Technologize the Process. Humanize the Experience. Consumerize your approach!
Expectations have changed. I want everything to be as easy as buying books on Amazon. Ordering movies on Netflix. Buying tickets from the comfort of my kitchen table.
Individuals want all of their transactions in life to reflect the ease and consistency of best-in-class online interactions. An immense opportunity exists for HR to leverage what they do best – high touch human relations – with what the market has made accessible – high-tech interactions. Consumers (e.g. candidates, employees and hiring managers) want an experience as fluid and “frictionless” with their employer as a well-designed user interface. Within five years, I predict that those organizations that are able to do this at an elite level (or partner with a recruitment provider that can) will have an unbeatable weapon in the war for talent and a true competitive advantage.
It's Now A "World Wide Web of People"
Google organized the world wide web of pages. Social tools are rapidly organizing the world wide web of people. The best recruitment teams will “own” the right social connection points; finding the best people, and allowing the best people to find them. Just as important will be placing the focus on the SOCIAL in social media. Find recruitment professionals who will engage and interact with consumers; leading, listening and participating in the conversations.
Serve Not Search
Organizations will connect people “automagically” with content that is most important to them, in the palm of their hands. Proactive recruitment teams will leverage data and powerful algorithms to serve up information and experiences at times and in places that are most relevant to our consumers. Personal, local, customized, and time-sensitive, algorithms are the intelligence behind the best consumer experiences. Deploy them as a part of your human capital system soon.
On The Go
Thanks in large part to Apple iOS and Google Android, mobile devices are bold, functional and fundamentally changing consumer expectations of engagement. According to comScore, nearly 42% of U.S. mobile subscribers now use smartphones. In addition, just two years after U.S. market introduction, nearly 40 million tablets are being used. Still developing for desktop interactions? Stop. Mobile is the job search and engagement platform of the future. How about you? If you are like almost two-thirds of Americans, you sleep within arms length of your device!
No More Funnels
It’s time to change our view of talent. A funnel is one measurement at one point in time. In reality, our relationships with talent ebb and flow like a river and our networks bounce from point to point like a pinball! With the amount of data that is available about consumers and their behaviors it is necessary to look beyond the funnel at the complete relationship that is being established between individuals and our organization – particularly those that aren’t controlled directly by our brand. Each touch point, human and digital, should be measured for its influence and contributions over time. Enable talent acquisition and management teams with this information so they can find, attract, engage and retain top performers.
It is a new world out there, with more tools than ever allowing us to make sense of our hyper-connected world. It may seem unconventional to think about and label candidates and hiring managers as consumers, but the implications of not treating them as such are clear. Think about ROI – about your “Return On Ignoring” when your competitors beat you to the market because they beat you in the market for talent. Influences from our lives and consumers are shaping candidate expectations and therefore the evolution of talent acquisition and recruitment. The organizations that get the technology right, and keep human in our human resources interactions, will gain the competitive talent advantage.