Effective talent acquisition is a key priority for many businesses. It can help you prepare your organization for the future by finding the talent you need to grow, evolve and overcome new challenges.
If your company aspires to long-term, sustainable success, a ‘good’ talent acquisition strategy might not be enough - you should be looking for something great.
In today’s tight and competitive labor market, this is certainly a challenge, but there are many tools, technologies and strategic options that can help your firm achieve its goals.
the talent acquisition challenge
Talent acquisition is one of the biggest challenges facing businesses - and particularly HR departments - at the moment. It’s a major consideration in industries that are struggling to cope with skills shortages.
Research has warned that a “global talent crisis” could cost countries around the world trillions of dollars in unrealized annual revenues by 2030. The technology, media and telecoms industries alone could face a shortage of more than one million skilled employees globally by 2020.
This is an area of business where even the biggest multinationals have occasionally fallen short. Jennifer Candee, global head of talent acquisition and employer brand at Mondelez International, said this function has changed “so drastically and so quickly” that organizations have not always grown with it.
She told Recruiter: “It’s about the three levers - cost, quality and speed - and if cost and speed are of the utmost importance, then quality goes down. They all have to be in a nice balance.”
There are many examples of multinational brands that have made a success of their talent acquisition efforts. Mastercard and Asos, for instance, have seen results through their use of employee advocacy.
Finding the most effective approach for your business could prove vital to your ongoing evolution and success in a changing labor market.
taking talent acquisition to the next level
One of the most important considerations of all as you seek to revitalize your talent acquisition efforts is your employer brand. If this is strong, you have the crucial foundation you need to build a healthy talent pipeline and bring in vital skills to grow and develop as a business.
Some of the most powerful examples of how a strong brand can help you access talent can be found in the big tech sector. Google, for instance, can pretty much take its pick of the most qualified and experienced candidates thanks to the profile it has built up as an innovative employer, which gives its people the freedom they need to do their best work.
To build and strengthen your employer brand, you need insights into what people want and expect from their jobs. Our latest employer branding research revealed that the top five reasons to choose an employer in 2021 were:
- Attractive salary and benefits
- Good work-life balance
- Job security
- Pleasant work atmosphere
- Career progression opportunities
You can strengthen your relationships with workers and drive future talent acquisition efforts by engaging with employees about what is most important to them, and what you can do to help them be happy, healthy and productive at work.
Another concept that is becoming more important with each passing year - and has taken on even more significance in light of the impact of COVID-19 - is flexibility. Placing trust in your workforce and giving them a certain level of control and autonomy in their day-to-day work reflects positively on you as an employer.
One of Gartner's projected post-COVID future of work trends is ongoing growth in remote working. The firm also predicted further expansion of employers' roles in their employees' financial, physical and mental wellbeing, which could be another key element in effective talent acquisition strategies in the years to come.
harnessing the power of HR technology
Like many areas of business, talent acquisition will be influenced by the ongoing evolution of technology in the coming years.
One area of innovation that could prove particularly significant is artificial intelligence, which has the potential to greatly improve talent acquisition and retention. SHRM has predicted that AI will continue to evolve and expand beyond its most common uses in recruitment, learning and workforce analysis.
John Brownridge, digital workplace leader for Deloitte Consulting, commented: 'AI will be embedded into more core [human capital management] platforms and applications, and the barriers to buying or building AI will be reduced thanks to commoditization of the technology and more low-code or no-code development options.'
AI applications - and related concepts such as machine learning and automation - can greatly enhance your potential to identify the strongest candidates and predict their success, maintain candidate engagement and optimize onboarding processes.
We give our clients access to a range of HR technologies through our Randstad Relevate suite, which brings various solutions together in one place. Relevate Talent Search lets you scan our comprehensive database of vetted workers by skills, experience and location, for example, while Relevate Reference uses automation to speed up reference checking and improve hiring decisions.
As the world of work continues to evolve and businesses face a growing range of challenges in the coming years, making the most of tech services and innovations is likely to be a crucial element in your talent acquisition efforts.
If you're interested in learning more about this subject and how to raise your performance in this area, take a look at our dedicated talent acquisition strategy guide.
