April 08, 2021 | Sarita Binjola
The year 2020 really pushed us to think inversely. We all paved our way through a really tough year only to emerge more creative and solution oriented. In fact, this year brought out our abilities to adapt to innovation and technology in a way we had not quite imagined before.
For talent acquisition professionals, this was a year where we saw the complete process of TA transform digitally. Video Interviews conveniently replaced in-person meetings and remote working flexibility dictated discussions. COVID-19 to a large extent taught us the art of coordinating and trusting each other. At most organisations now, talent acquisition leaders and business heads are aligned towards finding the “right” talent irrespective of the geography they belong to. It’s the mechanism of prioritizing skills over city. Practically, a lot of times this may not be possible in our industry due to networking concerns, but most organizations see merit in this strategy.
Every talent acquisition professional needs to ace their social media recruitment game. NOW!
The new and evolved strategy of talent acquisition has enabled a massive access and reach of data online. This access has resulted in a lot of candidates, who were not so active on professional social media hiring platforms such as LinkedIn, adapting to this change. According to a LinkedIn report, 90% of these candidates are now open to new opportunities via digital platforms.
Today, social media recruitment emerges out to be one of the most important skills for TA professionals. It has opened up a sea of opportunities for the youth in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities who formerly had a rare chance of landing an opportunity at a big MNC. Similar is the case for women who set out to restart their careers but earlier couldn’t resume physical office-going because of countless reasons. A digital workspace provides them that flexibility, while giving recruiters the opportunity to access new, skilled talent they might’ve not explored before.
Our job doesn’t end with recruitment; upskilling acquired talent is crucial
Upskilling and reskilling is a strategy that we have been following as an organization for a long time, but over the last year our emphasis on this increased manifold. As an outcome of reskilling being administered almost everywhere, organizations now see merit in promoting internal talent. This has resulted in individuals being more self-aware and prepared for the skills, ability and knowledge that is required for their next role which in turn has resulted in better performance and also enhanced talent retention.
Hence, employer branding is so important for organizations to focus on.
Reports suggest that nearly 49% of active candidates on LinkedIn follow companies on social media to stay aware of jobs. This means that companies need to make sure that they are doing enough to brand themselves appropriately. Employer branding focuses entirely on projecting your organizational culture in a way that makes you an attractive employer. This is so important when you’re finding the right talent, more so digitally. Thus, by virtue of opportunity, the entire TA team has moved to a global role hiring across regions.
Talent acquisition for a long time has had a very set template of operations, but the last year has torn that to shreds. For anyone in the field today, there’s a new guidebook out and if you don’t get your hands on it in time, you might be missing out on essentially skilled and credible talent.