Do organizations know more about their inventory and customers than their current and prospective workforce?

Designing a strategy to service the organization’s talent needs has become increasingly complex. Shifts in the business climate decrease predictability and require the organization to be more agile and develop the ability to quickly identify changing talent needs to support the pursuit of new opportunities. The persistent introduction of new technologies, which often open new talent channels, requires the talent acquisition function to assess structure, roles and resource allocation more frequently to recalibrate quickly and develop a response capability to deliver results. The ability to evaluate which vendors, technologies and channels are “right-fit” to support the talent strategy require clarity, discipline and a new set of skills for the function. Agile thinking, curiosity and comfort with risk are required skills for talent acquisition leaders. Achieving clarity around the organization’s talent philosophy is critical to realizing alignment across the HR function, allowing talent acquisition to move quickly and unencumbered. An example of this is the resistance and / or lack of understanding around the value of social media. On one end of the spectrum doubt and fear persist, which is comparable to the response when the Internet arrived and offered up an opportunity for mainstream recruiting use. On the other end of the spectrum is the over zealous who partake in what I’ve referred to as “socializing” job postings and reducing an important strategic element to tactical application by seeing social channels as one more place to push out jobs without taking the time to understand either the nuances or risks.

Talent Acquisition as Talent Broker

If we agree that the mission of talent acquisition is to effectively resource the organization to solve business problems, support the pursuit of business opportunities, enable effective competition and sustain an appropriate level of momentum then an opportunity exists to assess how effectively the organization is resourced. Determining the current state of talent acquisition – talent philosophy, structure, resources, and technology, will be required to effectively develop the response capability to serve the organization’s needs.

Developing a talent community strategy can answer many of the organization’s resource needs. Depth of knowledge around the existing workforce and external talent market work in synergy to frame an effective strategy. Insight into the composition of the existing workforce – succession planning, skill gaps, competencies, employee interests and potential inform external recruitment needs when aligned and recalibrated with the strategic business plan. Identifying needs around skills, experience, level, geography and cultural fit offer a starting point. Developing a talent plan that identifies the type of talent – employee, contractor, contingent, or temporary, is what will further support the organization’s agility needs and allows the talent acquisition function to operate as a Talent Broker and business service provider. Today’s approach to managing this talent mix is often fragmented and doesn’t serve the organization, business leaders or Talent effectively. Designing a strategy that supports building a holistic community that allows Talent to identify the type of work relationship that interests them advances talent acquisition’s contribution in servicing the organization and delivers a more robust view into available talent. This approach also recognizes the shifting preferences of the workforce. Desire to have greater flexibility, mobility and choice in how and when people work and what they work on is increasing. Operating from a Talent Broker model allows leaders to have a single point of contact to find the right resource to support their business needs.

Extending the Value of Community Management and Brand Engagement

The competition for flexible “project talent” will increase as organizations seek to achieve workforce strategies that are sustainable and adapt quickly and easily to shifting business needs. The influence of social technologies, ease of access to networks and desire to connect has made Talent a shared global resource. Keeping talent engaged and interested in your brand and business is not going to get easier. Building a holistic community strategy is a natural extension of sourcing. Leveraging smart, targeted reach to identify and attract targeted Talent into a community relationship is just the beginning. The artistry and value comes through developing strategies around engagement to keep Talent connected. Extending sourcing to include initial screening to assess for skills, cultural fit, interest and readiness to join the company provides recruiters with a valuable community from which to re-partner with sourcing when business needs arise requiring a talent response. Tracking deployment against active projects and accumulated experience results in rich and valuable talent profiles that not only allows recruiters to respond quickly to hiring managers but to also be proactive when working with their business partners on anticipated needs. However, Talent needs to be kept engaged and continuously reengaged. By pursuing an integrated community management approach that intersects with sourcing and recruiting, the talent acquisition function evolves to a new level. Crafting relevant communications and designing opportunities for Talent to further engage with the brand through co-creation programs, “idea labs” or collective innovation projects is what can differentiate the brand and a recruiters ability to learn more about Talent and identify key contributors. The talent community manager’s role is to coordinate the creation and dissemination of targeted content, facilitate conversation in partnership with internal stakeholders, and potentially identify Talent for recruiters to further engage with. This approach leverages the interdependent relationship between the organization’s business strategy, talent acquisition and Talent. New talent acquisition tools like CRM support Talent segmentation and targeted communication. Combined with social tools like Socialcast takes Talent’s experience to a new level, supporting further connection, learning, engagement and possibly even loyalty.

The Benefits

This approach doesn’t necessarily require additional resources. It does however require talent acquisition functions to restructure in order to leverage the value of social media and engage Talent at a more relevant and visceral level around the business. Reallocating recruiting advertising / marketing budgets and assessing existing people resources can support designing a new structure that supports a community – based talent strategy. The benefits are significant. The organization benefits from increased Talent agility and enhanced market awareness – who is interested in the brand, what are their ideas, what do they want to do and when do they want to do it. Engaging Talent around the “business of the brand” facilitates increased collaboration to drive innovative ideas. Talent benefits by having a fun, engaging experience with the company, continuous learning and the ability to share their interests to move in and out of the organization in alignment with their career objectives. The talent acquisition function benefits through a holistic view of Talent to resource the organization and advance to the role of Talent Broker to deliver additional value and support the organization’s strategy.

In closing, I can’t think of a better quote to sum up the opportunity for business and Talent to connect in a more meaningful way and for the talent acquisition function to assume the role of Talent Broker.

“We grew up isolated.

The future is connected.”

“I think this changes everything…

If we let it.” Seth Godin

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Insight
Gaining insight into what truly energizes you is an important discovery. I had come to realize that what truly energizes me, where my strengths lie and where I possess authentic passion were all pointing in a similar direction – leading a talent acquisition function again. I missed being closer to the heart and soul of an organization’s business. Being directly at the business : talent intersection, tapped into the daily pulse of the business, and being in a leadership position to deliver direct value through the talent acquisition function. I missed the opportunity to work with a team and collectively experience the ebb and flow of navigating the inherent challenges of delivering on and / or advancing talent strategies.  And, celebrating success along the way.  The future was calling.  It was time to pursue an opportunity to broadly influence an organization’s talent acquisition orientation.  Build an outstanding experience for job seekers, recruiters and business leaders.  Support an organization’s strategic directives.  And, help enable the future through the talent acquisition capability.  Many of the same drivers that led me to transition from front-line business leadership to the HR function 12 years ago were pulling me back in. The opportunistic state of talent acquisition functions to deliver greater value to the business strategy. The candidate experience and void between recruiting and talent. And, the ability of technology to not only enable but also advance multi-dimensional relationships between organizations and talent.

The Search….in brief
I intentionally chose not to be fully public in my search. I chose to take a quieter search approach than many may agree with, especially in our connected, social environment. I reached out across my network and persistently scoured a number of sources, which probably resulted in a longer search. But I thought it was important to avoid unnecessary risk to existing and potential clients and to secure all possible revenue. I also wanted to fully absorb the job seeker experience.  No surprise that the job search itself was not only interesting and informative but disappointing, to say the least, during a time of great opportunity for organizations. From an analytical perspective, my search revealed the long-term vulnerabilities across organizations of various size, industry, and brand stature inherently tagged to the organization’s brand through poor recruiting practices. Yes, it continues to amaze me how companies can invest heavily in areas like marketing, R&D, and customer development only to allow the recruiting process to dilute those very same investments through the job seeker / candidate experiences. My friends say it shouldn’t continue to surprise me. But, until someone tells me that there is no connection between talent and “business success”, and that talent is not “our most important asset,” I’ll continue to be amazed. Executive search has its own challenges and there are but a few true gems within a sea of transactionally-driven, “close the deal”, recruiters.

Perspective and Framework
From the job seeker perspective, it’s quite challenging to balance a strong desire to move forward with the patience, resilience and gut instinct to stay focused on the right opportunity, which for me included role, company, geography, leadership and, most importantly, culture. Its probably the one thing I can’t emphasize enough to anyone I speak with who is in a job search or considering making a move. Trust your intuition. Know your self well enough to know what you value and where compromises can be made. Most of what is learned during the interview process is only going to reveal part of reality and that part better be strongly aligned with who you are and what you want. Reflect on past experiences to clarify what energizes you and what drains you. Define the environment in which you can thrive and create a guiding framework.  Then, be aware of what drains you to make smart compromises.  A few things that comprised my framework:

• Enterprise-wide leadership role with broad scope and responsibility encompassing all aspects of talent acquisition
• Reporting line directly to the head of HR / Talent, who is a progressive leader
• A culture of and commitment to progressive talent strategies across the HR organization
• Commitment to, and / or desire to achieve excellence in talent acquisition practices across the organization
• An HR organization that recognizes COE interdependencies and respects the inherent SME value.
• Owning my budget

Stepping Into the Future
Around the end of September, I accepted a new role and just finished my first month as Director of Talent Acquisition with the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). BPA is a self-financed, federal agency based in Portland – which also means I get to stay in one of the greatest cities in the country! BPA generates and transmits emission-free power to support about 33% of the Northwest, as well as transmitting wind energy to California. I’m already fully immersed in the benefit and challenge of learning the energy industry along with government practices. In my new role, I’ll be leading talent acquisition, internal talent movement, university recruitment, and diversity. I’ll also have the opportunity to further develop and execute on the Obama Administration’s Hiring Reform Memorandum, which by design enables government agencies to compete more effectively with private industry for talent. My own experience in applying for the job – 8 hours to complete the application – responding to a series of essay questions and short answers, resulting in a 9-page document, was quite revealing. At the same time, there are a number of good, transparent touch points within federal hiring and workplace practices that are well aligned with job seeker and employee preferences.

This is one of those unique opportunities to design a holistic strategy, develop a high-performing talent acquisition function, and enable the function to thrive and align with a critical business mission, which in this case will literally help keep the lights on! I’ll also be continuing with some outside work that doesn’t present a direct conflict or interfere with my role. The Talent Synchronicity blog will stay active and as I get settled will allocate more time to write. Talent Camp is still a possibility for 2011 so stay tuned and cheers to Transitions!

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Similarities can be drawn between portfolio diversification and designing smart talent strategies to develop a diversified talent portfolio.  Most importantly, it’s the absence of risk that adds risk.  In a financial portfolio, risk avoidance can lead to missing out on significant gains or realizing significant losses.  Taking the time to clarify your goals, be honest about the level of risk your willing to assume, design a diversified portfolio, make ongoing contributions, pursue a long-term strategy, periodically reassess and rebalance the portfolio, and leave room to play (so you can take advantage of interesting opportunities) will help to ensure you realize your financial future and keep you engaged in the journey.

Risk-smart of risk-averse
Now, let’s look at the similarities in how talent strategies are designed.  In an effort to avoid risk, companies make narrowly defined decisions about how, where and when they invest in talent.  Developing clearly stated goals around talent acquisition is often the first obstacle to overcome.  Without an integrated workforce planning capability, decisions are often reactive, expensive, and lead to either not enough of the right talent at the right time or too much of the wrong talent at the wrong time.  But, lets assume there is a workforce plan in place.  Is the plan risk-smart or risk-averse?  Here’s the difference.  A risk-averse plan would identify the talent needed to support attrition, succession planning, growth, reinvestment in existing talent, and decisions around when, where and how to invest in talent acquisition.  If the strategy is progressive, there’s also a talent-pooling component.  Keep in mind that very few organizations pursue this level of strategy and planning.  The risk-averse plan sounds pretty good, right?  So what’s the risk-smart plan? In the risk-averse plan the talent function is doing many of the right things to deliver value to the organization. The key difference?  The risk-smart plan includes a very important distinction – diversification.

Talent portfolio diversification
Identifying a goal for the percent of talent you’ll recruit in to the organization that will come from varied backgrounds, skills, and experiences moves the organization towards a risk-smart talent portfolio.  This same thinking can and should be applied to internal talent movement.  The advantage a risk-smart approach brings to the organization is a subset of Talent who have the potential to bring different perspectives to the business and can help fuel innovation and breakthrough thinking.  Too often, hiring managers and recruiters pursue people who have been in the exact job that is open.  That’s fine, to a point, but often it results in applying the same thinking, which doesn’t always help to inspire new ideas, broaden perspective and drive innovation.  Recall the Einstein quote, “You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.”  By not diversifying the company’s talent portfolio organizations can impede their own progress and assume a riskier trajectory over time in their effort to reduce risk.

Here’s an example from the HR space.  Many technology companies only want to hire HR leaders who have come from technology companies.  The same story can easily play out in healthcare, entertainment, financial services, consumer package goods, retail……get the picture.  The main point is this – someone who has experience in other industries, or even other functional areas, brings a more expansive knowledge-base that results in something many technology companies cherish – innovative practices.  Diversified, creative thinking has often been at the heart of the company’s birth.  Yet at some point they become increasingly risk-averse, especially in HR.  As I’ve heard the “why” described it is often not that different than how other companies would describe their unique challenges.  Will there be an initial learning curve?  Yes! Are there specifics to the business that are unique?  Yes?  But, the right person can get up to speed quickly and new skills can be developed.  Along the way, if the person brings the required leadership skills, has a proven track-record and is a cultural fit, the individual, team and company are transformed and all will benefit.  It’s through this immersion and learning process that amazing things can happen.  New questions are asked.  New insights are made.  New discoveries unfold and new opportunities are identified. Current thinking and processes are challenged.  The world is looked at through a new lens and the opportunity for transformational change is enhanced. Operating in an uncertain world undergoing dramatic change requires a diversified perspective fueled my fresh thinking. Holding on to “what is” while everything around you is changing will not help the organization realize its potential.

Diversifying a talent portfolio requires building strong partnerships and trust with business leaders and the CFO.  Start small and find internal champions.  Help prepare them by developing a strong on-boarding process and immersion to enculturate new talent.  Partner with the CFO to gain support and mitigate risk.  This is one aspect of defining an opportunity cost of talent, which focuses on the benefits derived by the business rather than on expense.  Take the time  to think about talent adjacencies, how to assess experiences that led to differentiated business results, benefits gained through work on special projects, and demonstrated ability to ramp-up quickly.  Each of these are indicators of future potential and can be quite valuable to the overall talent portfolio.  Looking at each of these indicators and then mapping talent to the organization’s cultural will help ensure success.

The end game
What better time than now to think more broadly about talent and begin developing a risk-smart portfolio.  The breadth of talent on the market today and your company’s ability to capture attention and engage a diverse mix of prospects can align more easily than during highly competitive environments.  You’ll also be helping to position your company for long-term success.  Start slow, identify your champions and demonstrate how you’ll support the strategy.  In the end, by being risk-averse there is potentially greater risk in the talent strategy, which ultimately transfers to the business strategy and the organization’s long–term success. After all, is your talent strategy focused solely on today or where the company wants to be tomorrow?

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The setting on the Oregon Coast was spectacular and a metaphor for our transformational work.  A wave is not independent from the ocean just as the organization cannot be separated from the talent that brings it to life each day to drive its success.  And, the Coast with all of its remarkable elements is in a state of perpetual change and interdependence. Our meeting place, a 4500 sq. ft. beach house, would serve as a place to open minds and facilitate discussion over the course of 2 ½ days.  It would also mean that each of us participating in Talent Camp, who in most cases didn’t know one another, would need to quickly establish a foundation for honest, challenging and meaningful dialogue. We devoted our first evening session to establishing group agreements.  What time would we begin each day? How much personal time was needed / desired?  What was important to each of us in providing an environment that nurtured productive dialogue? What values do we hold around collaboration and communication? And, what would be our comfort level with connecting to the outside world via social media while we were together?  This was not an easy conversation.  Not because the group was reluctant to discuss it but because their hunger to dive head first into our primary discussion was evident and bursting through, so we took a meandering path.  This was time well spent and provided an important foundation that would serve us well over the course of our time together.

What was remarkable was the ease with which the group came together.  Every aspect of what would be necessary to be together for this period of time was met with ease.  Everyone naturally assumed roles as needed to ensure our shared environment was conducive to being together and immersing ourselves in the work we had come together to explore. Our days were long and our formal conversations began at 9 or 10 am and went until 10 pm.  The group’s collective energy created a respectful environment for honest, tough dialogue yet work and play seemed to fuse together as one. We organically found a balance between structure and openness that allowed us to challenge assumptions, wrestle with paradigms, tear things down, and begin again – after all this was transformational work and the path is not linear but an iterative process that unfolds through a process of discovery. People stepped up to lead discussions and everyone stayed engaged and committed to crafting a vision for the future of the talent function, that ultimately led to more questions than answers. There was an ease and a comfort that each person helped to foster through their engagement and persistent commitment to the group dynamics.

Social media played a significant role in how this group came together.  With the exception of two people, who I knew, each connection to people attending Talent Camp began with a relationship that grew out of social networking.  I do believe that the insight we gain through social networking interactions are quite revealing and in this case helped to bring together a unique group who worked collaboratively to advance a critical conversation around the future of the talent function.

Part 2 of Talent Camp will get into our discoveries and outcomes.

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Here’s a preview of my session and I hope to see you there!
Is social recruiting just another sourcing tool—a way to promote job postings and find potential candidates? Or is it a pathway to building a sustainable talent community and another tipping point in the evolution in recruiting?

The tools we have access to today deliver benefits that you won’t find through other sourcing vehicles. Harnessing the true power of social networking is about active talent communities. Talent communities provide a forum that enhances the relationship between candidates and your brand by inviting talent to engage in conversation rather than transactional activities and messaging.

In this interactive session, we’ll take all 200+ of you and create a massive brainstorming community of our own. We’ll look at community development through the eyes of talent and the organization. By organizing into sub-groups we’ll leverage our collective intellect to tackle key questions and begin shaping a sustainable recruiting strategy.

Some of the questions we’ll address include:

• How can you attract talent to your community, engage them, and give them a reason to keep returning?

• How can talent be inspired to help you grow the network?

• How will you convert a community member to a hire?

• How can your company approach social recruiting to build a sustainable strategy?

• How can the recruiting function create greater value for the organization?

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As the ecosystem within which companies operate continues to test and challenge the ability of organizations of all sizes to attract, engage and leverage talent how has the HR function stepped up to lead the way?  Today’s business environment persistently demands more from people and their companies.  What is the new leadership model at the intersection of HR, Talent and business? And, yet, how many companies have truly evolved their internal environments to navigate the waters of the business environment they operate in today and will be faced with tomorrow?  This article from BusinessWeek raises some very relevant questions about R&D.  Where is the relationship between R&D leaders, the HR function, the CFO and CEO to set a vision that prepares for the future?  Any business issue today is also a Talent issue.  How will we create adaptive practices that support continuous evolution that better keep pace with an increasingly shifting world with so much to offer, so many opportunities and filled with so many unique challenges?

The Big What If
I like to ask “what if” questions, a lot! It helps me imagine different realities, explore new possibilities and develop differentiated solutions.  The BIG “what if” question I’ve been tossing around?  Here’s part one – What if the HR function didn’t exist? Lets just imagine this for a minute.  Some how business has been able to survive all these years without an HR function.  New employees were still hired.  Internally, people were paid on time and appropriately.  Employees had access to development opportunities and internal movement happened as needed/desired.  Things just happened, maybe not in an exciting way but we plodded along and managed.  Now, part two – What if the HR function didn’t exist today BUT a business need was identified that recognized there was a synergistic relationship to be leveraged with talent in a way that would drive adaptive business practices. That would drive personal engagement, job satisfaction, creativity, collaboration, innovation and competitive advantages stemming from a talent-centric organization aligned through shared values and a clear vision.

Needless to say, this is a BIG what if!  It’s also a critical question to explore during uncertain times that, to a large degree, has widened the gap between the organization and its current and prospective employees.  The result of which does not look good from any perspective – and certainly not if you gaze into the future and wonder what will be different.

Talent Camp
About a year ago I began kicking around the idea of Talent Camp – bringing together an intimate group of keen minds with a unique orientation and passion for Talent, business and the HR discipline. All things happen for a reason and in this case I’m particularly pleased that circumstances resulted in Talent Camp being a 2009 venture because there are a few people
involved that I didn’t know last year.  On October 18^th, 12 incredible people will come together for 3 1/2 days to explore the BIG “what if”.  Collectively we have more years, depth and breadth of business and HR experience than I can begin to measure.  We also share a strong passion for what could exist at the intersection of talent and business to serve both interests and advance organizational capability and effectiveness.  We’ll be gathering in a 4500 square foot beach house on the Oregon Coast to immerse in a dialogue around our big “what if” question, that will no doubt experience the ebb and flow of progress, frustration, curiosity, pain, breakthroughs and clarity as we craft our talent function vision.

What can you expect out of Talent Camp? Well, that’s something that we’ll be defining while we’re together.  My goal, hope and desire is that we’ll be publishing a collective work outlining the talent function required for business in the 21^st century.

I am so pleased and excited about the incredible collection of people who have committed to join me at Talent Camp.  I’m sure you’ll be hearing more from them and can follow each on Twitter (their names are linked) and look for #TalentCamp to follow the conversation.

Briand DeGroodt
Franny Oxford
Jeff Hunter – see what Jeff has to say about Talent Camp
Joe Gerstandt
Lance Haun
Laurie Ruettimann
Mike Johnson
Ron McManmon
Shauna Moerke
Steve Fogarty – see what Steve has to say about Talent Camp
Suzy Tonini
and me, Susan Burns

More risk exists in standing still than in moving forward. We are the future and its time to craft the vision at the intersection of Talent, HR and Business. Talent Camp!

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I had a chance to talk with Joshua Westover of Entice and Steve Fogarty of adidas about TalentSeekr and Steve’s pilot campaign while we were in Las Vegas last month for the Kennedy Recruitment conference. Here’s their story about TalentSeekr. You can read mine following the video and the last paragraph captures Steve’s results.

What’s your brand story?
Crafting a great brand story begins by knowing your company’s culture, what attracts people to seek employment with you, why people stay with you, and articulating what sets you apart from the competition.  How you engage prospective talent in your brand story occurs through a number of different touch points.  It could be your corporate career site, social networking sites, blogs, job boards, Google Adwords, video, etc.  Even the biggest and best brands need to work harder than ever to keep this a streamlined, efficient process that produces a solid ROI – converting prospects to hires.  The persistent increase in the number of channels that companies need to engage in has made this process not only more complex but more expensive, harder to manage and harder to track.

Once you have your brand story articulated there are four elements that will help your marketing and advertising strategy produce more value: positioning, reach, relevancy, and experience. Positioning is important to make sure your brand will be seen by the talent your trying to attract.  Reach is your ability to expansively target the talent your aiming for – narrow and deep to broad and deep.  Relevancy ensures that your brand is reaching the most interested, best-fit prospects based on skill, interests and work experience.  And, lastly, “experience” is providing a brand experience that results in an emotional connection that moves the prospect to action – expressing interest in your brand and career opportunities.  The ability to break through the environmental noise in order to not only reach the talent you’re company needs but for that talent to take notice and act is where the true value comes in.  Its also one of the most challenging aspects of employment brand advertising.   The days of  jobs, and job seekers, ending up in the classifieds or on a few key job boards are long gone.  Plus, if you want to reach a more passive prospect your going to need a more sophisticated approach to reach them and capture their attention.

How relevant and targeted is your brand strategy?
Through TalentSeekr, EnticeLabs offers a sleek and effective approach to targeted employment brand positioning that provides companies a streamlined, intelligent approach to zero in on the talent their trying to reach.  TalentSeekr applies geographic, contextual, behavioral and social media profile-targeting to deliver the highest ROI on each of your digital campaigns.  By combining these four targeting capabilities, TalentSeekr automatically addresses positioning, reach and relevancy through location, targeted key words and site preferences (think Facebook, LinkedIn, User Groups….).  As Joshua Westover of EnticeLabs says, ” We can get as broad as a nation or as narrow as a building”.  EnticeLabs begins by collecting information from the recruiter about a  job or a job category to develop a highly relevant positioning strategy.  They’ll work with you to understand key markets (talent and geography) and create text, image, picture, video or flash ads that will appeal to passive and active seekers. (examples to the right from an adidas campaign)

Then, TalentSeekr automatically generates an engagement page that serves as a “storyboard” type concept to enhance the prospect’s experience with your company’s brand.  Through the engagement page, TalentSeekr weaves together video, photos, referral capability, and links to your career site, job posting, community interface or any other digital real estate to which you want to drive traffic that results in a valuable employment experience.

Does your candidate experience measure up?
So, sit back and think about this for a minute.  A prospect logs into their gmail account or Facebook profile and sees a highly relevant ad.  They click on the ad and get a cool video and pictures about your company and / or product.  They get information in another panel on the page that talks about your company culture.  Another panel may invite them to join your community.  And, there’s also a job link.  How do you think the prospect is feeling about your company and the career opportunities after that experience?  Probably pretty enticed! (yes, pun intended!)  Don’t get hung up on thinking that you need to go out and produce a professional video.  The more real the video the more effective it is in creating emotional engagement between the prospect and your brand.  Flip cameras are about $100 and create great videos.  Also, chances are that your company has some cool product videos that you could use (like the video used by adidas in their engagement page above).  If the videos are interesting and relevant to the roles your focused on then why not use them?

Are you also beginning to see how TalentSeekr serves as a brand equalizer!  While the graphics here represent adidas, a very well known and respected brand, the more relevant the placement, the better the brand attraction and the stronger the brand engagement experience.  Brands of all sizes can overcome what traditionally has felt like a “big brand” advantage to become equal in appeal and attraction strength.

Is brand intelligence on your side?
TalentSeekr also gets smarter with age. The longer a campaign is run the more data TalentSeekr has to refine your positioning, ensuring that your receiving the highest ROI.  While TalentSeekr can be applied successfully to specific jobs it’s even more effective if you think of job categories and integrate your marketing strategy with a talent pipelining or community building strategy.  Think about the power of this integrated with your talent planning strategy and CRM tool! Through the Talent Seekr dashboard (below) you can track the effectiveness of your campaigns.  TalentSeekr automatically reallocate advertising dollars so the brand placements that are driving the best traffic (not just volume but relevant traffic) will receive more impressions and in the end you’ll have a highly relevant pool of prospects and a data set that will inform future campaigns.  You can also work closely with the EnticeLabs team and play a more active role in how ad placements are reallocated.

(Dashboard shows sample data for demonstrations only)

In the first campaign Steve ran through TalentSeekr for adidas they focused on a very difficult to fill position.  In fact, it was a position that in the past had required outsourcing to executive search.  Within two weeks adidas had attracted a number of highly relevant, top quality candidates and converted one to a hire and filled the position.  The prospect adidas hired had seen the ad on their Gmail page and was so taken by the experience and highly relevant content they were blown away.  Relevancy rules!

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The ability for companies to move quickly is more important than ever before.  Change is constant. Uncertainty is a reality.  Complexity is on the increase, and the need for agility is rising as a core organizational competency.  We’re living in a new business environment being shaped by shifting talent patterns, increased competition, shorter business maturity cycles and lower barriers to entry, just to name a few.  These are the elements shaping today’s and tomorrow’s business ecosystem and your organizational talent capability.  Your organization’s ability to shape an adaptive talent strategy and proactively develop response capability will allow you to harness these influencers and gain the upper-hand.

 An adaptive talent strategy provides you with an architecture to meet the evolving needs of business and develop a value-oriented talent function. Complex? Actually, it’s simpler and more streamlined than what you may have today. Expensive? Developing an adaptive talent strategy is more cost-effective than not developing one. Will it mean we’ll have to change how we do things? Oh, yes! But, what doesn’t require change? The cost of “standing still” or not adapting may be less expensive in the short-run but over the long-term the cost of not adapting will cost you considerably more, and quite possible even the survival of your talent function or organization.  And, more often than not, change is good.  The hardest thing about dealing with change is getting over the initial shock that you need to change.  Once your open to new ideas and new ways of thinking an entirely new set of possibilities emerges.

 Adaptive talent strategies are based on alignment and clarity around the organization’s strategic business directives.  They succeed when there is active dialogue between the business units, finance and talent acquisition leaders during the strategic business planning process.  In too many instances, recruiting becomes a just-behind process. If the talent acquisition leader is not part of the business planning discussion then the organization is already at a disadvantage and successful implementation of the business strategy is compromised. Now, granted, its up to the talent acquisition leader to ask the right questions and then develop an effective plan to ensure support and success.  The key here is involving talent acquisition early enough in the conversation to shift from reactive tactics to value-oriented strategy development and implementation.  When the talent acquisition leader has sufficient information early enough in the planning process they’re able to effectively allocate resources, structure their team, make investment decisions, and guide the company’s strategic directives by providing critical insight into the availability of talent.  This conversation becomes the pivotal point in developing an adaptive talent strategy. From here, the company can benefit from increased clarity. 

Three other key components that shape developing an adaptive talent strategy -  

Know the talent you have
Visibility into the company’s existing workforce should be easily accessible for the recruiting function.  Knowing where the strengths, weaknesses and gaps exist informs external recruitment. When the talent acquisition leader has this information they can more effectively develop a recruitment strategy and direct resources by partnering with their organizational development peer to identify the key skills and competencies needed to support the organization. An internal talent management system can deliver a number of benefits.  It brings efficiency to the talent planning process and facilitates the movement of talent throughout the organization to meet the needs of employees and businesses.  If employees know they have opportunities to pursue elsewhere in the organization chances are your going to improve retention. External recruitment should always be informed by the internal gaps and talent plans to make smarter investments and decisions when pursuing new talent.

 Develop a talent plan
Clarity around workforce structure guides how the organization shapes thinking about talent today and in the future?  Which roles need to sit in a specific geographic location and where do you have flexibility to pursue the best talent regardless of location? Where can you infuse elasticity in your workforce through part-time, contingent and job share roles? When do you build and when do you “buy” talent? How do you broaden reach by identifying where work can be done outside the organization and engage collective collaboration to generate ideas and drive innovation?  What is your plan for knowledge transfer? How will you prepare for a maturing workforce with different needs? What does the supply and demand look like for the talent you need to support the strategic business directives? For which functional areas and roles do you have a recruiting core competency and where will you outsource recruitment to a third-party? These are just a few of the key questions that should be asked in developing a talent plan to guide recruitment.  Without having clarity around these types of questions and the resulting impact on your organization, chances are you’ll experience significant talent pain points over time rather than operating as an adaptive, value-oriented talent function. 

Leverage technology
In addition to an internal talent management system, a CRM tools is a key component to building an effective suite of recruiting technology solutions.  The CRM serves a number of critical needs.  It supports the recruitment function’s ability to manage communications, build relationships, integrate state-of-the art sourcing capability and provide visibility into the readiness of your talent pipeline.  This last benefit, visibility into the readiness of your talent pipeline, is key to supporting an adaptive talent strategy.  You’ll be able to provide better guidance to the business partners and make smarter decisions around how and where you allocate resources to external recruitment.  The Reports screenshot to the right, courtesy of Avature, provides an example of the benefits gained when you have visibility into your talent pipeline.  You know the readiness of talent and the depth of your pool by type of talent needed.

This will begin to provide you with an idea of what shapes an adaptive talent strategy.  The benefit to the organization is enhanced support of the strategic business directives by improving alignment, opening up an active dialogue early enough in the planning process, and anticipating the types of talent needed.  The benefit to the talent function is improved clarity around strategic business directives, the ability to be more planful in developing and implementing a supporting strategy, and the ability to deliver greater value to the organization. The ROI can be significant. You’ll realize the benefits of reduced third-party recruitment fees, reduced time-to-hire, increased recruiter productivity, reduced marketing / job posting costs, and increased efficiency in the movement of internal talent. The remaining elements  - employment brand and networks, metrics, and internal communication will be covered soon.  You might also want to take a look at the model on the home page to get a visual image of the framework for an adaptive talent strategy.

bookmark to:

• business cycles and their impact on talent management
• talent leaders and the C-suite
• internal talent management
• community and social media
• generations
• developing an integrated brand strategy
• talent planning
• mind shifts and transformation
• caring for talent

Just a few of the things I’m passionate about!  Visit Peter’s site to listen to our discussion. You’ll also find interviews with leaders from a variety of disciplines across the talent industry.

Curios about Peter’s title for our interview?  Here’s a glimpse into what we were up to at the Future of Talent Booth as covered by HRMarketer.

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