Blueprint Of A Futuristic Talent Acquisition Strategy

Companies have historically always been in control of the opportunity frontier. They rule the roost in creating employment and in the selection and recruitment process. They are also at the decisive end for the workers to be promoted or retrenched. However, the underlying sociocultural reforms and technological revolutions point toward the power shift. The present is showing signs of the future being increasingly candidate-led, owing to a deepening skills crisis. At the very least, a symbiotic relationship will exist between the growing number of gig workers and firms wherein the finest workers will be in an advantageous position to cherry-pick the best projects from a wide range and negotiate beneficial terms in exchange for completing the task. Amidst all this, is there a way to future-proof the recruitment function and skills crisis?

Pave the Way for a Symbiotic Relationship

Companies need to shift from an all-controlling, self-centric approach and give leeway to a healthy power distribution. Until now, recruitment has been one-way traffic, with firms having a major say and control over it, from sourcing and assessment to raising the offer. To a certain extent, consulting agencies and job sites have a say in regulating the number and types of profiles companies can access. Surprisingly, the applicants with skills who are responsible for doing jobs are treated as the insignificant cog in the wheel. This needs to change. Ankit Aggarwal, Founder & CEO, Unstop shares, "Companies need to shift their pitch and focus as today's workforce is tracking career growth, a sense of purpose, and flexibility as the primary parameters in any company."

Technology is an arrow that needs to be aimed precisely and sensibly. Ruchee Anand, Senior Director, Talent & Learning Solutions, LinkedIn, opines, "According to the World Economic Forum, one-fourth of today's jobs will be disrupted in the next five years. This is why HR leaders need to pause and evaluate how they plan to use generative AI for future recruitment."  Businesses need to include tech platforms with a talent-centric approach as a fundamental design priority. The platforms shall empower the workers to elect gigs they find meaning in and make a smooth switch to a new one as soon as a project is completed. Scarce and niche skills shall be paid the highest. Contracts and intellectual property deals, talents, and firms need to be integrated with a central automated platform for smooth and quick execution without room for conflicts.

From Recruitment Specialist to Talent Strategist

The traditional way of dealing with attrition and talent hunt is dying. The new ways to tap talent are making recruitment redundant. In the coming years, there will be no more perceived value in recruiters merely having profiles and candidate data. To be at the helm of affairs, recruiters need to strategize and have a blueprint ready to counter the effect when disruption happens.

Rohan Sylvester, Talent Strategy Advisor, Indeed.com, affirms, "Recruitment is half part art and half part science. Art of making sense of the data to get where the right candidates are, and the science of leveraging automation to save time. Automation gone wrong because of unconscious bias can affect a company's talent goals." He further adds, "Boost your brand, and the quality of candidates will dramatically improve." If utilized well, AI technology, intelligent databases, and applicant-friendly platforms can be the armor and weapons of talent strategists. In addition, the strategists shall be equipped with future-centric skills, such as accurately assigning searchable tags to skills/experiences. They need to be the catalysts in navigating platforms to facilitate auto-updating profiles through information portability from other platforms.

Embrace Meta-Recruitment

In the future, the talent out there might not necessarily be checking the job sites, so recruiters are less likely to reach quality candidates using antiquated approaches to attract talent. Companies using social media network analysis combined with analytics to capture the right talent will ace the job market. David Jones, Founder & CEO of The Talent Enterprise, says, "We need to build a predictive approach to recruit the right talent. Our research has unveiled that past performance is not an indicator of potential." The meta-learning is making it possible for recruiters to accurately predict the talent fit, level of intelligence, and emotional stability of any potential employee simply by analyzing their social media profiles.

For instance, to find a self-driven candidate, the future-centric recruitment strategist will analyze different data sets from the type of personas they want to recruit and avoid. To predict the right candidate for a particular job, they might even analyze if the candidate went out of the way to fulfill any specific requirement for completing the job application.  

Closing Thoughts

Ineffective traditional search methods without sufficient CRM, database, and automation will be antiquated sooner than we know. The talent strategists will need to up their game and redefine how talent is recruited. Anand says, "We must design, develop, and deploy AI with an intention to empower employees, companies, customers, and society." At the same time, the organizations will need to deconstruct work and redefine job descriptions with transversal skills.