Articles 1 min read

Dear Talent Acquisition…can we please get real? by Ben Gledhill

In under 12 months from now, it’s 2020, when all those surveys and white papers that we have read will supposedly come to fruition…yet it’s all feeling very “samey” isn’t it?

Now trust me I am not going to get too negative as that does not help anyone. Could I please ask a favour…can we all get real? Can we start doing some of the stuff we talk about as an industry at the millions of conferences and breakfast meetings we attend? Can we try and move our industry on to a level where we have the respect of our organisation and more importantly the millions of people we assist every day in securing new roles worldwide?

For me, these are some of the things we need to fix. We’ve been talking about it for a long time…

Proper planning; all I need to say is Danny Hodgson and you’ll work out the rest…

Employer Branding; as discussed in Matt Alder’s recent podcast with David Thompson (which is fantastic by the way) nothing has moved on for a long time. Most EB re-fresh programmes look the same, a lot of style over substance. Let’s finally start to think like Marketing professionals, not like we just want to win awards…

Candidate Experience; once we all accept it’s broken we can finally move on. Let’s use tech, sort out process and crack on. It does not start when someone visits our website, it starts when people think of us, our brand and our people. Work backwards, let’s get out of our funnels and we might get somewhere.

Tech in general; it’s awesome. Take off your armbands and learn to swim. Book onto trials, create partnerships and get curious about the possibilities.

Retention; we’re missing a massive trick here. Our internal environment needs the same attention if not more than the external. Our organisations have amazing talent that we probably walk past every day.

Diversity, Inclusion and Social Mobility; it’s safe to say the world has been in a better place. Many people look to the workplace so they can be part of something. Let’s open-up every door possible and finally start to do the right things for our people.

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