Recruiting Future with Matt Alder - What's Next For Talent Acquisition, HR & Hiring?

Over the last few months, as I've been researching the practical effects of the Great Resignation, we've heard the stories of talent acquisition professionals from the US, Europe and Australia on what is truly a global issue. One country I really want to know more about though, is India, one of the biggest global markets for tech talent.

My guest this week is Aditya Singh, Director Head of Talent Acquisition at Informatica. Aditya has overall responsibility for designing and deploying Informatica's Talent Acquisition Strategy across India and gives us a great insight into what Informatica is doing to stand out in one of the most competitive talent markets on the planet.

In the interview, we discuss:

• The Indian tech talent market

• Why EVP is critical for differentiation

• Gen Z's expectations from work

• Constant engagement throughout the client lifecycle

• The importance of campus recruiting

• The rapidly changing landscape of skills and why this makes internal mobility critical

• The impact of remote

• The role of technology

• Data and analytics

• What TA innovations can we expect to see in the future

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As employers continue to struggle to find the talent they need, it is fascinating to see talent acquisition teams forensically picking their recruiting processes apart and reimagining them to reflect the reality of 2022. While talent intelligence, AI, and automation play a part, some human fundamentals sit at the heart of an effective TA strategy.

So what should recruiters be focusing on, and how different is the talent market of 2022 from those in the past. My guest this week is somewhat of a recruiting legend and has strong opinions based on his decades in the industry. Lou Adler, CEO of Performance-based Hiring Learning Systems, is a prolific author, speaker and trainer. Keep listening to hear his thoughts on how best to deal with the challenges employers are currently facing. 

In the interview, we discuss:

• Is the current market really unprecedented?

• What should recruiters be focusing on?

• Designing recruiting processes

• Go to market positioning.

• Results versus competencies and experience

• Predictive indicators and confirming indicators

• Hiring manager

• The role of technology

• The future

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In the latter part of last year, I had two conversations on the show about hiring from marginalised groups. The first was with Eugène van den Hemel, who is doing pioneering work in The Netherlands to connect refugees with employment opportunities. The second was with Darren Burns, who runs the ex-offender hiring programme for UK retailer Timpson.

Both of these conversations were eye-opening for me. They highlighted that now more than ever, employers need to challenge traditional policies and beliefs to think differently about hiring if they want to be genuinely inclusive.

I wanted to know more, and a few weeks ago, I was introduced to James Fellowes and Chance Bleu-Montgomery from Prosper4, who run an inclusive hiring portal called the Bridge of Hope. Their organisation helps bridge the gap between being job-ready and getting a job in many marginalised and diverse talent pools.

Their knowledge and expertise come from incredibly challenging personal experiences, and it was a privilege to give them this platform to tell their story.

In the interview, we discuss:

• Being in the business of changing lives

• Inclusive recruitment and inclusive employment

• Building a coalition of support services covering critical areas such as qualifications, finance and broader family support

• What does the talent come from

• Improving the odds both for job seekers and employers

• The huge benefits to employers

• Which employers are embracing inclusive recruiting

• Future plans

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Round up is the monthly show on The Recruiting Future Podcast channel that highlights episodes you may have missed and gives you my take on some of the key learnings from the guests.

Episodes mentioned in this Round Up:

Ep 403: The Skills Challenge

Ep 404: The Great Opportunity

Ep 405: Global Remote Teams

Ep 406: A CEO’s Perspective On Remote Work

Ep 407: Science Driven Talent Intelligence

Ep 408: Hiring Revolution

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DE&I continues, thankfully, to be an extremely high profile issue for employers. However, the needle is still not moving quickly enough, and some of the data is shocking. For example, it would still take 200 hundred years to close the race and gender pay gaps at the current rate of progress.

So what can employers do to accelerate the pace of change, and how much can individual recruiters influence diversity in hiring. This week, my guests are Trina Olson and Alfonso Wenker, co-founders of Team Dynamics. Trina and Alfonso work with some well-known organisations to improve their diversity and hiring practices. They have recently authored a book called Hiring Revolution that offers some extremely practical advice on how recruiters can inject DE&I into their organisation's hiring.

In the interview, we discuss:

• Aligning cultural behaviour to values

• Why inequities in hiring and promotion are not a foregone conclusion

• Resume racism 

• Recruiters taking individual responsibility to make change

• Notice, Name and Navigate

• RPDR

• What to do more of, what to do less of and what to stop.

• Onboarding

• How will things develop over the next two years?

Listen to this podcast in Apple Podcasts.

Talent intelligence is something that has gathered significant momentum in the last three years, and data-driven decision making is a crucial part of every sophisticated talent acquisition function. But are we asking enough questions about the sources of the data that is used and truly understanding the risk of bias?

My guest this week is Markellos Diorinos, CEO at Bryq. Markellos is passionate about using objective science and unbiased data to inform hiring and internal mobility.

In the interview, we discuss:

• Data supported decision making.

• Challenging recruiting norms

• The importance of human decision making

• Biased data and reliable data

• Understanding culture in an objective scientific way

• Translating a cultural framework into specific behaviours

• The role of technology

• What does the future look like?

Listen to this podcast in Apple Podcasts.

Whatever form it eventually takes, remote working is here to stay. In the previous episode of the show, we explored the challenges and opportunities of building a global remote team; in this episode, I wanted to get the hands-on perspective of someone who has built a highly successful remote-first company.

Everett Harper is the CEO of Truss, a software engineering business that has been fully remote for ten years. In our conversation, Everett shares myriad insights on hiring, communication, retention, culture and diversity, which will be of enormous value to everyone who's listening.

In the interview, we discuss:

• Building a 100% remote company

• Culture

• Maintaining and measuring productivity.

• Focusing on human connection and building systems to support that

• The danger of expanding work hours

• Exposing the fallacy of presenteeism

• Putting diversity at the heart of the workforce

• How to ensure you have the skills and talent you need

• Salary transparency and consistency

• Thinking differently about the things we are seeing

• Do we understand the real implications of global mobility?

• What does the future look like?

• Everett's book - "Move to the Edge, Declare it Center."

Listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts.

One of the early discussion points in the pandemic was the access to global talent pools that the move to remote working could open up. Two years on, it is pretty clear that remote working is now a permanent fixture in the working life of many people. So how far are employers tapping into global talent pools, and what are the challenges and opportunities.

My guest this week is Nicole Sahin, CEO and Founder of Globalization Partners. Nicole and her company work with many employers who are building global remote teams, and she has some valuable insights and experiences to share.

In the interview, we discuss:

• The long term trends that are coming out of the pandemic

• Everyone everywhere

• The benefits of building global remote teams

• Diversity of ideas

• Engagement & productivity

• Building community

• Common challenges

• What mindset shifts are employers making

• Understanding cultural norms

• Building a global employer brand

• Nicole's book " Global Talent Unleashed." 

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It's only January, and it's already clear that the Great resignation will continue to be a huge talking point in 2022 as companies fight for the talent and skills they need. However, some employers are already reframing this challenge as a fantastic opportunity to attract talented people they might not have previously persuaded to move roles.

This isn't easy, and obviously, employer brand and employee experience are huge factors. However, there is a lot that talent acquisition teams can be doing to stand out from the crowd by focusing on the areas within their control that make a real difference.

My guest this week is Maggie Spong, VP of Talent Acquisition at AstraZeneca. AstraZeneca has certainly been thrust into the spotlight by the pandemic, but they have also spent the last few years developing several initiatives to differentiate themselves in their talent markets. In our conversation, Maggie shares a number of these, including their talent scout programme, building a personalised and inclusive candidate experience, and focusing on training and development for their talent acquisition team.

In the interview, we discuss:

• How Talent Acquisition is evolving at AstraZeneca

• Using Talent Scouts to build external talent pipelines for hard to fill roles and where there are gaps in internal succession planning

• Building a personalised and inclusive candidate experience.

• Giving feedback to all interviewed candidates

• The challenges of the pandemic

• Encouraging candidate self-selection by showcasing the authentic employee experience

• Turning The Great Resignation into The Great Opportunity

• The role of technology

• Employer brand advocacy

• Investing in development and the Talent Acquisition Academy

• AstraZeneca's focus for 2022

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Skills shortages have always been an issue for employers and have certainly come into sharp focus in recent months. Skills mapping, predicting future skills requirements and opening up talent pools via hybrid and remote working are just some of the solutions employers will be looking at in 2022.

So what kind of strategies should talent acquisition and HR leaders be planning, and how can technology help?

My first guest of the year is Vanessa Tierney, CEO of Abodoo. Vanessa's organisation recently surveyed 100 HR Directors and C-Level Executives

from the world's best companies to work for and asked their

opinion about their firm's working strategy, talent, workforce, and

social infrastructure. Unsurprisingly skills were the number one issue.

In the interview, we discuss:

• Attrition and skills shortages

• Opening up talent pools globally via remote and hybrid working

• How do you make people feel connected?

• Adapting working models

• Presenteeism

• How can employers better understand the skills in their workforce?

• Hard and soft skills matching.

• Predicting future skills requirements and understanding gaps

• Spotting opportunities in geographical skills clusters

• Driving inclusivity in talent identification

• The Metaverse

• Advice on selecting HR and Recruiting Technology

• What should we expect in the medium and long term future?

Listen to this podcast in Apple Podcasts.