Category: Talent Technology

Talking Talent Leadership Profile: Anna Turner, SHRM-CP, PHR

Posted on by nfuqua

In her role as PeopleScout’s Vice President of Product, Anna Turner isn’t technically sitting in the seat of an HR leader – but you wouldn’t know it. With a long list of human resources certifications, a career that started in recruiting and experience in leadership at multiple HR technology companies – her résumé is a successful marriage of HR and technology.

Operating with the philosophy that innovation is driven through teamwork, Anna leads the vision, strategy, and roadmap for PeopleScout’s product and service portfolio. We spoke with her from her home in Charleston, S.C., to learn what she expects out of HR technology in 2021.

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What is the role of technology in solving the talent acquisition challenges of 2021?

One of the biggest challenges for employers is that things are moving faster in this digital world, and that has an impact on candidate experience. Our expectations as consumers have changed drastically over the past few years. We expect things to be personalized; we expect things to be transparent; and we expect things to be on-demand.

I can pick up my cell phone right now and have groceries delivered to my house in time for dinner. I can see how many stops the delivery driver needs to make before arriving at my house. Now, employers face increasing pressure to have a candidate experience that matches those consumer expectations. We need to bring the right technology to create that experience.

One way we’ve seen the candidate experience transform over the past year is the accelerated use of virtual interviewing solutions, like on-demand or live video interviews. How will that continue to influence the candidate experience going forward?

Before the pandemic, many employers were already focused on digitization. Now, that’s been put on fast forward. Within just a matter of weeks, a virtual process became a necessity – and that’s not going to change.

In this market for talent, employers need a virtual process that’s not only fast, but also has a really strong candidate experience. More people are working remotely than ever, which means employers aren’t facing the typical geographic boundaries for sourcing talent. It also means that candidates have more options. Once those constraints are gone, you transform both the way you compete for talent and the strategies you need to implement to bring in that talent.

Over the past year, we’ve all seen our relationships with technology get a lot tighter. We’re using new tools in almost every aspect of our lives. How will this deeper relationship affect talent acquisition?

I think it impacts both candidates and employers in different ways. On the candidate side, it reinforces those expectations for a consumer-like candidate experience. They want the transparency. Going back to the grocery delivery example, I can track the delivery driver on GPS, but many candidates don’t understand where they stand after they submit an application and are frustrated by the ‘black hole’ of the recruiting process. Are they still being considered? If so, when will they hear back?

Another way it has impacted candidates is their openness to trying new technology. As an example, if you look back a year ago, my mom had never even been on a Zoom call. Now, she’s an expert. That’s happening across all types of workers, and it means that candidates will respond more positively to new hiring technology solutions.

For employers, we’re seeing this deepened relationship with technology accelerate their embrace of new solutions. In a way, employers have been forced to try new solutions. But now, they’ve seen how those solutions can speed up and improve their processes. The biggest opportunity to expand on that will be around insights and data. With all of this technology, you have increased visibility into your process. You can start to see friction points and opportunities to improve the candidate experience. These insights are one of the exciting things that will definitely carry on from leveraging more and more technology as a result of what we’ve been through over the last year.

There’s a lot of hope for 2021. We’ve heard it called “The Great Rehire,” and we know that employers will need to start bringing on more workers. However, many talent acquisition teams are still very lean. How does technology help solve that issue?

Each employer is going to have a different plan and a different story, but we are seeing employers start to get ready. One of the most interesting things that employers can do is to look at their current systems – whether it’s their current ATS or CRM – to see who they have in their network and how they can have a talent pool ready when it is time to make hires. That means finding ways to amplify your employer value proposition, engage talent in your network and keep talent warm.

Once employers are ready to start making those hires, they can leverage technology as part of the recruiting and hiring process. But, right now, I think it’s most important for employers to focus on how they can nurture talent to make the eventual hiring process easier.

We’ve talked a lot about challenges. What would you say are the biggest opportunities for talent leaders in 2021?

I think there are three buckets. One I mentioned earlier, and that’s insights through data. There’s a huge opportunity to become more data-driven, and we’ve been talking about it for years in HR. The challenge has always been tying together all the disparate systems. We’re moving into a realm now where technology partners are able to bridge those gaps and make that happen.

The next one is diversity and inclusion. This is obviously a huge area of importance. We know that, as we have more diverse teams, we will offer better services, deliver better products, come up with better ideas and design better solutions. Now, we can use data to revisit messaging, employer branding, hiring campaigns and more to ensure that they appeal to the diverse candidates that employers want to hire.

The final area is one we’ve talked about a lot, and that’s candidate experience. How do we evolve the experience of our processes to create a ‘wow’ experience for candidates? Does the recruiting process meet candidates where they are – for example, in a mobile-friendly way? Does every candidate know where they stand? For example, the candidates you aren’t moving forward receiving communication is a huge step forward for closing the loop and providing transparency. There are big opportunities in 2021 for employers that can provide a candidate-first experience.

Building a Tech-Enabled Internal Mobility Platform for a Government Agency

Posted on by jpatel
Building a Tech-Enabled Internal Mobility Platform for a Government Agency

Government Talent Solutions

Building a Tech-Enabled Internal Mobility Platform for a Government Agency

This government agency in Australia partnered with PeopleScout to develop and launch a technology platform that facilitates internal mobility for government workers.

Employees manage their profiles showcasing employee demographics, education, work history, skills and competencies 
Employees manage their profiles showcasing employee demographics, education, work history, skills and competencies 
AI technology matches candidates to open opportunities across the government and provides alerts to candidates on open job opportunities
AI technology matches candidates to open opportunities across the government and provides alerts to candidates on open job opportunities
Employee engagement increased, while the use of expensive contingent labor resources went down 
Employee engagement increased, while the use of expensive contingent labor resources went down 

Situation  

As a result of COVID-19, the client was operating with a lean workforce and limited resources. They required a solution that allowed them to leverage the skills and competencies of their existing workforce so they could save the time, cost and resources it takes to access the external candidate market. 

They partnered with PeopleScout to develop and launch a platform which facilitates internal mobility for workers who are potentially impacted by the economic downturn due to COVID-19 or looking to move within their department or other government agencies. This allowed the client to engage their workforce through enhanced workforce mobility, skills development and career opportunities within the department and across the government. 

Solution

PeopleScout created an internal mobility platform using our proprietary talent technology, Affinix™, to give the client insight into the scope and experience of their internal talent. By utilizing candidate profiles, hiring managers are not only able to see employee demographics, education and work history, but also specific skills and competencies.  

When an employee creates their profile, they have the opportunity to rate their own competencies and leaders within the organization can rate and leave comments about their performance as well. This gives recruiters a strong sense of what other positions may be a good fit for internal employees, based on hard and soft skills—such as strong cross-functional collaboration abilities. 

PeopleScout’s Affinix Internal Mobility platform gives the client a holistic view of candidates, and when a requisition is posted within the platform, Affinix automatically looks for employees who may be a good fit and proactively recommends candidates based on their profile. 

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Australian government agency
  • INDUSTRY
    Government & Public Sector
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Affinix
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Sourcing Candidates in 2021

Posted on by edyson

Sourcing candidates—even in the best of times—can be quite a daunting task. Sourcers and recruiters can spend weeks and sometimes months searching for the perfect candidate for a job opening and sometimes the person you want unfortunately may not exist. As the job market quickly recovers and candidates are now considering a move, organizations need to look to new and innovative ways to source, recruit and hire talent.

While you cannot wish the perfect candidates into existence or fast-forward past the pandemic, there are a number of candidate sourcing strategies you can deploy to help ensure that you have a quality talent pool at your fingertips as soon as you are ready to hire. In this article, we outline tips and strategies for sourcing candidates in 2021 that will help you improve your talent sourcing.

Sourcing Candidates Begins with Your Employer Brand

Your employer brand could be the difference between a candidate responding to your strategic sourcing and outreach or ignoring it. Candidates may not respond to your outreach messaging if they think poorly of your employer brand, so make sure you communicate your employer value proposition.

To improve your sourcing techniques and overall recruiting success, here are some tips on both repairing and building a better employer brand:

Respond to Reviews

Regularly check review sites like Glassdoor and respond to the feedback to let people know you appreciate their input and will take action where it’s necessary. This will generate goodwill, and help your employees feel engaged and heard.

Tell your Story

Engaging your employees in storytelling, encouraging them to personalize their LinkedIn profiles, starting a company blog, being active in the press and speaking at conferences are just a few of the ways employers can spread awareness about their brand.

Partner with your Marketing Team

The strategies and methods needed to help spread your employer brand to job seekers are similar to the ones marketing is using to promote your organization’s brand. Partner closely with your marketing team on both employer-branded content creation and distribution channels. 

Start Sourcing Candidates for Jobs Before You Are Ready

candidate sourcing

Sourcing candidates for jobs takes time, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon. To get ahead of the candidate sourcing curve, start sourcing talent even if you do not have open positions. Typically, sourcing goes like this: “I have X job to fill, I’m going to source people for X job.” But smarter sourcers get even more proactive with their sourcing efforts and get ahead on roles they will need to hire for in the future.

First, take a look at your business growth plans. Then, build a corresponding workforce hiring strategy that gives you insight into when hires need to be made across the year to sustain your organization’s goals.

Once you have a picture of which teams need to grow, you can work with department leaders and HR to identify the level and skillsets required. Aggregate those skills and what you know about your company and team culture so you can begin to strategic sourcing for specific profiles candidates in a focused and on-ongoing way.   

Social Sourcing Tools and Platforms

sourcing tools

If you want to find and connect with the best talent, you should create a comprehensive social media sourcing strategy.

Social media channels provide strategic sourcing professionals an opportunity to share targeted job content and details about their organization, mission statements and hiring process to keep candidates warm, and better source talent.

Social talent sourcing tools and technology like PeopleScout’s Affinix technology solution help sourcing specialists and recruiters narrow their search and identify qualified candidates quicker. Here are some social media tools and platforms that will streamline your sourcing:

  • LinkedIn with 760 million users has been the social network of choice for sourcers and recruiters alike and for good reason, as professionals share their career history, advertise accomplishments and interact with industry experts. A LinkedIn Recruiter license lets you search profiles and send personal messages (InMails) to potential candidates, making LinkedIn an essential sourcing tool.
  • With 2.8 billion users, everyone is on Facebook, making every user a potential candidate. What’s more, users frequently research potential employers, look for job opportunities and apply for jobs through Facebook. Consider using paid job ads and Facebook groups to help you source candidates
  • Twitter has 330 million users and offers various tools, like search, lists and chat that help recruiters source candidates. Get the most out of your sourcing efforts by being active on Twitter. Engage in Twitter discussions, advertise conferences you sponsor and follow industry-related hashtags to find the talent you are looking for.

While the most popular platforms for social sourcing are LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, if you want to expand your sourcing efforts to non-traditional social channels, consider the following social platforms:

  • Slack is a platform that allows group communications between professionals with similar interests. You can use Slack to source candidates by joining channels relevant to the job candidates you are looking to source in a more casual setting.
  • Meetup is a website that facilitates meetings and groups for people with common interests.
  • Reddit is an online community forum where members (Redditors) discuss a range of topics and interests. Reddit is not a traditional sourcing channel, but Reddit’s communities (called subreddits) are great places to post job ads and engage with potential candidates, especially in the professional communities you are searching for talent in.

Creative Ways For Sourcing Candidates: Leverage Your Employees’ Networks

sourcing strategies

According to LinkedIn, organizations can expand their talent pool by 10 times by recruiting through their employees’ networks. Run sourcing sessions and employee referral programs with your team to see if anyone in your employee’s networks would be interested in one of your open roles. Your employees can help you reach more untapped talent pools, and improve response rates with warmer candidates. 

Facebook, for instance, will display to your team, different job candidate search results based on their social graph, so you can uncover passive job candidates you would not have otherwise discovered. Job sourcing sites such as Sourcing.io allow your employees to connect their social media accounts on LinkedIn, Twitter, and GitHub so you can view candidates who are connected to your team members. When you find a qualified job candidate, you should encourage your team to send warm introductions to increase your candidate engagement and response rate.

Perfect Your Outreach Messages When Sourcing Candidates

sourcing techniques

You and your talent acquisition team have worked hard to source the qualified candidates, but that does not matter if you fail to create a real connection. A few rules of thumb: Lead with a subject line that will stand out and make the candidate want to open and read your message; always personalize your recruiting message with the relevant information you found about them; paint a brief picture of the role and your organization; and explain how you think they could contribute to your team.

Narrowing down and building a targeted audience is a way to create a strong and more personalized outreach message. According to Glassdoor, 78% of sales professionals said they would accept less money to work at a company selling something compelling, 66% of healthcare professionals are likely to accept less money to work at a company with a great culture.

Improve your response rates by personalizing and focusing on the issues that matter to candidates of all categories. Your goal is to give your pool of job candidates just enough content and engagement to pique their interest and respond to your outreach messaging, you want to be careful about overloading them with communications. Ask your recent hires for feedback on your outreach messages, and use that feedback to test different messaging to improve your response rates.

If your talent team invests the resources to sourcing a robust talent pipeline, you will find more candidates in your talent pool qualified for open roles in the future. Re-engaging prospects is a missed candidate sourcing opportunity for many organizations, you should remind your recruiting team to source from silver medal job candidates first because they are qualified and vetted.

Remember Strategic Sourcing Begins with Reexamining Your Program

Despite setbacks caused by the pandemic, the best candidates will always be in high demand, making it more important than ever to reevaluate your talent sourcing strategy in 2021. Attracting top talent is essential to your organization’s ability to recover and keep pace during the great rehire. These strategic sourcing methods can help you fill your pipeline with qualified talent so you can choose the best hire for your team.

PeopleReady: Increasing Reach, Candidate Engagement, Conversion and Automation

Posted on by jpatel
PeopleReady: Increasing Reach, Candidate Engagement, Conversion and Automation

Talent Acquisition Technology

PeopleReady: Increasing Reach, Candidate Engagement, Conversion and Automation

PeopleReady, one of the top industrial staffing agencies in North America, required a digital recruitment solution powered by PeopleScout’s proprietary talent technology, AffinixTM, to attract and engage candidates.

Direct sourcing solutions with increased reach via SEO 
Direct sourcing solutions with increased reach via SEO 
100 % automated application, selection and onboarding process
Mobile-first, easy application complying with all North American state and province laws
Mobile-first, easy application complying with all North American state and province laws

Situation 

PeopleReady, a TrueBlue company (NYSE: TBI), specializes in quick and reliable on-demand labor and highly skilled workers. PeopleReady supports a wide range of industries, including construction, manufacturing and logistics, retail and hospitality. Leveraging its game changing JobStack staffing app and presence in more than 600 markets throughout North America, PeopleReady served approximately 83,000 businesses and put approximately 226,000 people to work in 2022.

PeopleReady has invested heavily in innovative, mobile-first work scheduling and dispatching technologies but lacked a digital online sourcing solution to attract and engage candidates. 

PeopleReady selected PeopleScout’s Affinix recruitment technology platform to replace its existing solution. Affinix enhances the online candidate experience and increases conversion rates by solving the following challenges:  

  • Simplify the previously complicated job posting process by distributing job openings to multiple sourcing channels immediately by creating just one post in Affinix  
  • Implement direct sourcing to channels such as Indeed, Google for Jobs and niche platforms 
  • Improve email integration with assessment vendors that previously had high drop off rates 

Solution 

  • An engaging, mobile-optimized apply experience that guides candidates through application, online selection, employment form completion, WOTC, W4 and I9 processes via a safe, remote process 
  • Direct integration with four external vendors to ensure the entire application process can be completed within the browser, with no interruptions from external emails or links 
  • Highly localized job recommendations 

Results

TARGET LAUNCH ACHIEVED

Solution launched within 15 weeks, on time and under budget

RECEIVED MAJORITY OF MOBILE APPLICATIONS

80% of candidates apply via a mobile device

INCREASED CONVERSION RATES

15% increase in conversion rates within the first two weeks of go-live

“The PeopleScout team allowed us to design a candidate flow that met the needs of our business. The team was quick to pivot and solution as areas of opportunity were identified for improving the candidate experience. Launching a solution with operational reporting allowed us to immediately monitor candidate flow to allow for quick adjustments of sourcing strategy. Very positive partnership with the entire implementation and technology teams.” 

Tina Radosti, VP Talent Acquisition, PeopleReady 

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    PeopleReady
  • INDUSTRY
    Business Services
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Affinix
  • ANNUAL HIRES
    1 million candidates for staffing and short-term labor positions
  • ABOUT PEOPLEREADY
    PeopleReady, a TrueBlue company (NYSE: TBI), specializes in quick and reliable on-demand labor and highly skilled workers. PeopleReady supports a wide range of industries, including construction, manufacturing and logistics, retail and hospitality. Leveraging its game changing JobStack staffing app and presence in more than 600 markets throughout North America, PeopleReady served approximately 83,000 businesses and put approximately 226,000 people to work in 2022.
Let’s Connect

PeopleScout Affinix™

Posted on by edyson

Affinix™

PeopleScout’s talent acquisition technology suite, Affinix™, is a mobile-first, cloud-based platform that creates a consumer-like candidate experience and streamlines the sourcing process.

Download this fact sheet to learn more.

DOWNLOAD Fact Sheet

Learn more about Affinix™.

Learn More

Dig into More Talent Tech Insights

AI for Recruiting: Getting from Hype to Hire
Articles

AI for Recruiting: Getting from Hype to Hire

By Patti Woods, Sr. Implementation Training Manager, & Chad Getchell, Director of Technical Solutions Architecture & Tech Implementation   Ready or not, AI is coming for the recruiting world. A whopping 81% of HR leaders are already exploring or implementing AI in their processes according to  Gartner. That’s a lot of companies jumping on the train…

[On-Demand] AI in Recruiting: Hype, Ethics & Best Practices
Webinar On-Demand

[On-Demand] AI in Recruiting: Hype, Ethics & Best Practices

Separate fact from fiction for AI in recruitment and dig into the ethical implications for talent acquisition leaders.

Watch Now
AI in Recruiting: A Handbook for Talent Acquisition Leaders
Handbook

AI in Recruiting: A Handbook for Talent Acquisition Leaders

Everything you ever wanted to know about AI in recruiting and how to use AI recruiting software.

Read the Handbook

Affinix™ Analytics

Posted on by edyson

Affinix™ Analytics

PeopleScout’s talent acquisition technology suite, Affinix™, is a mobile-first, cloud-based platform that creates a consumer-like candidate experience and streamlines the sourcing process. The Affinix Analytics module provides customizable dashboards that show job seeker analytics and operational metrics to help you understand your end-to-end recruitment process.

Download this fact sheet to learn more about Affinix Analytics.

DOWNLOAD Fact Sheet

Learn more about Affinix™.

Learn More

Dig into More Talent Tech Insights

AI for Recruiting: Getting from Hype to Hire
Articles

AI for Recruiting: Getting from Hype to Hire

By Patti Woods, Sr. Implementation Training Manager, & Chad Getchell, Director of Technical Solutions Architecture & Tech Implementation   Ready or not, AI is coming for the recruiting world. A whopping 81% of HR leaders are already exploring or implementing AI in their processes according to  Gartner. That’s a lot of companies jumping on the train…

[On-Demand] AI in Recruiting: Hype, Ethics & Best Practices
Webinar On-Demand

[On-Demand] AI in Recruiting: Hype, Ethics & Best Practices

Separate fact from fiction for AI in recruitment and dig into the ethical implications for talent acquisition leaders.

Watch Now
AI in Recruiting: A Handbook for Talent Acquisition Leaders
Handbook

AI in Recruiting: A Handbook for Talent Acquisition Leaders

Everything you ever wanted to know about AI in recruiting and how to use AI recruiting software.

Read the Handbook

Talking Talent: Talent Technology for 2021

Posted on by nfuqua

In this episode of Talking Talent, we’re continuing our look at 2021 and what it holds for talent leaders. This time, we’re looking at technology.

We know that talent tech is going to play a large role in the upcoming recovery, and employers that implement and use the right technology are going to have an advantage.

So, what are the biggest technology opportunities for 2021? And what has the past year changed about our relationship with technology?

Joining us to talk about these questions is Anna Turner, PeopleScout’s new Vice President of Product. Anna is responsible for leading the vision, strategy and roadmap for PeopleScout’s product and service portfolio.

Anna joins PeopleScout from HR software and payroll solutions provider UKG—formerly Ultimate Software. At UKG, Anna was responsible for product development strategy, delivering new features and products to the market, and setting organizational practices and standards for product excellence.

She has deep B2B software product management leadership experience, with previous roles at high-growth tech companies, and she is also a recognized expert on HR technology, serving on the national SHRM expertise panel for Technology and HR Management since 2016.

In this episode, Anna talks about the biggest challenges and opportunities in talent technology over the upcoming year, including the role tech will play in the upcoming “great rehire,” how our growing comfort with new technologies will impact talent acquisition going forward and ways the technology landscape will continue to evolve.

Digital Sourcing Strategy and Centralization Reduced Time-to-Hire by 20%

Posted on by akessler
Digital Sourcing Strategy and Centralization Reduced Time-to-Hire by 20%

Retail RPO

Digital Sourcing Strategy and Centralization Reduced Time-to-Hire by 20%

A leading retailer needed to remake its application process, which was long and difficult for candidates. PeopleScout implemented a shortened, mobile-first application process and expanded the client’s sourcing strategy.

6,800 annual hires
85% % application conversion rate, up from 35%
20% % reduction in time-to-hire

Situation

A leading retailer engaged with PeopleScout to improve their application process. Despite having a well-known and well-loved consumer brand, the retailer relied on job boards to bring in candidates. The client’s application took 30 minutes to complete, and could not be completed on a mobile device, alienating or inconveniencing many job candidates.

The client knew it was losing a large portion of applicants because of its cumbersome application process. To apply, candidates needed access to a computer to fill out a 30-question application that took half an hour to complete—even for part-time positions.

The client engaged with PeopleScout, looking for a partner with technology and candidate experience expertise to remake the entire recruitment process in order to place the candidate at the center.

Solution

Expanded Sourcing Strategy

PeopleScout worked with the client to carefully craft an expanded sourcing strategy, including targeted digital recruitment marketing centered on attracting, engaging and converting candidates in online spaces. The strategy was focused on people who have an affinity for the client’s brand but may not be actively looking on job boards. Then, PeopleScout was able to drive those candidates to a quick, easy mobile apply process.

Mobile-first Apply

PeopleScout developed a mobile-first application designed to work easily through a smartphone and reduce candidate fall out. The new application is completed by all candidates, regardless of role.

Shortened Application

The new application includes just 11 questions on one page and takes less than eight minutes to complete. The client worked with PeopleScout to reduce the amount of information asked from candidates during the application stage in order to streamline the process.

Results

Half of Candidates Now Apply on Mobile

Nearly two-thirds (65.9%) of all candidates applying to this client now apply through a mobile device. Before working with PeopleScout, the client was excluding or at the very least inconveniencing a large portion of its talent pipeline.

Application Time Reduced From 30 Minutes to Less Than Eight

Applicants can consistently complete the application in eight minutes or less, with some candidates able to complete it in as little as six minutes.

Application Conversion Rate

The application conversion rate rose to 85% with the new shortened mobile application process. The rate for a traditional application is around 35%.

Broadened Talent Pipeline, Improved Candidate Quality and Shortened Time to Hire

The client no longer relies solely on job boards to build their pipeline and relies on a variety of sourcing strategies. This led to hiring of quality candidates, improving the slate-to-hire to one candidate hired for every 1.3 presented and shortened time-to-hire by more than 20%.

AT A GLANCE

  • COMPANY
    Leading retailer
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Affinix
  • ANNUAL HIRES
    6,800
Contact Sales

Sourcing Beyond 2020: Building Global Pipelines for Adaptive Work

Posted on by edyson

This year, many organizations have had to rethink the strategies and methods they leverage to source and recruit talent. As the year ends and good news regarding vaccines brings us all new hope, you might be wondering what talent acquisition success looks like post-2020?

One of the first steps in preparing for the changes ahead in the talent landscape is to establish an efficient method of sourcing talent. Building a global talent pipeline strategy is an effective way to source and recruit the talent you need.  

More technology is available than ever before, designed to making global sourcing and talent acquisition more efficient. Video interviewing makes it simple to interview candidates remotely, virtual reality technology can provide candidates a realistic look at your office without ever stepping foot inside and a variety of solutions for remote work mean that candidates can work from anywhere.  

I recently had the opportunity to join Hiretual for their webinar Sourcing Beyond 2020: Building Global Pipelines for Adaptive Work. During the live Q&A, I discussed how to tap into the global talent pool, ways to attract talent faster during the Great Rehire and how to go about engaging with candidates for current or future roles.

In follow up to the webinar, I wanted to provide some additional insights, observations and takeaways from the current talent sourcing landscape and provide you with actionable advice to help you source talent in 2020 and beyond. You can also watch the recorded webinar on the Hiretual website.

EBOOK

Employer Brand Conversation Shifts from Acquisition to Retention and Rebuilding

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My Three Biggest Sourcing Takeaways from 2020

Maximize Your Investments

At the onset of the pandemic, many organizations had to make hard personnel decisions. As a result, teams are lean, but sourcing systems and contracts are still in place, so companies are looking for ways to use what they have. When you have a lean team, it is really important to invest in sourcing tools that allow them to produce more with fewer people. And, if your team is in a position to have any downtime, they can use it to get the most out of the current systems, processes and plans they have today.

It is becoming more important to reach out to passive job seekers who possess the skills you need, as relying on those actively applying cannot be your only channel. At PeopleScout we have invested heavily in technology and sourcing tools with our proprietary Affinix™ platform. Specifically, it has AI sourcing to find passive candidates through various online channels and match skills against your internal databases as well. This augments your existing team and frees up people to handle the most important tasks.

Many of our clients are sophisticated technology buyers and they are also investing in some best in breed AI sourcing tools. In fact, many of them use Hiretual and so our recruiting teams have had access to use that as well, augmenting our strategy and providing the lift needed as we prepare for continued increases in hiring (The Great Rehire).

Get Ahead Where You Can

Focus on best practice building of consistent, authentic and meaningful communication, identifying talent locations and managing to keep former employees, alumni and prospects engaged. Use the sourcing tools you have, maximize your CRM potential, and keep the conversation going. This will ensure that when you are ready to hire candidates are aware of you and open to talk. On the call, Stockpiling was mentioned. Take a page from Executive search firms – research, map and have your ‘first 50’ calls or communication candidates ready to be engaged. Start with drip marketing on the ones you can.

Push relevant, authentic content to them around the company, its future, plans and opportunities. Make it engaging and not just ‘here’s a job.’ Talk about the company, it’s vision, plans for recovery or success. Looking for a job is a lot like looking for a home – when you decide it’s on, it’s on. It’s not often a constant search. Something triggers it and companies want to be top of mind when it does. Drip marketing and candidate engagement go a long way when the pipeline becomes hiring.

Be Flexible in Your Approach

With uncertainty in the talent market due to COVID-19, recovery efforts and just general unease after a big life-changing event – recruitment has become more unpredictable.

Most companies aren’t providing guidance on revenue and hiring initiatives because of this. Company goals are going to change, and so will hiring efforts to meet those goals. Your sourcing engine needs to be adaptable and ready to go as quickly as you can, but also be nimble enough to flex.

Using automation tools (like those for AI sourcing or lead generation) as well as easy to update marketing and drip marketing campaigns can take the weight off of your sourcers, who can focus on strategy and research for future needs and on how to go to market for these candidates.

How Should Enterprise Hiring Teams Structure Their Global Sourcing Process?

candidate sourcing tools

Processes will need to be nimble and teams will need to be tuned in closely to hiring needs. Just like sales teams need clear goals and a plan to execute successfully, the closer talent acquisition is to an organization’s strategic objectives, the ‘tip of the spear’ sourcing team can be ready and focused on building early talent communication and networking.

Now, with the pandemic upending a lot of the traditional norms of work – physical locations, workplace flexibility from home, less commute, and a broader candidate pool for most industries, sourcing has to shift from their traditional method of ‘going where they know’ to rethinking where great candidates are and how to adapt and qualify them. Having more candidates doesn’t make sourcing easier; while it sure helps, it also presents new challenges for teams and organizations.

On the flip side of this coin – companies that cannot have virtual employees – face a different type of challenge. First, combating the notion that work from home is for everyone and sourcing candidates that will want to work onsite. Second, the competition for these individuals will intensify as the ‘Great Rehire’ kicks into full steam. Getting ahead of this and doing everything you can to map that talent and build rapport early will go a long way to getting ahead of a rapid upswing in hiring volumes.

Both scenarios also present a unique opportunity for recruitment and sourcing teams. Often, we source where we know – we look for carbon copies of the person we are replacing or the last people we hired (which is a lot to unpack for another time – diversity, inclusion and attraction anyone?) but with this, there will be large talent groups displaced that have skills and abilities but will not return to their previous roles.

An example of this is Flight Attendants. All major airlines, worldwide, have reduced their staff by enormous numbers. There are hundreds of thousands of candidates looking for work in a new area. For the savviest of sourcing and recruiting teams, there’s a huge opportunity here to bring a new candidate type to the table for roles. Knowing where to find them, how to engage them and how to bring them to the table for your hiring community will be extremely important and a massive opportunity for them.

How Enterprise Recruiters Can Set Themselves Apart from the Competition  

We’re all on the edge of what’s being called the ‘Great Rehire.’ We know that an average of 70% of the workforce has and will continue to work uninterrupted both virtually and in the office. That leaves a large, displaced group of candidates that will either return to their current careers or new ones. When that happens is anyone’s guess.

What teams can do now is a lot of the above – optimise your recruitment channels, build compelling drip marketing and attraction packages, leverage smart scouring tools, and start your research now to be sure you are ready when the hiring begins. To the TA leadership, if you aren’t already involved in future planning, get ahead of it now. This has the potential to be a massive rehire, at least we all hope, and we don’t have a precedent in modern hiring to compare. Be ready to be nimble.

Choosing the Right Scouring Tools and Technology

There has been a lot of debate in sourcing about how technology will either eliminate the need for sourcing (just like it will eliminate the need to interview) or will it augment. I’m firmly in the camp that technology, for the near to mid-future, will be an augmentation of human efforts.

So, now is the time to look at your sourcing tools and tech stack and eliminate waste and optimize your process and efforts. Take your sourcing tools and position them for the future, look at your organization and your needs and choose the tools that will help accelerate your hiring teams through the process.

We have to assume, as we always do in recruiting, that hiring will come faster than we can prepare for. Choose and implement tools that maximize your sourcing ability and help the team be faster, better and smarter. Tools have the ability to augment your team, integrate with your CRM to ensure you can automate attraction and marketing, and report back on the success rate of your efforts.

Look at your reporting state now – can you measure each key piece of the process to see where you can tweak, adjust, or shift to get better results? Best in class TA teams have learned to measure the entire funnel – not just for speed of process but also for efficiency or ‘friction.’ The faster you can get to market, identify and/or attract, and bring that candidate through an impactful experience will help you both hire and retain great people. To do that, you need to focus on the holistic view of your process and be sure you can measure it effectively.

Planning Your Future Workforce and Building Robust Talent Pipelines

At PeopleScout, we see it across our client base and I’m hearing it from friends and former colleagues; we know we need to prepare; we know we need to get ahead, but how? What are we hiring for? When does it start?

The best practices we’ve seen and some of the lessons we learned after the Great Recession in 2008 was that the closer recruiting is to sales and to executive planning, the better we can be prepared to not just find candidates but to strategise on what roles are needed to help the business rebuild, and then where to find them and how to engage them.

Planning ahead will be critical but I would say more importantly, given resource constraints, cost constraints and the level of uncertainty, sourcing will need to ensure they have a clear understanding beyond just the number of hires and what’s in your funnel. This is a time for talent acquisition as a whole to show how strategic we really are. We have been solving company problems for a long time, and this will be a huge opportunity to get in the mix of future state analysis, building the plan for what type of candidate is both needed and available and then delivering on that plan.

Building future proof talent pipelines requires both a plan and sourcing tools to help you source, track and communicate with your Great Rehire talent. Starting earlier will be well worth it when it begins. It won’t be as simple as knowing where the right talent is when you need them. You will need to be sure you track and build rapport consistently given the uncertainty of the market.

COVID-19 Series: How the Pandemic Impacts Talent Program Implementation

Posted on by nfuqua

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues and talent leaders around the world respond to the constant uncertainty, many are partnering with RPO and technology providers. Meanwhile, hiring and technology needs are changing quickly and frequently, which necessitates a nimble partner who can scale quickly. However, the days of implementing new programs in the traditional ways are over. Specifically, there are no days-long, in-person kickoffs or hands-on, face-to-face trainings. Now, it’s all virtual.

At PeopleScout, Emily Gordon has risen to the challenge of building partnerships and implementing new talent programs without even a handshake. She has more than 21 years of experience in talent acquisition and has overseen sourcing, continual process improvement and client implementations. In particular, her expertise is in transitions, process improvement, team building, client relationship development and operational delivery.

We spoke with Emily from her home in Michigan about what implementation looks like right now.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic transformed the RPO implementation process?

The first and most obvious change is that it has moved everything to a 100% virtual process. That was a big shift for us. We depended on in-person meetings and non-verbal cues. Implementation has been a human-to-human process. We’ve been really pushed to leverage technology and use new tools. We’ve also added an emotional intelligence expert, who is helping our internal teams and our customers adapt. We’re interacting with stakeholders in different ways.

We’re using a lot of video and doing lots of checking in, but we’re also taking more breaks. In a traditional implementation, we’d have a big kickoff that would take place over multiple days. We’d meet in person and get the butterflies and nervousness and excitement out. That’s difficult to manage now; because of video fatigue, people have a hard time spending a full workday on camera in a video meeting. So, we break our kickoff into more manageable chunks.

That means that while implementations during the pandemic have moved faster than they did before, it feels like we’re moving slower over the first few days as we get started. Relationships take longer to grow over video calls than they do in person. At the same time, we save a lot of time because we don’t need to build in travel or work as hard to coordinate schedules. This speed is important right now because a lot of customers want to implement new solutions faster because they had to scale down so quickly due to COVID. Now, they’re needing to ramp back up just as quickly.

What does the process look like now?

We’ve boiled the process down to four steps, and we use the acronym NEXT. It stands for Needs analysis, Engage and evaluate, eXecute and Transform.

In our needs analysis, we meet internally with our business development team and solutions architects, and we meet externally with clients to really understand their needs. We define what success looks like in this partnership and ensure that all their needs are met.

Then, we move into engage and evaluate, where we bring in even more stakeholders, including our PeopleScout client delivery teams. We go through every step of the client’s current process and look for ways to optimise and bring in our expertise. We make sure there aren’t any missed opportunities to accelerate success.

Then, we’re in the execute phase, where we add in our technology teams. We start to test and bring our new processes into practice. We bring the full delivery team into place, complete trainings and get ready for go-live.

Finally, we move into transformation. When you think about an implementation, it is really just the beginning, right? Our philosophy at PeopleScout is that implementation is a process and not an event. When we get to that last phase, we’re really at the beginning of our relationship with a new way of working established for both organisations.

What are the best virtual partnership building strategies you’ve developed – especially when it comes to communication?

Video is so important. At first, I think people were shy about being on video all day, every day. We broke up meetings to make it work for everybody. We also use collaboration technology to update our notes and project management tracking in real time so clients can watch everything happen. Building transparent communication virtually is difficult, so this has been an important step.

We’ve also learned not to be afraid to say, “I think we need to try that again.” Sometimes, we need to have another call to dig into an issue a little bit more, or maybe the right stakeholders couldn’t make part of a call. Sometimes, we ask the same questions two or three times throughout the process to make sure everyone is still on the same page.

A lot of talent acquisition teams are running lean right now. What advice do you have for organizations that are implementing RPO with a small internal team?

That’s the best part about RPO, right? Whatever you’re trying to implement – whether you’re trying to expand scope or add technology – that’s what we’re made for. Just be honest about the team you have and the needs you have. If you don’t have access to subject matter experts, let us know and be flexible. Maybe you previously had a reporting analyst, but now you can only provide access so that our team can find the necessary data ourselves. That’s okay. That’s our job. Our job is to bring the solution to you and to support you. It can feel overwhelming to start a new relationship. It’s a lot of work. To get through it, we need to acknowledge that and talk about the support you need so we can help you get there.

A lot of organizations find themselves needing to quickly implement a new technology solution, especially around virtual interviewing. What advice do you have for the process?

I recommend starting by selecting a technology solution that can be flexible and ramp up and down quickly. A best-in-class technology solution includes integrations, but that adds time and complexity when a lot of talent acquisition leaders are looking for speed. We encourage people to be flexible. We’ll pilot a new solution in a certain way and then decide what integrations we need to do and where we can best spend our time and effort. You have to design the process around your immediate needs and then build it from there.

At PeopleScout, we use Affinix™, and that’s always my recommendation. When a client needs it, we can just turn on our virtual interviewing solution. I just did this with one of my clients, a healthcare organisation, where we had to get video interviewing up and running really quickly at the start of the pandemic. If you need that, we can do it.

Are there any final thoughts you’d like to leave us with?

Remember that change is always difficult. Having a good partner makes it better, but there will always be bumps in the road. Communicate. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Be vulnerable. Admit what’s working and what’s not. As an RPO provider, we are here as a consultant. Our job is to come forward with solutions to problems you might not even be able to articulate yet. So, be open. Implementation is hard, but it doesn’t need to be painful.