Talent

There is a clear correlation between the level of talent on your Talent Acquisition team and the level of talent in your company. So if you believe that talent will be an important differentiator for your business in the future, building a very strong Talent Acquisition department should be a top priority.

These are some of the things we look for when we recruit for my team.

Communication and listening skills

All recruiters communicate all day long. Great recruiters know how to adapt communication to the situation and communicate equally well with candidates, hiring managers and the wider HR team. You have to be able to listen and take in data, but also to adjust messaging to different candidates when you’re sourcing. You must be able to package and present the right information to stakeholders (not too much and not too little!), build great relationships with your organization and stay aligned with its needs. Members of a great recruiting team share knowledge with each other naturally and unforced.

Self leadership

Recruiters are usually rather busy. Great recruiters are busy doing the tasks that will create the most value for the company. You have to be able to prioritize and manage your time. You need to know when to say no and where to go that extra mile. Of all the attributes you need as a recruiter, understanding what to prioritize might be the most difficult thing. This competency comes from experience in understanding all elements related to recruitment, and often takes some time to achieve.

Curiosity about the organization

Great recruiters understand the business they partner with support. The better your understanding of the organization and its business, the better you will be at prioritizing, finding the right candidates, and understanding what information is the most relevant to relay back to your stakeholders. But most importantly: if you don’t understand your organization and where it’s going you will always be one step behind it. We don’t have time to be one step behind.  

True talent expertise

Good recruiters understand all parts of talent acquisition. Great recruiters can explain it to their stakeholders. At any given time you need to be able to act as your organization’s talent expert, to educate and advise them on talent matters. Use your position as the expert to create value and help your organization move forward!

Analytic & storytelling skills

A good recruiter understands the data. A great recruiter also draw the right conclusions from it and uses that as input for change. Great recruiters use storytelling so stakeholders that don’t have the same deep knowledge of recruitment data can understand the scenario, own it, and tell the story to others. Your analytics and storytelling skills will give your ideas wings and change will happen faster.

Collaboration skills – One HR!

A good recruiter works well with other recruiters. A great recruiter works well with the entire HR department, because Talent Acquisition efforts need to be aligned with the entire HR department, not just the other recruiters. You have to understand what part everyone else is playing, and support them. That way you’ll never make mistakes like make a promise that breaks the mobility policies, or give offers out of range. Better cooperation means fewer mistakes and cases of do-over. Recruiters in our team are HR Professionals, nothing else.

And finally – putting the team first

In the end, it all comes back to our leaders’ ability to build a group with the right composition and dynamics. Building a team is not only about the skills of each individual, but also about how they play together. A soccer team of 11 left-backs and nothing else will not be a great team even if they are the best left-backs in the world. Team first. Always team first!

CONTINUE....
To build a Talent

There is a clear correlation between the level of talent on your Talent Acquisition team and the level of talent in your company. So if you believe that talent will be an important differentiator for your business in the future, building a very strong Talent Acquisition department should be a top priority.

These are some of the things we look for when we recruit for my team.

Communication and listening skills

All recruiters communicate all day long. Great recruiters know how to adapt communication to the situation and communicate equally well with candidates, hiring managers and the wider HR team. You have to be able to listen and take in data, but also to adjust messaging to different candidates when you’re sourcing. You must be able to package and present the right information to stakeholders (not too much and not too little!), build great relationships with your organization and stay aligned with its needs. Members of a great recruiting team share knowledge with each other naturally and unforced.

Self leadership

Recruiters are usually rather busy. Great recruiters are busy doing the tasks that will create the most value for the company. You have to be able to prioritize and manage your time. You need to know when to say no and where to go that extra mile. Of all the attributes you need as a recruiter, understanding what to prioritize might be the most difficult thing. This competency comes from experience in understanding all elements related to recruitment, and often takes some time to achieve.

Curiosity about the organization

Great recruiters understand the business they partner with support. The better your understanding of the organization and its business, the better you will be at prioritizing, finding the right candidates, and understanding what information is the most relevant to relay back to your stakeholders. But most importantly: if you don’t understand your organization and where it’s going you will always be one step behind it. We don’t have time to be one step behind.  

True talent expertise

Good recruiters understand all parts of talent acquisition. Great recruiters can explain it to their stakeholders. At any given time you need to be able to act as your organization’s talent expert, to educate and advise them on talent matters. Use your position as the expert to create value and help your organization move forward!

Analytic & storytelling skills

A good recruiter understands the data. A great recruiter also draw the right conclusions from it and uses that as input for change. Great recruiters use storytelling so stakeholders that don’t have the same deep knowledge of recruitment data can understand the scenario, own it, and tell the story to others. Your analytics and storytelling skills will give your ideas wings and change will happen faster.

Collaboration skills – One HR!

A good recruiter works well with other recruiters. A great recruiter works well with the entire HR department, because Talent Acquisition efforts need to be aligned with the entire HR department, not just the other recruiters. You have to understand what part everyone else is playing, and support them. That way you’ll never make mistakes like make a promise that breaks the mobility policies, or give offers out of range. Better cooperation means fewer mistakes and cases of do-over. Recruiters in our team are HR Professionals, nothing else.

And finally – putting the team first

In the end, it all comes back to our leaders’ ability to build a group with the right composition and dynamics. Building a team is not only about the skills of each individual, but also about how they play together. A soccer team of 11 left-backs and nothing else will not be a great team even if they are the best left-backs in the world. Team first. Always team first!

The talent

The 
great talent
 Attracting top talent is the million-dollar challenge and while for years those sums of money have been reserved for premiership football players, now its software engineers that are demanding lottery style salaries.  According to Steve Cadigan formerly at LinkedIn, we’re not far away from software engineers having their own agents. Now I definitely regret not taking my computer O’ Level further!

Not being able to compete in the salary arms race saw LinkedIn change tack and focus on winning the hearts and minds of their people. Changing lives and tackling career enhancing challenges, is how they position themselves in a market place that sees Facebook and Google win in the money stakes every time. Stories about customers who have seen their lives turned around and staff that have seen their own careers transformed, is the now the nitrous fuel that powers the LinkedIn engine room.

And then at the other end of the salary spectrum is The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company with their ‘ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen’, and their relentless focus on service and ‘wow’ moments for customers. Sue Stephenson, Vice President, Community Footprints, told us how they look for innate service orientated talent supported by a highly disciplined approach to service that translates culturally across their 85 hotels in 25 countries. Every day there are ‘line up’ meetings with all staff where stories are shared from across the world about the difference service can make.

I also learned that Southwest Airlines, the poster boy of the airline industry with profits in every year of operation (in contrast to the overall losses made by the airline industry since the start of air travel), that it is statistically harder to get a job there than it is to get into Harvard! But more about their story comes later in the Wavelength program.

What these different businesses have in common is their relentless pursuit of top talent and their unique ways of attracting and keeping people in their businesses. In their own ways neither LinkedIn, Southwest Airlines or The Ritz-Carlton can buy their influence in the talent market, they need to earn it and win hearts and minds in the process. Stories bring their mission to life, whether in the daily line-ups or quite simply the anecdotes people tell at their family BBQs.

It’s a wake up call for all of us who have got used to low staff turnover in a recessionary environment. As the economy picks up, talent will also be on the move. Offering million-dollar salaries is one way to respond, but winning hearts and minds is probably more realistic for most of us.