The world of work is changing, and this means that recruitment also has to adapt. This was the general undertone of the IHR Recruitment Leaders Conference, which saw an insightful day of thought-leadership sessions and peer-to-peer roundtable discussions for talent acquisition leaders. 

We’ve put together a summary of our key take-aways that stood out for us, and also dominated the discussions throughout the day. 

Here are our 5 key takeaways from the Recruitment leaders Conference:

1. Invest the money needed in Talent Acquisition

Too often recruitment is streamlined, when in fact it’s a part of the organisation that can have a direct impact on the bottom line. At the moment there’s a tendency to look at the short term, when in fact the business and economic landscape is changing. This means it’s the prime time to strategically plan ahead. 

Progressively, more and more C-suite leaders are getting involved in the recruitment process, due to the need to generate ROI for the business, quickly and efficiently, through new hires.

If you spend the money needed on generating interest in your employer brand, creating a candidate pipeline, your ATS, and candidate experience - it means the sooner you can hire the best candidates and get them onboarded, generating a direct return through their outputs. 

2. Develop your attraction strategy

According to the Office of National Statistics there are a record number of job vacancies across the UK, this means more candidate choice. This is not news to the industry, but this does mean that more oragnisations are spending time and money on the development of an attraction strategy. 

With more candidates choosing to apply to multiple jobs, and to even ghost potential employers, how do you stand out? Card Factory were used as a case study, and it was pointed out that their process agility - with targets set around how quickly they can generate offers, and how they personalise the process from the offer - to onboarding,  including assigning a buddy so that new joiners feel a part of the team before they’ve even started. This made a huge impact in increased candidate attraction.

3. Building a team of leaders

Building a team of leaders within your Talent Acquisition function is essential to the success of your organisation. One key point was that you should always provide your team with a clear company vision and purpose so that they know how to align with the bigger strategy. Your team should always be encouraged to be leaders, by fostering a culture of trust, it allows your leaders to feel empowered, to listen attentively and to speak respectfully. At Amazon they have a two-door decision process whereby they encourage testing, with the understanding that a decision can always be reversed!

4. Accessibility first

Candidates are known for having higher expectations, but what it really comes down to is that candidates want better value alignment, and cultural alignment. They care more than ever before, about issues such as accessibility, inclusivity, equality and diversity.. This means that as talent acquisition leaders, you should be challenging the perception and making sure your recruitment websites are accessible and informative of your company culture.

One thing you can do straight away to become more accessible is to insert an accessibility bar onto your website, it’s these small changes that will make the world of difference to attracting the best talents.

5. Hire for potential

And finally, the one repetitive theme throughout the whole day was to hire for potential, not based on past experience. 

Potential-based hiring is a new hiring approach where you look at a candidate’s capabilities and soft skills (to perform in a specific role), moving beyond the outdated reliance on past experience and socio-economic advantage.

By measuring and hiring for potential, you can finally build your teams with the right mix of personality, qualities and intelligence to thrive in their roles.

Whether it's the skills crisis holding back your organisation, or you have an ambition to drive diversity and social mobility in your company - hiring for potential is your answer.

Our potential-based hiring assessment is the only one of its kind, that allows you to measure both workplace intelligence and personality in one place. If you would like to find out how our assessment can help you start hiring for potential - get in touch here