Matt Adler, Producer, and host of The Recruiting Future podcast joined us in the latest episode of our podcast. As an independent consultant who’s worked with large organisations on innovation projects for talent acquisition, he’s at the centre of everything that’s going on in recruitment technology, tele-acquisition, employer branding, and recruitment marketing. He spoke to us about the developments in these areas and shared his take on how he thinks the recruitment market is set to turn.
You’ve recently released a book called Digital Talent. Tell us a little bit about that.
Yes, I co-authored the book with my very good friend Mervyn Dinnen, who does a lot of writing and speaking about the HR space. Digital Talent is a follow up from our previous book, Exceptional Talent, only we now wanted to explore what was going on in the market with a particular focus on companies struggling to find the right skills to accelerate digital transformation in their businesses.
We decided to pause the writing when the pandemic hit because we realised a lot of the things we were writing about that we thought might happen in the future, were actually already happening right in front of our eyes. Of course, digital transformation sped up dramatically. We saw a huge uptake in the use of technology across all aspects of talent acquisition and it as a really interesting period because it allowed us to compare people’s pre-pandemic thoughts on what was going to happen with what actually happened.
It’s gone from zero to one hundred. Some candidates won’t even consider a position unless it gives them the option to work remotely.
Exactly, we’re in a market at the moment where the employees have the power and they’re voting with their feet. It will be interesting to see how that develops because a minority of organisations have gone remote first, most are exploring the hybrid option, but it’s making organisations change the way they think about their employees.
It’s an interesting time because companies are pandering to what talent needs because there’s such a labour shortage that they need to be competitive. So, at the moment, employees have the upper hand. Do you see the market turning any time soon?
It’s difficult to make generalisations across every single industry in every single area. If we focus on the crisis in digital skills, it stems from education systems and governments and companies not being prepared to invest in the necessary training, coupled with the speed at which technology evolves. So, the conclusion we come to in the book is that the shortage of digital skills in particular, is only going to get worse, because the reskilling and training of people needs to keep pace with the changes in technology – organisations need to upskill people quickly. And I’m interested to see how organisations will respond to that; will they automate more of what they do and start to think of talent in a different way?
Ultimately, a lot of the challenges we’re seeing companies face now will continue into the future, and because of that, we need to rethink how companies think about talent, technology, learning, development, talent acquisition, and their employer brand.
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.
