This week, I joined the folks at Cielo for the second annual Talent Rising event in Milwaukee. It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since the company first unveiled the new, global brand. If its expansive growth in new and existing markets is any measure, the rebrand has been incredibly successful.
Today Cielo operates in 68 countries, makes 115,000 annual hires with more than 100 clients, and boasts a 99% client retention rate. Impressive statistics, to be sure, but what impressed me more (and always does) is what’s driving this success: Cielo’s culture and industry-leading best practices.
From a commitment to delivering a positive candidate experience, to expertise in employer brand, Cielo’s trademark “We become you” operating model continues to set the standard for RPO in a modern talent economy. As Founder and CEO Sue Marks pointed out:
“Talent attraction is not just recruiting any more – and it certainly is no longer HR. It’s marketing, branding, SEO, PPC, Big Data, and predictive analytics.”
Without question, talent acquisition is changing at the speed of light, but whereas many other solution providers in the space are reacting to these changes, Cielo’s expert team seems to be a step ahead.
We talk a lot about innovation in this industry, but innovation is often just another square on our buzzword bingo cards. We talk about recruiters as talent advisors, but measure them based on requisition management and efficiency metrics. We talk about the importance of mobile readiness, candidate experience, hiring manager relationships, social talent acquisition – there’s no end to the list of things that matter today. But while many of us are paying lip service to next practices, Cielo is systematically moving the needle in talent acquisition in three ways:
- Its commitment to continuous and meaningful innovation
- Its investment in innovative tools and technologies
- Its execution and delivery of innovative talent acquisition practices
Each of these is represented in Cielo’s big announcement from the conference: The debut of SkyRecruit – its new cloud-based talent acquisition platform. Designed with recruiters, candidates, and hiring managers in mind, SkyRecruit is 100% mobile (which is great for penetrating emerging markets like Latin America and Asia Pacific). It features tools for effectively building, nurturing, and managing a pipeline of talent, with modules for advanced practices like CRM and event management as well as basic functions like interview scheduling and video. It’s a powerful compliment to the ATS – and the first of its kind in RPO.
Of course, running a rapidly growing global RPO has its challenges. Supporting clients in 26 different languages across an incredibly diverse talent landscape is no walk in the park – and Cielo clients in attendance this week were very open about some growing pains (most notably among first-time RPO adopters, where change management can be a real can of worms). But rather than rolling out a list of complaints, people spoke candidly about what was working and what wasn’t – and how they were partnering with Cielo to work through it all. Quite the departure from your typical RPO/client relationship.
As Brandon Hall Group nears the end of our Talent Shortage and Hiring Practices survey, it’s exciting to see a company enabling a more modern approach to talent acquisition on a global scale. I look forward to seeing Cielo’s continued growth and success.
–Kyle Lagunas, Talent Acquisition Analyst, Brandon Hall Group
@KyleLagunas
