Not so “Best” Best Practices in Recruiting

In the recruiting world, there has always been this focus on creating consistent practices  and streamlining the process. This is a natural tendency, as it generates efficiency, organization and promotes best practices. But are they really the best?

HR and all that comes with it is evolving, and fast. New technologies and tools are flying past our heads, and they’re hard to catch when you’re stuck in your “best practice” ways. That’s not to say we should jump on every buzzing fad in recruiting, but there is something to be said for personalization and tailoring of the recruiting process.

Instead of staying stagnant in your practices, consider what your company really needs, now and for the future. Recruiting techniques don’t come out of the box in a one-size-fits-all way. Finding out what works for you is a matter of assessing your talent needs and being deliberately flexible in recruiting and retaining talent.

Here are some things to consider when building a talent strategy, from Anna Marie Deter  in a white paper called “Tune in to Talent:”

Strategic Talent Requirements: Revolving around what kinds of skills will help the business succeed, how many staff are needed and where they should be based

Taking a look at what and who has worked in the past is always as important as considering what and who didn’t work in the past. And with current common flux of lay offs and then refilling the position  when times have gotten better, there can be some confusion or uncertainty about what actually needs to be filled. Create an open dialogue with your staff about workload, multi-tasking, and expectations. Good communication  can go a long way in determining real needs vs. perceived or assumed needs.

Talent Risks: Based on an assessment of what the key talent risks are facing the organization, and including analysis of succession planning, key person dependency and mobility risks

If you haven’t assessed who your key players are, how can you work at retaining them ? Having a clear knowledge of your top talent, and their individual job satisfaction can help in keeping these talents with you. Working in the present, while always having one foot in the future helps to drive better decisions. When you consider the risks and advantages not only for the now, but for the future as well, you’ll make better choices.

Return on Investment: Exploring what the business has learned about which kind of ‘talent interventions’ deliver the best ROI and examining whether success is better achieved through growing talent or buying it

Again, keeping tabs on what works, will ultimately save you time and money. What avenues have produced the best and longest lasting employees? Keep track of where they came from, what they were doing and how you found them. Also, keep track of how employees have progressed within the company. If you see stagnation, perhaps buying would be your best avenue.

Talent Governance Infrastructure: Identifying what infrastructure exists to manage data on talent and the culture and governance in place to encourage and enable career moves and secondments

Lately, there has been a huge push for cleaning up your data. Today we have access to incredible amounts of data. We’ve gotten good at obtaining it, but not so much at organizing and actually being able to use it. If what you’re doing now isn’t working, change it! This data is invaluable to you in creating a talent pipeline. Consider new technologies to help you keep your data clean and useable.