Talent Acquisition Leadership #2... is your business leader lying to you?

For all their talk business leaders don't actually mean what they say about ‘putting people first’. If they did they wouldn't be relying on a bunch of external recruitment agencies to find people that may or may not be right for them.  Instead they would be investing heavily in people and systems to create game changing talent acquisition teams that would engage, collaborate and above all bring the best people to that organisation.  Instead they are underfunded, short staffed and have little investment in IT systems and social media tools.

Even if they do have the investment or tools there are other stumbling blocks that organisations fail to grasp or accept.

First up, not everyone is looking for a job. 

This sounds obvious but next time your SVP of Sales asks why we haven't found someone it is because:

• they weren't where we were looking, or
• worse that the candidates they demand don’t actually exist. 

Whilst there is some debate about the exact number, somewhere between 10 and 15 percent of the relevant talent for a role are looking for a new one, leaving the remaining 85 percent or so as passive candidates.  

Think about this for a second.  

85 percent of the people you are looking for are not looking for you.  

Worse than that they are not looking at all.  Sure you will pick up the odd applicant who sees a job ad but fundamentally you have missed them.  Whilst it is not an absolute purely by playing the numbers you will realise that it is more likely that the best talent is in this pool of non-job seekers.

Tomorrow - Talent Acquisition Leadership #3... the ‘Compelling Event’