In these shaky economic times, we recruiters are understandably keen to demonstrate ‘value’ to our organisations. So for our latest Scaling Stories podcast, who better to speak to than the smart and perceptive Emily Zahuta, Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at Lattice.

Lattice is of course the ‘people success platform’ which, in Emily’s words, “helps companies drive performance and engage their employees to do their very best work”.

In our conversation, Emily makes a compelling case that TA’s responsibilities should go way beyond onboarding, and include certain functions that are traditionally associated with HR.

“I think we’ve gotten away with being on the front line of hiring,” Emily says. “We build the relationships with the candidates; we get them excited about joining a certain role in these companies; we hire them for a price that we all feel is fair, and then we pass them onto onboarding for the most part, and we say ‘good luck. Hope you love it… we’re off to focus on the next role’. And I think there’s a really big miss in that.”

Emily makes the point that TA professionals amass huge knowledge about the candidate, like “what’s important to this individual, what their fears are, what they’re excited about, what their growth tracks should look like based on what we’ve discussed”, but all too often, that knowledge evaporates within an organisation.

“It’s tricky because I’ve worked under leaders who say, ‘attrition is not your issue’... [But] my point is, yeah, it is our job. If we’re saying we’ll build the interview process; we’ll build the panel of folks; in fact, we’ll even tell you what questions to ask then. Why shouldn’t we be measuring if those things are actually successful in hiring someone that does their job correctly?”

As Emily explains, TA should be advising on all things talent related, not just getting those bright sparks through the door. For companies to thrive, TA leaders need to adopt a ‘talent delivery’ mindset, or what you might call ‘total workforce management’.

“In a shaky economy, in a really funky global environment, what we have is a team that really needs to get to the nitty gritty of what the business is trying to solve.”

Emily talks about “expanding the value of what we’re doing”, which essentially boils down to being “better than outside resources” like recruitment agencies.

If you’re a tad nervous about the future, Emily’s wise words provide hope that we recruiters can recalibrate our roles and add value in ever-changing ways.

Check out our blog on quality of hire – a key theme in our chat with Emily – and for more insights from TA leaders, head over to our Scaling Stories podcast page.