How far in advance do you plan for talent needs? What activities make up your planning efforts? How satisfied are you with the technology you’re currently using to manage planning efforts? Earlier this year, I asked hundreds of leaders in talent acquisition these same questions – along with the most important question on the topic: How effective would you rate your organization’s planning efforts for talent acquisition?
Effectiveness in Talent Acquisition Planning
| Not Effective | Slightly Effective | Moderately Effective | Highly Effective | Extremely Effective |
| 18% | 26% | 32% | 19% | 5% |
If you said less than highly effective, you would be among the 76% of organizations who answered the same question in Brandon Hall Group’s 2014 Talent Acquisition Study. While this number isn’t all that surprising, it does tell me most companies have yet to figure out this critical component of a high-performance talent acquisition strategy.
That’s not to say no one is doing well when it comes to talent acquisition planning. Though they’re a rare bird, there are some companies taking time to look beyond their immediate talent needs and plan for future success. 82% of companies that rated their planning efforts as more than moderately effective are planning for talent needs at least quarterly. 61% are planning for talent needs at least six months in advance.
As you can imagine, this forward-thinking approach to talent acquisition challenges recruiters to break out of the endless cycle of “source, hire, repeat.” Giving them big-picture goals – rather than just more requisitions to work on – opens up opportunities for recruiters to reconsider the traditional approach to talent acquisition. They can spend less time spamming passive candidates on LinkedIn and more time developing content for an email campaign. They can take a moment to analyze traffic by source on your careers page – and optimize their advertising budget accordingly.
These are exactly the kinds of activities recruiters are prioritizing at highly effective hiring organizations. Our research shows that by investing time in more holistic sourcing and hiring strategies like employer brand management and recruitment marketing, they are 256% more likely to rate their sourcing efforts as highly effective.
But it’s important to note they’re not doing this ad hoc. In today’s volatile talent economy, having a formal strategy in place to inform best practices, and create alignment among recruiters, hiring managers, and business leadership is essential to driving desired outcomes in the long run.
On the flip side, reactionary recruiting models are proving to be largely ineffective. Of those without even a high-level strategy in place, 90% rated their talent acquisition efforts as less than highly effective – which is a serious problem.
I’ll be talking about key practices in talent acquisition planning in the months to come. For now, I think it’s safe to say the bar is set pretty darn low.
–Kyle Lagunas, Talent Acquisition Analyst,
Brandon Hall Group
@KyleLagunas
