What recruiting is really doing 👾
Subtle? Maybe. Meaningful? Certainly.
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When your new employer brand avoids three agency hires, you’re a financial genius.
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If I asked you, “what is recruiting?” How would you answer?
I suspect that most people (recruiters included) would say, “recruiting is the process of finding and hiring people.” And that’s pretty good answer.
Some might go so far as to say, “recruiting is the process of finding and hiring the people who grow the business.” And that’s an even better answer.
But can we come up with an even better one?
What if, instead of “bringing in people,” recruiters were tasked with (and thought about their role as) “creating value through hiring”?
When you focus on “bringing in people,” there is a tendency to judge people as “talented” or “not so talented.” Or to categorized them as “hard-working” or “less engaged.” Maybe you could label an individual as “experienced” or “inexperienced.” You are judging the person’s innate traits and potential ability.
But when you focus on the value they can create, suddenly, we can’t make such simple distinctions. The concept of value has as much to do with what the candidate brings to the table as what kind of environment they are joining.
Think of a seed. If you take a seed that everyone says is good at growing, but you plant it in the wrong place, it won’t grow. It won’t create value.
Who’s fault is that? The seed? Of course not. The seed does what the seed is designed to do.
And this is where changing the definition of recruiting becomes interesting. Because if your job is to find good seeds, you are going to worry too much about whether that seed will grow. That’s someone else’s job, right?
But if you are tasked with thinking about your work as creating value for the company, it changes things.
First, this means the job of recruiting starts by understanding the environment and culture of the company far far far beyond “we’re a lovely place to work” and “we’re like a family.”
When you buy a seed, it says on the package, “requires direct sunlight” or “requires a shady space.” That is specific and useful information. When it says, “requires direct sunlight” it is being very clear that shade will kill it. It’s not trying to describe a happy middle ground that makes everyone happy, they are describing specific conditions and suggesting that deviating from them will lead to failure.
Compare those “sunlight/shade” descriptions against the wishy-washy things said on your career site. For example: your values sound like a million other company’s values. Saying “we care about our people” doesn’t make it clear what “care” means, or what it’s opposite looks like.
Second, it means being able to communicate that environment to talent so that you can collectively come to an understanding of what that person is getting into, what will be good and what will be… sub-optimal. This isn’t about authenticity as some moral good, but creating a clear understanding so that BOTH sides can make an informed decision (yes, I know that recruiters don’t hire, but for the sake of this idea, I am aggregating recruiter, interview panel and hiring manager into one role).
Third, it means building a more robust feedback loop. Not about “do we like this person as a hire?” but in terms of, “Did we ask the right questions at the outset of the conversation? Did we share the information at the from of the experience that would have saved us from having to go through the entire process only to realize they wouldn’t be a good fit at the last minute? What should we be saying on our career site that will attract the right people but repel the others?” The goal should be to have one interview with one candidates that people feel generally confident about, rather than five interviews with five different candidates hoping that someone great kinda… pops to the top.
Recruiting that exists to find and facilitate people through an interview process is a 99% automate-able job.
Recruiting that exists to create value is very much NOT automate-able. It turns hiring from a “panning for gold” process into a prediction/draft model you might see in major league sports teams.
At it’s core, hiring is a prediction that this person will create value (more than the other people). But that prediction is currently seems deeply one-sided, guaranteeing that it isn’t much of a prediction at all.
So what can you do at your company to create better predictions about the value you bring into the company?
Don’t miss your chance! I’m giving away four custom employer brands. If you’re a TA or Marketing leader of a company between 500 and 2,000 employees in the US or Canada, apply here to be considered. The deadline is tomorrow (March 5th).
🧮 I think it’s fair to say that one of the biggest shifts in employer branding will be how much and how well we talk about how our company is going to help you develop. (In my head, all I hear is polo shirt enthusiast Steve Ballmer chanting “developers” while jumping and clapping, a video you must see) »
🧮 It’s time to find more meaningful things to talk about to attract talent. MUCH more meaningful. »
🧮 What hair product enthusiast David Beckham can teach us about attracting and hiring the very best talent in the world »
🧮 What?! Using different language changes the quality of applicants?!?! You don’t say!!!! »
🧮 Your “thank you for applying” automated emails are a huge opportunity to embed your brand in a place for free »
🧮 The power of brand-lead change »
🧮 Creativity can drive value »
🧮 Personas are wastes of time »
🏛️ All 2,300+ articles from this newsletter are in a searchable archive. Go get ‘em!
Chad Sowash has a bone to pick with you. No, it doesn't involve TA tech, bourbon, or bonehead things that CEOs do. It is the fact that talent acquisition has been convinced that it is nothing more than cost center, a functional part of the business that has no direct impact on the business's success.
TA is the heart of every business. And until you, as the TA leader or recruiter, believe it, communicate it, and live it, you'll always be a beggar looking for scraps.
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Quick.
🧲 What's the value of increasing your outreach conversion by 10%?
🤝 Or having 20% more of your offers accepted?
💰 Or lowering your RPO/agency spend by 15%?
I bet it’s worth a whole lot more than just $1,500 a month.
Learn how you can make those kinds of impact through employer brand as a service.
***This Newsletter Contains No ChatGPT***
-James Ellis [LinkedIn] [Website]
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