Strategic Trends in Talent Acquisition

Last week I spent some time at the COLLABORATE12 conference in Las Vegas. Like many industry events, it's always a bit interesting to see the reactions we get outside a strictly HR/Recruiting focused venue.

Because of our tight integrations with Oracle and PeopleSoft, employees from many of our customer and target companies attend. And we do get the opportunity to chat with many HRIS/HRIT managers who are really blown away by what talent generation technology can do for them and the teams they support.

But because of the broad audience at these ERP user conferences, just as often we end up speaking to a DBA. Or someone from supply-chain management. Or someone supporting finance.

And their reactions are eye opening.

Responses to "do you know which technology your company uses for recruiting" run the gamut from the rare and lovely:
"We're using X software from Y vendor. I don't manage it, but can I take your card and make sure you're connected to the right people at our company?"

To the most common:
"Uh, I don't know. Do you have any good swag?"

To my personal favourite (in the snottiest voice possible), the occasional but not infrequent:
"Our HR Department. Why are you asking me?"

Recruiting brethren, there are people, MANY people in YOUR companies who seem to think hiring happens because of some sort of magic dust you're keeping in your desk drawers.

So getting some time once I returned home to dig into our latest paper, Five Strategic Trends in Talent Acquisition, authored by industry expert Sarah White, was refreshing and a good reminder of how important a talent generation strategy is, and its far-reaching business implications.

Download the paper here, give it a read, then go forth, and keep bringing those strategic benefits to your organization. And maybe think about how you can educate and enlighten some of your colleagues along the way.