1. Talent: what CEOs say
and what they do
Treating recruitment as a strategic
business unit
INSIGHT by Guy Rickett
hiringsolutions.com

2. INSIGHT
Talent: What CEOs say and what they do
“People are our most important asset.”
“Our growth is dependent on the quality of our team.”
“The quality of our workforce is one of the top 5 drivers for business performance.”
We read such statements from CEOs on corporate websites, annual reports and
newsletters, but how many believe it enough to have taken the actions required to ensure
their company can attract these high quality people?
Do CEOs truly believe what they say?
How many CEOs have These statements are undisputable, but the reason I question how many believe it to be
so is based on years of analysing how companies go about acquiring one of their most
taken the actions important business assets.
required to ensure their To help a CEO understand if he or she is a believer, there are some simple questions one can
ask:
company can attract
1. Can you name at least two of your key recruiters?
high quality talent? 2. Have they been made aware of the business strategy and plans for the coming period?
3. Over the last two years, how much has the business invested in this department?
4. Are your key business managers satisfied with the time it takes to hire and the quality of
new recruits?
If you’ve answered no to most of these questions, you might still consider employees to be
important to your business, but you may not have connected the dots between hiring
talented people and having a productive recruitment department at the heart of your
strategy.
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3. INSIGHT
Talent: What CEOs say and what they do
How do you make recruitment successful?
In my experience, most recruitment departments are underfunded in terms of people
and the tools needed to effectively do the job. The only way they can deliver is to rely on
In many organisations, recruitment agencies, which is an expensive and mostly unnecessary option in this day and
age.
recruiter salaries are too
1. Start by hiring great recruiters
low to attract high Although underfunding in terms of the number of people is an issue, the biggest problem
quality team members, are the salaries. To hire good people, you need good recruiters. In many organisations
recruiter salaries are too low to attract high quality team members, and many are staffed
and many are staffed by by administrators rather than professional, skilled recruiters.
administrators. What are great recruiters like? Their strengths are similar to that of sales peoples: they are
excellent communicators, persistent, effective networkers, they are good at selling the
company and the vacancy at every step of the talent acquisition process and strong
negotiators. They also have solid industry knowledge and know where to source the right
candidates.
A recruiter is the first person a candidate interacts with in a company, and good quality
applicants have a choice, so this touch point must be a positive experience, building desire
and motivation to work for the organisation.
Of course, money is not sufficient in getting good recruiters.Good quality recruitment
professionals want to work for a company where management recognize the value they can
deliver to the business. Ask for directions to the recruitment department in many companies
and the answer is: “find HR, go to the back of the office, turn left and it’s the last door on
the right”. When you enter, it is like going back to the dark ages – paper everwhere, little
or no technology. This brings us to the next important point: getting rid of the paper
environment.
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4. INSIGHT
Talent: What CEOs say and what they do
2. Invest in the right tools
Why the mass of paper? Simple: the general rule is that to find one high quality candidate
you need to attract at least 100 applicants. Hiring managers want to interview at least 5
If your accounting people for each job, which means recruiters need to read and process 500 applications per
role. If they are hiring 200 people a year, that’s 100,000 individuals to process, and in most
was all manual how organisations this is manual!
many good Not only is that time-consuming, but it’s also ineffective and would probably drive away any
forward-thinking recruiter, unless he was told he could automate everything. Ask yourself
accountants would this: if your accounting was all done manually, how many good accountants would want to
want to work for you? work for you?
Recently, I was speaking with the Head of IT of a well known organisation who told me that
recruitment is a low priority and they will not be looking at systems for at least another 2-3
years. Yet the same organisation is growing fast, is heavily advertising for staff and hiring
through agencies because the CEO has publically stated that increasing customer service
resources are a high priority to build their reputation, customer loyalty and brand.
Somewhere there is a disconnect.
New Internet-based technology now means that the entire recruitment process can be
automated in only 6-8 weeks with minimal involvement and disruption to IT. Moreover,
recruitment technology will reduce your overall costs, typically delivering 100% ROI in less
than six months.
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5. INSIGHT
Talent: What CEOs say and what they do
Change the way you look at recruitment
If you really think that recruiting the right people at the right time is important and strategic
for your organisation’s success, then you should act accordingly.
“The definition of
Sales and marketing are strategic for most companies because they generate leads and
insanity is to keep sales, so naturally, they are given the right tools to work effectively. Recruiters are
doing the same things responsible for sourcing your greatest asset: people. So why should you let them spend time
looking through paper CVs when they could be doing more added-value work?
and expecting a different
Recruitment is a profession and a good recruitment team can deliver real long term value to
result.” the business. If you recognize this and truly want it to contribute in achieving your
company’s goals, a few fundamental things may need to change.
If your company has been hiring the same way for many years and you are not satisfied
with the results, then consider Steven Covey’s good advice:
“The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same things and expecting a different
result.”
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6. About Hiring Solutions Company
Hiring Solutions Company has developed Sniperhire, an online recruitment management
system, to help clients automate every step of their recruitment function, from publishing
vacancies on all their sourcing channels to on-boarding new employees. HSC consultants
are recruiting, technology and marketing professionals who help clients re-engineer their
recruitment function while providing expertise at every stage of the hiring process.