Next steps in Talent Attractions

Since last time we have seen what we need to understand about definition of the requirement should we even call it a search? This time we want to see what information do we capture for those correct definitions.

Always when acquiring talent it is important to define the audience, scope, geography, skill set (better if we can even get down the basics of versions), country, city, location within the city (east, west north & south), years of experience required, organizations we would want them from etc. It would always be better for us to have a pre-defined format with all these questions when we meet our stakeholders to capture these and this also gives them a wonderful picture / impression of how we can help them with this search (or how we would go about do this thing of attracting the best & the right talent. 

Not many stakeholders of ours would be ready with this information and not even 1% of the stakeholders would have even thought about these parameters from the hiring perspective. So it is very critical for us to help them understand these and also help them with these definitions and thereby make our job a lot simpler and easier to strategize and execute. Yes, I mean ‘Strategize’ (some even call it planning!). Without planning the search it would be difficult for us to start or go about this and at the end it even ends in a search which gives nothing and we come back stating ‘we are not able to attract anyone’. 

We sit with the hiring manager / head of the hiring unit to define these (even it means it takes about a week to define/give these information’s) and do a simple analysis based on Roles, level/grades, skills, locations, versions, domains and experience ranges. This would help us to showcase the steps we need would be taking post collecting all these information and our strategy (should I call it planning?) and gives us a clear idea of where the challenges are and how long would it take for us to meet these challenges. Also when we do this many a times the analysis gives us the solution as well!!!

Don’t want to believe me? Wait and watch!!!

First step in Talent Attraction

Hi,
With my own experiences in the field of professional/corporate environment (IT & Human resources) here is an attempt to summarize some of the learning's i have had over the years. I would like to cover this huge topic of Talent Attraction and Management in various sub sections. I would encourage my readers to be a little patient and all these are only my learning's and i would try my best not to take a leaf out of anyone else's work.

The first and foremost would be to understand the business (should i say the job) we are into. yes, we need to understand what are we here to attract. Is it talent, is it people, is it bodies, is it resources, is it IT, is it non IT (yes all these sound similar but each one has different meanings and yes it means different things. We should try and understand the reason why we are doing this and what that this mean to the business (organization we are working for) for which we are doing this. Many think 'attraction' is about having something attractive in terms of brochures, people, tools, techniques and the process we follow to do the thing called 'attraction'. While doing so many of us forget about the audience whom we are trying to attract (should i also say woo someone) and we try and do everything i we think are right and what we are comfortable with. Many a times we even forget some of the simplest things like 'greeting the people' (the foremost things in the activity attraction) and try everything else which does not make any sense for the person / object whom we are trying to attract.

So it is very important to first define, understand, demarcate, determine who our audience are and then start with defining what they want, they need, how they work, what are their interests, why would they get attracted by something and what do I have for them. Many a times these questions are not even asked, answered, addressed and thought about. Because there are 'strategists' who ask, answer these and come out with various strategies and all that we see on the ground are the executioners (should we say implementers) who carry out the orders given by those team of 'think tank'. What is critical is that if these executioners can understand the reason, logic, background etc as to why they are doing so (whatever be the activity) it would make the audience's job a lot easier than we thought so. Many a times we keep thinking that the individuals have limited choices whereas an Org has multiple choices (in terms of people alone - for this topic) - but this is not true all the time. The union (joining of the hands) actually happens because there is something that is complimenting the other when these two actors - ' attractor' and the 'audience' (the person who is being attracted) are in the business of 'attraction' and 'impressing'.

See you once again.