picked out some of our favourite moments – we hope you enjoy them!

So what does the world of talent acquisition look like to you in 2022?

“Yeah, it’s exciting space. I think all of us are very conscious of the fact that it’s such a fluid moment for the industry. I don’t think I can’t remember a time when it’s been more exciting, because you don’t know which direction it’s going to go. The only thing that we’re confident on is that it will not look anything like it was five years ago. That includes the jobs we’re doing. All of that then has a cascade effect on the type of work that recruiters will do. I think we’ve all turned into quasi futurists, as a result of this moment that we’re all in.”

What is the future of the old-fashioned recruiter?

“I think those two things will merge. I mean, previously, the embedded recruiter was essentially a way for suppliers to really establish trust with buying customers. Because customers, when you were just faxing CVs or whatever it was, it was very distant.

You weren’t sure how much work this agency was doing for you. You weren’t sure whether this agency was actually representing other companies, competitors, etc. The embedded model was basically there to establish trust.

Now, I think that COVID accelerates that situation. But, it also changes the difference between an agency supplier and an embedded recruiter, because what is the difference these days, if all of us are distributed, in any case, an embedded recruiter is very much a metaphorical term.

I think what will happen is a lot more agencies will move into the space, I’d be very surprised if agencies don’t offer it as a default service to customers. The bottom line is customers will end up getting much greater variety, and much more choice and hopefully, you know, that competition will improve the service level that they get.”

But for more in house talent acquisition teams, and talent acquisition as a whole, what significant trends in 2022 are you seeing?

“I think one of the big critical issues is basically the lack of recruiters. The inability to recruit recruiters is actually changing how recruiting is done. So, in other words, companies are confronting the reality that they’re simply not going to, they’re going to be understaffed, which means that they have to automate more, it means that they have to really re-examine the way in which they’re processing candidates.

They need to double down on process efficiency, because you’ve got less hands on deck doing more work. I think maybe in a six-month period, there was some effort to try and recruit more recruiters.

I wouldn’t say we’ve given up on doing that. But it’s still very clear to companies that they’re approaching it thing with a view, we may actually not be able to increase our capacity in our existing recruiting team. Therefore, we need to increase our efficiency. So, lots of interesting things are happening in terms of process and in terms of automation in the internal recruiter space for sure.”

To listen to the full episode, click here.

On Talent & Growth we speak to talent leaders about the challenges they face and their solutions for attraction and retention. If you’re interested in hearing about how companies are building a more diverse talent pool, how you can attract top people from the big players, ways to create a more inclusive interview process or learn about the latest and greatest automation software to make your life easier, then this is the podcast for you.