Despite the fear of a recession in the USA, growing inflation across the globe, and a cost-of-living crisis pummelling the British public, there is still light at the end of the tunnel. And this comes in the form of an increasing employment rate. The US has seen employment rocketing upward and unemployment decrease, reducing fears of an economic crisis. And The Office for National Statistics in the UK calculates that the employment rate has increased by 0.4%. This is lower than before the covid pandemic, but a step in the right direction. Whilst steady employment provides a happier situation all around, it does pose a whole new problem for business: talent acquisition.
A growing workforce is a rallying positive after the past few years, but does this mean that businesses are employing the right people in suitable positions? The short answer is no. A well-tuned CV or a fabulous interviewee can fool the best of us, especially when there is a whole host of resources available. So how can employers optimise talent recruitment and minimise the wrong individuals accessing inappropriate positions?
We spoke to a consultant from the Early Careers Company, an innovative recruitment agency that works hands-on with talent and clients. They provided insight into this predicament, “Early Careers has seen an increase in job openings but a lack of high-quality talent to fill them. Either good talent is being poached or not being attracted to the job, leading to even higher attrition rates and open vacancies – the financial strain from this can be felt by all companies.”
They continued “One way to combat this is to open your hiring pool. Companies often artificially restrict themselves and only hire for relevant experience, screening out good candidates before they even reach an interview. If you can assess your employees to fully understand the characteristics that make them successful, you can open up this pool. Looking for these ‘predictors of success’ can include psychometric testing and internal interviews, combing hundreds of data points to narrow down what makes your people great. Incorporating these into your assessment process and screening for these features instead of experience widens the talent pool and removes biases. Through a clear value proposition that is true to the reality of the company, you can make sure that you attract the people that fulfill these characteristics.”
“Overall, analysing what the predictors of success within your business might be, and producing a clear and true to reality narrative can help to optimise talent acquisition within the current market.”
We can understand then that characteristics amenable to a company’s culture are far more vital than specific qualifications. Businesses need to look past ‘impressive’ degrees, and instead discover an individual’s unique set of skills.
But this is not the only method by which businesses can maximise fruitful talent acquisition and additionally optimise the performance of the talent they already possess. There is no other business that knows this better than Noon Dalton, which specialise in digital outsourcing. We spoke to one of their experts who advised us of the following “With the exceptionally low unemployment rate, teams are spending too much time (around 80%) on low-level, repetitive, flat activities. This eats away at the time that should be spent on profit-earning, core functions. Noon Dalton recommends clients evaluate job activities/functions vs job descriptions.”
“Doing this will create a road map of how to align with an outsourcing partner that can take over functions that would otherwise distract the client’s local team from said tasks, thus making the company more profitable. It also allows the HR team to focus on hiring the highest value employees for the local presence, rather than searching for positions with higher turnover.”
“This, in turn, allows HR to get jobs done without losing the staff a few months later to a better entry-level position. The plan we collaborate with our clients on is to delegate the repetitive tasks to virtual teams and use the core team to elevate the business by focusing on creativity, sales, marketing, profit growth, new initiatives, and innovation, resulting in core hires being a much better fit and decreases the chances of successful poaching.
They concluded by explaining that “Another great advantage to outsourcing non-core functions is that the right outsourcing partner does the hiring and training for you, so businesses can focus all their efforts on finding those “right fit” core players. And, due to the saving in costs for virtual teams, they can offer a more competitive salary, too.”
Investment into your brand can also help to attract talent. We spoke to Samuel Leach, CEO of Samuel & Co Trading who understands the importance of advertising one’s own business. Leach explained that “money is not the only factor that potential candidates look for, it is more about a work-life balance and offering your employees more than they can get somewhere else.” And this work-life balance is certainly a key component at Samuel & Co, with headquarters equipped with a gym, cinema, and relaxation room. Leach continued “it’s not completely about what the employer can offer though, it’s important to vet talent through an all-encompassing interview process, which will help to separate serious candidates, from the ones who are only attracted to the lifestyle.”
In a competitive market that is steadily growing whilst unemployment dwindles, talent can be hard to spot within the mass of applications. And then retaining the talent may cause additional issues. Changing the company mindset toward recruitment and hiring on a more individualistic basis may be the way forward. Outsourcing the more menial tasks to an out-of-office team could also free up time for Human Resources to undergo the arduous task of sifting through the employment pool, whilst allowing current employees to perform to higher levels. “True talent and commitment can be difficult to find, therefore the optimisation of the recruitment process is more important than ever” said a spokesperson from Viral.Press. And even more crucial is that once that talent is acquired nurturing these individuals is the key to success.
