#mydaremantra: Candidate Experience

Recruitment is a cost to every business right? Virgin Media plan to make it a revenue stream by radically changing their candidate experience. This is after Virgin estimated $6 million of lost revenue each year as upsetting job seekers who signed up with competitors!

Facebook learnt the cost of 'not hiring the right person', in hindsight, and eked out $19 billion to get back Brian Acton onto their team for the messaging app.

The world is changing. So shouldn't our perspectives too? Only when we dare to explore beyond the accepted rules do we see a new light, a new beginning to a brighter #futureofwork!

Talent Acquisition. The game has changed. Have you?

Well, for one, finding the right candidates is more about them to find YOU. And a personal brand will help in building the credibility necessary to attract, engage, nurture and influence the future associates. Investing in relationships. Build our personal brand.

It is about pioneering your candidate experience. Crafting the employee experience.

Here is a peek into some best practices being adopted :

1. Proactively attracting and engaging digital talent. Engaged employees add financial value to the bottom line.  Developing a corporate narrative around investing in people, empowering teams and by sharing successes, companies build brand awareness amongst new and existing employees, partners and customers.
2. Investing in vertical social networks. Designed to be an ecosystem for a particular industry, function, or profession. Some of the popular examples are Edmondo (an education network for students and parents), GitHub (a community for software professionals) Muckrack in the US, a platform that connects journalists and PR professionals, and Doximity (a social network for physicians in the US). And yes, in India, there is Curofy on which 150,000 verified doctors from 1200+ cities are using to get 2nd opinions on medical cases, read latest medical news and browse premium medical jobs
3. Building talent communities. Establishing mutually beneficial relationships in a way where the power is in community members’ hands as they dictate the topics for discussion. Thereby forming positive opinions about the company, as well as puts the company top of mind when members decide to make a career move. And all this being in a subtle manner- in that career opportunities are not at the forefront of the communication.

Want to know more & interact with some of the practitioners who are at the forefront? Come over to the SHRM conference later this week in Delhi. And listen to the experiences of Pamela Harding, Dave Sumner Smith and Jonas Prasanna -as they share some of the ideas that we as professionals need to invest in our personal brands!  

Of course please do follow #SHRM16 and@SHRMIndia on twitter!

#mydaremantra - A la carte Recruitment Service

A la carte : "food that can be ordered as separate items, rather than part of a set meal."

Depending on our appetite, purse, convenience, mood, and fancy, we choose between it and the buffet.

In the industry, we have seen different models in recruitment, Contingent, Exclusive search and perhaps some subtle variations of the continuum! There have been hours of debate on the pros and cons of depending on an internal recruitment team and an external one. And even as people hop over from one side to another, it is imperative that different skills are required for each role. And yes, we have never had enough about the classic question of the efficacy of a specialist recruiter & a generalist!!

Open to trying out Elastic Recruitment??

There are a lot of steps involved in finding and hiring good talent. And one just can't afford to take one's eye off, even momentarily, from

Scoping : market mapping, performance profile, job description

Sourcing: active, passive and shortlisting

Screening: qualifying suitable folks, skill testing & prelim interviewing

Selection: Final interview, reference checking and offer management

Imagine getting empowered to choose which parts you need professional help in - and which parts you don't. Now you can get flexible help with anything from the smallest section of the smallest task to the whole, entire, many-step process.And all billed hourly. A huge cost saving compared to a fee that is related to a percentage of the CTC of the selected employee.

Yes, you need to change the mindset & get professional service. Expect that the professionals are paid deservedly for the time & expertise they bring in. Not merely based on the outcome. Just like how one values professional advice from doctors & lawyers.

You can pick and choose to unbundle the recruitment process and seek help in purely sourcing or for some onsite help for a particular time. And of course, for the full end-to- end process too.

Just like your internal hiring resource, there is transparency-as one has access to all the evidence of work-in-progress-the mails, the CVs shortlisted, interview notes of the candidates considered & rejected too.

Please feel free to reach out to me to know more about Recruitloop. You can have access to a platform of worldclass recruiters, across different continents, domains and functions- who have a circle of influence in their geography and subject matter expertise.

As a talent acquisition specialist for over 20 years, I have been a ringside observer of the War for Talent. Have experienced the pleasure of riding on the different waves of interacting with prospective candidates -first physically, then on the internet, courtesy job portals & social media. But the #futureofwork, I believe is in the power of collaborating with other 'trusted advisors' who have the ability to engage & influence the talent community in their domain. We have to back 'horses for courses' to win the race. And stay ahead.

Careers are financial assets that need professional help in leveraging. When excellence is an option, why settle for mediocrity? Are we prepared to change ahead of the times??

Disclaimer: this is a post I am writing courtesy being part of a bloggers squad at this year's SHRM Annual Conference on 29-30 September,2016 in Delhi. The event is about pushing oneself to the edge to take the next big leap to experience an overwhelming journey. Only when we dare to explore beyond the accepted rules do we see a new light, a new beginning to a brighter #futureofwork! There is an exciting bunch of practitioners sharing their learnings addressing a lot of contemporary topic- including the need for personal branding for HR professionals. Please do follow #SHRM16 and@SHRMIndia on twitter!