The fact that strong recruiting practices are necessary to drive the right quality of talent into a firm is obvious. However, as we providers of talent have seen, managing this talent once it is acquired has become a more complex, and too often neglected, skill.
Contributing to this neglect is the reality that the recruiting infrastructure in most organizations is simply not as strong as it once was. But was it ever a thriving functional area of any organization? That is the question we plan on delving into more deeply over the next several weeks. We'll examine the current state of recruiting and how it came to be, as well as the reality that the responsibility of sourcing talent into an organization is perhaps more fragmented today than it ever was.
Let's begin with fragmentation. We have said before that the three members of leadership responsible for sourcing talent must work collaboratively. Human resources, procurement, and hiring managers are too frequently misaligned when it comes to the priorities that are used to identify, evaluate, and introduce talent. Each has their own major objective, and for good purpose. But more often than not, these major departmental objectives overshadow the more important corporate objectives. Ultimately, each group must focus on what they do best in the context of how their performance affects the goals of the company.
Another element of neglect is something we are much more passionate about: the recruiting process itself. Just two weeks ago at the annual SHRM conference, we talked with many attendees about the need to be more aggressive in the manner in which talent is managed, both inside and outside the walls of the company. What this means is a greater investment into the very community or, better yet, communities in which talent resides.
Why is this contributing to the aforementioned neglect? Because the effort to achieve this sort of intimacy with an addressable candidate market is often put off until another time. The result? The talent deficit that my colleague Matt Rivera has been writing about. The neglect of strengthening the management of talent communities and the recruiting process itself contributes to the deficit.
What is the key takeaway? First, it is to keep your eyes out for additional entries in Matt's series on the talent deficit. Second, check back with us over the next couple of weeks as we dive deeper into the issue of neglected recruiting practices. Finally, ask yourself these questions:
- How confident am I that our recruiting practices are avoiding some of the neglect issues?
- Are the providers that I use to help source talent doing so with aggressive methods that create a robust and participative talent community?
We hope you'll join us in the dialogue as we continue to explore this topic.
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