Why AI Literacy Is the Next Strategic Skill for TA
As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly embedded in the hiring process, many organisations are asking the same questions: What role will AI play in recruitment, and what does it mean for the people behind the process?
While headlines often focus on automation replacing human effort, the reality is more nuanced. The next chapter of talent acquisition isn’t about replacing people, it’s about redefining their contribution. Those who understand how to leverage AI as a tool, rather than view it as a threat, will be the ones who continue to create value.
But AI literacy in TA doesn’t happen by accident. It requires new skills, new mindsets, and a clear understanding of where AI can meaningfully support the recruiting lifecycle. It also demands an honest look at how different roles, sourcers, coordinators, advisors, and strategic partners, will be impacted differently.
AI Has Entered the TA Workflow, But Capability Gaps Remain
Recent data from LinkedIn shows that 74% of talent professionals are optimistic about AI’s impact on recruitment, yet only a small percentage feel equipped to use these tools effectively. Many organisations are still navigating early-stage experimentation, often lacking a framework for how to roll out AI responsibly and practically.
The challenge isn’t just technology, it’s people readiness. Adoption is uneven, often slowed by fear of redundancy, tool fatigue, or a lack of clarity on where AI actually adds value.
That’s why leading TA teams are shifting their focus from surface-level adoption to deeper capability-building. TA professionals need to understand how to use AI tools not just functionally, but strategically. That means asking smarter questions, engaging with data more fluently, and knowing when to apply AI-generated insights versus when to rely on experience and judgment.
From Tool Usage to Strategic Enablement: The AI Maturity Curve
A growing number of TA leaders are mapping out an AI capability journey that moves through several stages:
Exploration – Piloting tools in isolated workflows, often with individual enthusiasm leading the charge.
Enablement – Upskilling teams in prompt engineering and basic data interpretation, often with measurable time savings.
Integration – Embedding AI into core systems (ATS, CRM, sourcing stacks) to support consistent workflows.
Augmentation – Using AI to inform strategic decisions, shape job architecture, and advise hiring managers at a consultative level.
Where a TA function sits on this curve should inform its investment priorities. Skipping stages leads to poor adoption, fragmented workflows, and wasted spend.
What Skills Are Emerging for the AI-Enabled TA Professional?
Forward-thinking talent teams are investing in capability development that goes well beyond basic tool adoption. Some of the key skills being prioritised include:
1. Prompt Engineering
Learning how to write effective, targeted prompts has quickly become essential. This skill allows TA professionals to extract better results from generative AI tools, whether it’s drafting a job description, building Boolean search logic, or personalising outreach messages based on candidate motivations.
Training in prompt engineering is already underway in several enterprise environments. These programmes focus on secure platforms like Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT Enterprise, teaching TA teams how to apply AI in daily workflows while remaining compliant with data and privacy standards.
2. Predictive Analytics for Strategic Demand Planning
As organisations mature their workforce planning efforts, AI offers an opportunity to improve how TA professionals anticipate and prepare for complex hiring needs. Predictive analytics helps teams interpret demand plans with greater precision, identifying potential bottlenecks, forecasting sourcing difficulty, and prioritising critical roles before requisitions hit the system.
Rather than reacting to intake meetings, AI-enabled TA professionals can proactively partner with talent intelligence and workforce planning teams. By surfacing patterns in hiring volume, geography, and skill clustering, they help design sourcing strategies that are more aligned to business timing, risk tolerance, and labour market constraints.
This shift moves TA from execution to orchestration.
3. Advanced Market and Role Research
In parallel, TA professionals are using AI to enhance their ability to conduct strategic market research. This includes analysing adjacent skill sets, identifying alternative career paths into hard-to-fill roles, or benchmarking similar positions across peer organisations and industries.
These insights help reshape job design, adjust expectations, and open up more inclusive or innovative talent pipelines. When combined with recruiter experience and hiring manager consultation, it enables more agile and data-informed decision-making.
Used well, these research capabilities strengthen the TA team’s role as an advisor, not just a delivery function.
4. Experimentation and Peer Learning
Perhaps most powerful is the rise of shared experimentation. A growing number of talent functions are creating internal “AI labs” or learning communities where teams test new workflows, explore niche sourcing challenges, and share what works (and what doesn’t). These environments are critical for building capability and trust.
A common use case emerging from these labs is forensic sourcing: using AI tools to convert vague job specs into structured search logic, sometimes across multiple geographies or languages. Over time, these experiments build institutional knowledge that scales beyond individuals.
Infrastructure Still Matters: Data and Integration Are Make-or-Break
One of the most overlooked blockers to AI impact is infrastructure. Even the best AI tools won’t deliver value if the underlying systems, ATS, CRM, and talent data, are fragmented or outdated. TA teams need to partner closely with HRIT and data governance to ensure they have a stable foundation for scale.
What Should TA Leaders Be Doing Now?
For TA leaders and CHROs, the focus should be on structured readiness, not reactive adoption. That doesn’t mean rolling out every new tool or jumping on hype trends. It means thinking strategically about where AI can support core goals like improving workflow efficiency, enhancing candidate experience, or surfacing underrepresented talent.
Here are a few actions that progressive leaders are already taking:
Define clear use cases where AI can add value, starting with sourcing, scheduling, and candidate communications.
Invest in TA professional upskilling, especially around prompt engineering, predictive analytics, and ethical reasoning.
Encourage safe experimentation through structured learning spaces, team jams, or AI hackathons.
Choose secure platforms that support responsible use and align with company risk policies.
Track outcomes like time savings, response rates, and TA professional satisfaction, not just cost reduction.
Procurement with Purpose: Avoiding the Shiny Tool Trap
With so many AI vendors flooding the market, discernment is critical. Teams should look past flashy demos and ask tougher questions:
What data is the model trained on?
Is the algorithm explainable and auditable?
How does it integrate into existing TA workflows?
Can we govern this tool in alignment with company risk policies?
The most sophisticated teams aren’t just buying tools, they’re evaluating partners.
Responsible AI: From Ethics to Governance
As AI tools evolve, so do the risks. Algorithms trained on biased data can reinforce inequity. Black-box models may produce impressive outputs without transparency. The responsibility for maintaining fairness, inclusivity, and data security still sits with humans.
TA teams should implement clear policies on responsible AI use, including:
Oversight committees involving TA, Legal, DEI, and Data Governance
Review checkpoints in the workflow for all AI-generated recommendations
Documentation of how decisions were made, especially in high-impact hiring situations
Final Thought: A More Human, More Strategic TA Function
The best TA professionals will always be those who build trust, influence hiring decisions, and spot potential others might miss. AI doesn’t replace those qualities, it amplifies them. It gives professionals back the time and insight they need to operate at a higher level.
As a partner to many organisations navigating this shift, we’re seeing that AI success doesn’t come from tools alone. It comes from mindset change, capability building, and cultural integration. There’s no one-size-fits-all playbook, but there is a clear opportunity to rethink what great recruitment looks like in the age of AI.
We work in a digital age, data has become the cornerstone of innovation, driving decision-making processes across industries. However, the sheer volume and complexity of data generated daily present challenges and opportunities. To navigate this landscape effectively, individuals must possess a unique set of skills and expertise. Being skilled at working with data is more than just analyzing numbers; it’s about understanding patterns, extracting insights, and ultimately driving meaningful change.
As a recruiter, when looking to improve your skills in working with data, there are several steps you can take to enhance your proficiency and leverage data-driven insights to optimize recruitment processes and decision-making. Becoming more must haves than optional, here are some strategies to consider:
Understand the basics of data analysis: Familiarize yourself with the fundamentals of data analysis, including statistical concepts, data visualization techniques, and data interpretation methods. Your manager, in house data teams and online course, should all provide a gateway to support this learning. You wont need to be fluent, but you do need to have a basic grasp of the language and methods used.
Learn about relevant tools and software: Acquire proficiency in popular data analysis tools and software such as Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, and data visualization platforms like Tableau or Power BI. These tools can help you organize, manipulate, and visualize data effectively, enabling you to derive actionable insights from recruitment metrics and trends. Whilst you don’t have to become expert in these tools, especially if you work at a larger organization where data science and analysis work is supported for you, it is advisable to know what they are and the power they possess, in order to form a fully rounded view of the possibilities that are open to you.
Explore recruitment analytics: Gain insights into recruitment analytics and metrics, such as candidate sourcing channels, time-to-fill, cost-per-hire, and candidate conversion rates. Analyzing these metrics, and being able to benchmark them, can help you identify recruitment trends, assess the effectiveness of sourcing strategies, and optimize recruitment processes for better outcomes. The more exposure you get to this data, the more it will become a natural language to you and allow you to understand more deeply the impact you or your team is having and could have.
Utilize applicant tracking systems (ATS): Familiarize yourself with the functionalities of applicant tracking systems (ATS) commonly used in recruitment processes. ATS platforms offer various features for data management, candidate tracking, and performance analytics, enabling recruiters to streamline workflows and make data-driven decisions throughout the recruitment lifecycle. You can find real gems of opportunity when considering the functionality that an ATS may have that you are not yet using (or you could learn that you need something better).
Develop data-driven recruitment strategies: Leverage data analytics to develop data-driven recruitment strategies tailored to specific hiring needs and organizational objectives. Analyze historical data to identify patterns, preferences, and successful hiring outcomes, allowing you to optimize sourcing channels, target candidate demographics, and improve overall recruitment efficiency.
Stay updated on industry trends: Keep abreast of emerging trends, best practices, and innovations in recruitment analytics and data-driven HR strategies. Engage with industry publications, webinars, and professional networks to stay informed about advancements in recruitment technology, data analytics tools, and methodologies. Once again, you do not have to become expert, but being exposed to it will improve your data vocabulary and provide ideas to help you and your stakeholders.
Seek continuous learning and development opportunities: Invest in ongoing learning and professional development to enhance your skills in working with data and analytics. Consider enrolling in specialized training programs, attending workshops, or pursuing certifications in recruitment analytics, data-driven HR, or people analytics to deepen your expertise and stay competitive in the field.
Collaborate with data and analytics teams: Foster collaboration with data scientists, analysts, and HR professionals specializing in people analytics within your organization or network. Engage in cross-functional initiatives, knowledge-sharing sessions, and collaborative projects to gain insights, exchange ideas, and leverage collective expertise in leveraging data for recruitment optimization.
Being skilled at working with data goes beyond mere technical proficiency. It encompasses a combination of analytical thinking, problem-solving abilities, and domain knowledge. By adopting these strategies and embracing a mindset of continuous learning and improvement, recruiters can enhance their skills in working with data and leverage data-driven insights to drive informed recruitment decisions, optimize processes, and achieve better outcomes in talent acquisition and retention.
In conclusion, being skilled at working with data is not just a professional asset; it’s a gateway to unlocking the transformative power of information. As industries continue to harness the potential of data-driven insights, recruiters who are equipped with the right skills and expertise will be at the forefront of innovation and driving meaningful change and value for stakeholders.
‘Talent Advisor’. ‘Strategic Partner’. ‘Talent Consultant’. Whatever title you want to give it, organizations are expecting recruiters to function in a different capacity than what has traditionally been the norm. Whereas, historically, the role of the recruiter had been to find, attract, and screen candidates as well as shepherd the interview process and negotiate offers, now they are expected to be ‘ambassadors of the brand’, bring ‘market insights’ to bear, and ‘amass talent pools in advance of need’.
In the talent-scarce world in which we must operate, I think this shift in recruiter accountabilities is positive and one which will give organizations moving in this direction an advantage in today’s competitive market for talent. That said, companies cannot simply drop these new responsibilities into the laps of their recruiters without addressing three critical elements which will enable the success of this new role.
Skill: As the titles suggest, these new accountabilities elevate the role of the recruiter from tactical to strategic. Organizations must determine the skills required for this new role and take inventory of the skill level of each of the recruiters on the current talent acquisition team to identify gaps. From there, the gaps need to be addressed through training, reallocation of resources, or replacement. Additionally, compensation may need to be considered as one might expect that this elevated role warrants an increase in pay.
Capacity: A mistake I see too many companies make is that these new responsibilities become additive to a recruiter’s existing workload. If a recruiter is expected to be 100% dedicated to ‘filling jobs’ and their performance is measured, in part, on this productivity, how can they possibly meet these goals if they are given additional, strategic responsibilities which reduces their capacity to ‘fill jobs’ to something less than 100%? Organizations must either find ways to open capacity to absorb new, strategic responsibilities (technology can help with this) or adjust the goals by which recruiters’ performance is measured.
Tools: In order for a recruiter to achieve success in this new role, s/he must be provided with the necessary tools to bring value. This is where technology plays a major part in enabling recruiters to showcase strategic capabilities. If the expectation is to ‘bring market insights to bear’, how can a recruiter do so without access to an analytics platform such as LinkedIn Insights, Gartner’s Talent Neuron, or Claro Analytics? If the business wants recruiters to build relationships with candidates to ‘amass talent in advance of need’ how can this be done well without a robust candidate relationship management (CRM) platform such as Avature, Phenom or Beamery? These are just two examples of technologies which will bring the ‘strategic recruiter ‘concept to life. More strategic accountabilities will require additional tools.
This change in the role of the recruiter represents a dynamic shift in the talent acquisition operating model. As recruiters take on these new responsibilities, adjustments to the roles of other elements of the model may need to be made. This is the future of the recruiter. Ensure you take the steps necessary to make these new ways of working successful.
Companies cannot simply drop these new responsibilities into the laps of their recruiters without addressing three critical elements which will enable the success of this new role.
As the world of work and hiring landscape changes at rapid pace, the one thing that we know to be true is that finding untapped talent, who can be trained, supported, and nurtured into ever-increasing skills gaps is critical for organisations to succeed.
AMS Talent Lab is doing just that, offering opportunity based on potential and aptitude, not previous experience. Our ethical skilling practices create talent for our clients and give our Talent Lab Associates the opportunity and support to thrive and ultimately reach their full potential.
The Talent Lab journey goes from strength to strength with the latest milestone being our Talent Lab Associate Community which we are officially launching today. It offers cohorts access to continual development, networking and support after they start their new roles and as they continue to grow in their careers.
We are immensely proud of each and every one of our cohorts, who come from diverse backgrounds and, through the training and support of AMS Talent Lab, have been able to realise their dreams of working in their now careers.
If your organisation is looking for a truly ethical skilling partner to fill their skill gaps, please reach out to us on [email protected]. Or, if you’re interested in becoming an associate, you can email [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you!
Last month AMS joined a roundtable with global HR industry analyst, Josh Bersin, and senior talent representatives from six major multinationals. The discussion was centered on key trends in the talent landscape, and how they’re changing the market and powering success.
Here are the five key things we learnt:
1. The future is skills-based
The trend away from the traditional, role-based hiring model to a skills-based approach continues. Some roundtable participants had already begun taking on skills-based hiring projects and pilots. The group started their discussion by focusing on some of the most common teething problems. As with all major transformations, getting used to doing things differently takes time.
Scaling up skills-based hiring away from project-based skills hiring is proving to be a challenge. Moving away from role taxonomies to skills architecture is a huge undertaking.
Most organisations don’t yet have a handle on the skills that exist in the workforce, nor do they fully understand what the critical skills for their organisation in the future are. Getting agreement on the key skills and finding a way to track hidden and transferrable skills in their workforce is a significant feat. For example, how do you know what skills specific employees have without relying on employees for their own input?
A change of mindset is also needed with hiring managers and recruiters. Moving away from ‘experience’ to ‘skills’ requires stepping out of comfort zones. Learning to value ‘power’ skills (such as curiosity and life-long learning) is key.
2. The role of the recruiter is changing
The role of the recruiter is changing, and ‘talent advisory’ is increasingly in demand.
recruiters need to use data to demonstrate the availability of skills, to hiring managers and to provide alternative approaches to hiring that are cost effective and sustainable”. To exploit new technologies, they need to be data interpreters and move away from opportunistic sales to consultative insight. Sourcing like this is giving definition to TA careers, boosting the reputation of the industry to new talent, and powering internal change.
“Alongside skill-based hiring, there’s a need to upskill the recruiting role,” explained Bersin. “Skills-based hiring requires recruiters to become talent advisors,” and TA needs to recognise and get ahead of that shift.
“People often have overly high expectations of what a skills project will do for them – it is important but not just a technical solution,” explained Bersin. “Skills hiring is being manifested in tools and AI to help recruiters. But, as you know, finding the right person for the right job is a ‘human’ problem.”
3. A focus on skills will help retain early career talent
The sparkle of drawn-out graduate programmes has gone. Jobs lasting more than two years are no longer the norm, and early careers Gen Z talent expect and plan to move around. A skills-based approach aligns with this shift.
Fostering transferable skills allows organisations to satisfy their employees’ thirst for change and to embed internal mobility in place of a culture of movement outside of organisations. It also allows companies to train their people for those critical roles, outside the structures of graduate/traditional pathways.
4. TA has a seat at the table and is influencing change
“When executives are focussed on recruiting and put TA in a strategic position, that leads to success,” explained Josh Bersin.
This was one of the strongest areas of agreement around the table: Talent leaders need to stay connected to business strategy because they’re best placed to advance it when the market improves.
Businesses should avoid making their talent acquisition teams a victim during recessions. Instead, they should apply the transferrable-skills model and transition their teams into other areas of the business, such as research advisory or AI technologies. So when hiring starts again, businesses have retained their key people.
5. AI is changing the game, but we’re still the players
“AI is a phenomenon picking up speed like a snowball,” said Bersin. Online, mobile, cloud technologies, and AI are changing everything. But AI needs to be demystified to increase uptake and encourage meaningful deployment.
Businesses need to move towards AI technology, not fear it. And this comes from top-down leadership.
As with other industries, AI is enabling valuable efficiencies and offering keen insights, but human instinct and experience remains crucial in recruitment decision-making. TA teams need to reposition themselves around the skills agenda, not hand over responsibility to algorithms.
So, is your TA team set up for success?
To speak to AMS about how to progress skills-based hiring in your organisation, embed transformative AI, streamline hiring strategies, and upskill your talent teams, get in touch today.
People often have overly high expectations of what a skills project will do for them – it is important but not just a technical solution,” explained Bersin. “Skills hiring is being manifested in tools and AI to help recruiters. But, as you know, finding the right person for the right job is a 'human' problem.”
The way we work is changing.
Technology is having a profound impact on people’s jobs, and the skills gap is widening. Each day, new job roles are being created at speed to meet the demands of tomorrow. But with a shrinking working population and scarcity of global talent, businesses know there’s a need to shift their thinking.
Recruiters are turning their back on traditional ways of hiring based on experience and job qualifications to a skills-based approach to hiring, providing greater flexibility and potential. But while many have jumped on the bandwagon, very little are truly reaping the benefits.
In a recent webinar event, AMS colleagues Nicole Brender A Brandis, Head of Strategy Consulting, and Annie Hammer, Head of Technology and Analytics Advisory spoke to some of the world’s leading businesses to find out where they were on the skills-based journey, as well as discussing practical steps on how to make this new approach a success.
Here are the key takeaways.
The current outlook Businesses are currently sitting on the fence when it comes to future skills. In a live survey, we asked our attendees if they felt they had the skills they need to succeed in the new world of work. Almost 60% said they didn’t.
68% of respondents had started the skills-based journey, but 50% were in the early stages and nobody had got it right yet. And that’s not surprising. Businesses have realized that they don’t have enough workers, with skills that are future fit. So, adopting a skill-based solution makes sense. But implementing it successfully is another matter.
It starts with clear objectives Before you jump into the solutions, it’s imperative to tie down the business objectives. No two organizations are the same, so each one will have different reasons why a skills-based hiring approach could work for them. Questions businesses need to ask are, for example, ‘how will it accomplish better talent agility or mobility across the business?’ Or ‘how will it help utilize internal resources?’ Getting the answers to these questions at the start will give you the platform to deliver a solution that’s right for your business.
Think small As the saying goes, ‘don’t run before you can walk’. When it comes to a skills-based approach, some businesses get over-excited and try to implement change across the whole organization. Inevitably, this leads to a breakdown. The path towards a skills-based approach is not a Big Bang type of change. It takes time, and small steps can make all the difference.
For example, you could start with a single test group whose jobs have things in common. You’ll find there’s a significant amount of overlap at the skill level within those defined jobs. Then, boil it down to the key skills needed to be able to deliver the work.
Quick wins are so important when delivering something so new and complex.
Engage with the wider business It’s vital for everyone to work together and look at the skills that are needed today, that may need to change for tomorrow. One example mentioned during the session was literacy. In the future, it’s not going to mean ‘can you read and write?’, it’s going to means, ‘can you learn, re-learn and unlearn?’. And to do that, everyone must work closely together to understand how those deficits and reskilling need to happen.
Think cross-functional When you’re rolling out a radical new way of working, you need buy-in from everyone. Currently, in many businesses, this new approach starts with the Talent Management leader.
There’s a role for TA teams to start helping HR departments to think broadly across HR, as well as the business as a whole, to see how it will change the way that people work. It’s about continually thinking cross-functionally while you’re making the move to a skills-based model.
Evaluate success For a new initiative to gain momentum, it requires a well-structured approach to evaluating success.
Organizations need to make sure that they understand how they’re going to define success, and how to communicate it. By showing the results and outcomes in clear way, it will ensure the new approach continues to gain support, building momentum so it becomes a larger program.
Lean on technology The key to delivering this new skills-based approach are technologies.
AI, for example, is being used to skills-match candidates for shortlisting. But it can go much deeper. It can also uncover adjacent or relevant skills that are not clearly stated on a profile, as well as bring together information about a certain candidate from numerous online sources.
Technology helps with conversations, too. It can guide recruiters on what questions they should be asking – reducing the admin burden, so they can spend more time building relationships.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Technology is playing a key role in helping businesses realize the potential of a skills-based approach for their future employment.
To learn more about skills-based hiring and what it can do for your business, watch the full webinar session, Skills-based Organizations and the Future of Talent Acquisition, here.
Alternatively, if you would like to have a conversation about how to progress skills-based hiring in your organization, please do get in touch.
In our increasingly digital world, demands on technical skills have been high for some time. That demand has now reached crisis level. Our paper, Is the tech Skills Gap now a tech talent crisis? reports that job roles requiring systems design and related areas are expected to increase by 15% by 2031, so the problem is far from going away.
We typically see hiring managers put out requests for candidates that look specifically for key skills, experience and education that will meet all the needs of the job role. This is no longer a viable option, however, one of the solutions offered in our paper is to expand the ‘last mile’ of your talent pool.
So, what do we mean by the last mile when it comes to talent? Metaphorically speaking we are talking about employing a candidate, in many cases a graduate, who fulfils much of your requirements and has the energy and cognitive dexterity to excel in your role but perhaps lacks all of the specific skills that you need.
This might be a developer who hasn’t yet learnt a particular programming language or a marketer who knows the theory but lacks experience with a specific digital tool. In most cases this gap between their starting skills and full job competency can be bridged with a last-mile training programme; a 2–3-month digital training course or a one-year software apprenticeship, for example.
While on the surface it might look like it would take longer for that candidate to reach full competency, this strategy will have a positive impact on how quicky roles are filled and talent acquisition costs are lowered.
Engagement
In the world’s largest study in team performance and engagement, the Gallup report, Employee engagement and performance analysed data from more than 100,000 teams.
The report shows that engagement partly centres around the growth and development of the individual employee, who is keen to be known for what they’re good at. When studying the most successful organisations they report that where there is a culture of high employee development, it results in the most productive environment for the individual and the business. This aligns with their findings that the top reason given for a change in job, is ‘career growth’.
Taking ready-made candidates who fit perfectly into your role might be the utopia but there isn’t then room for that person to develop their skills. The last-mile training option puts personal development at the heart of your talent acquisition and these new employees are likely to become much more engaged which we know to have a knock-on effect on production. Chances are, there will be a lot less churn amongst this cohort too.
Have you also considered looking internally for these candidates?
By giving development opportunities to individuals who have been within your organisation and gained invaluable domain knowledge, can enable candidates to make the jump into roles in more niche areas. For example, do you have 1st/2nd line support workers looking for a foot into development, or network engineers keen to make the move into DevOps or cloud roles? Last-mile upskilling can be a perfect option.
DEI
Nurturing a talent pool that focusses on training candidates can allow you to expand your talent search to more diverse groups. This can increase economic mobility in under-utilised communities or drive more women into your technical roles, and your organisation will gain the benefits of having a more diverse workforce.
Without doubt, refocussing your energy from finding job-ready candidates to finding graduate or early-career individuals that are digitally savvy – that have enthusiasm and aptitude will create a flexible and engaged workforce. Opening up your talent pool to last milers will meet your immediate hiring needs while also drive long-term employee engagement and business objectives.
Ten steps everyone can take to improve hiring success
“Marginal gains is not about making small changes and hoping they fly. Rather, it is about breaking down a big problem into small parts in order to rigorously establish what works and what doesn’t.” Matthew Syed, Black Box Thinking
Volume hiring has always been hard, and it keeps getting harder.
Wage inflation, demographic challenges and unpredictable business demand – most likely in locations which have often always been challenging – have only added to the pressure. According to a recent Forbes analysis 74% or organizations in the service industry list recruiting as their top business challenge – and the result can be a kind of organizational paralysis. ‘This is just a problem, there is nothing we can do’ or, most commonly ‘we don’t have the budget’.
But simple initiatives can be quick to implement, and impactful and multiple simple initiatives can really start to move the needle. Most are free or – better – will stop wasteful spend and have a positive impact on your budget.
So: here is our AMS guide to help you Moneyball your high volume hiring.
Diversity and Data – Before, not After, Thought If you read no further read this: diversity and data matter. Understanding your hiring metrics (even the absolute basics) and how your organization reflects the communities you serve is a non-negotiable baseline. If you don’t have this, you are a chef without a recipe; a coach with no gameplan; a driver without a map. Do NOT be intimidated by the challenge. Not everyone can access cutting edge predictive analytics, but you have a finance function and almost everyone has a friendly team member with a head for numbers. Pull some basic data and build from there. And if you have those analytics but don’t have ‘the time’ to review them, cancel a meeting and look at them now. They are your friend not your enemy.
Needs Assessment – What and Who Are you Hiring? Everyone knows who they are hiring…don’t they?
Even if you do feel you know your most common profiles, get back to the floor – those roles you have been hiring for ever will most likely have shifted significantly in focus or even in skills required given the changes in the world post-Covid. What is important in that role today? Have any of your ‘must have’ requirements evolved or even disappeared? Plus, your employees can be inspiring: if anyone knows how to hire for their roles, it’s them.
Job Titles – Will Your Target Audience Understand? So many job titles have been designed with an internal audience in mind. Your CEO may get it, but your target candidates most likely do not. Use simple, natural language in your job descriptions so that candidates can find you, even if they are not looking for you. And keep descriptions short and to the point: has anyone ever told you they are NOT a ‘team player who can also work individually’? If key requirements matter, don’t bury them! Someone will confess that they do not have them at some point, so make it clear up front – better now than two weeks into the job.
Sourcing and Attraction Strategy – Average Never Works If you are lucky enough to have a budget, plan for where you spend and be ready to pivot. Programmatic advertising programs and partners are easier than ever to implement but their key role should be to fill gaps in local organic traffic. If candidates want to walk in and ask about a role, let them, and make it as easy as possible for them to do so (more on that later). Remember that local communities are always, always happy to help. Churches, sports clubs, housing groups, charities and local rehabilitation charities and will go the extra mile to align those in need with opportunities. Just make the time to ask.
Execute Your Plan – No One Else Will Having a plan is one thing, make sure to make it happen. A series of great ideas in a notepad or in a spreadsheet do not action themselves. ‘We are just about to’; ‘we do not have time to’, ‘I will get to it after’ are all off limits. Break it down and commit to trying something that will make a difference at least once a week, or even every day.
Take some swings.
Screening – Pull candidates IN do not screen them OUT This is your first chance to treat candidates as they should be treated. And this should not be by asking them aggressive questions, requiring hours of their time or understanding their life story. Align this stage to the critical data you need to know – really need to know – and make sure your process is aimed at keeping the right candidates engaged. Screening process as endurance event is helping no-one unless you are hiring for a role that requires endless form completion of parsable data.
Assessment and Selection – Relevant and Making a Difference? Formalized assessment tools can be useful – they can give candidates a sense of the role, help prioritize high quality candidates in bountiful markets and ensure rigor. They can – but do they do this for you? Or are you running a legacy battery of tests with only an indirect relevance for the roles you are hiring, most likely at a point in your process where quality candidates are looking to proceed quickly? Oh, and do you expect them have to set aside time at a desktop, remember a code and then follow complicated instructions to gather their results? Try the process yourself, you may be surprised how your flow chart looks great for you but not so good from the outside.
Interviews – Train, Train and Train Again People write books on this, so we’ll keep this simple. If someone is interviewing or spending any time with candidates (face to face, virtually or on the phone) make sure they know what they are doing. There are free resources out there on best practices, you may have in-house guides on a (virtual) shelf or maybe now is the time to pull something together?
And if you are running through multiple phases of screening, assessment AND interviews: think long and hard about the why and if there are opportunities to simplify further.
Offer and Onboarding – Stay in Touch Maybe you and you team concierge candidates all the way through to their first day, or maybe you hand a fully hire-ready candidate to an HR or business function. Consider either way that it is in your interest to keep in regular touch with candidates here: if it is in the thousands, leverage some basic tech to help: if numbers are smaller, keep the contact 1-1, direct and personable. If you don’t, someone else will.
Hire – Do Not Stop at Hire Volume hiring is relentless but that can also provide a rhythm to your activity that is difficult to manage in other areas. Schedule time after 10 and 30 days to check in on the most recent intake of hires. How is attrition? How are they performing? Find out from those hires what they think of their role. The elephant in the room can frequently be that it is on-the-job culture or management that most affects these numbers and can impact the overall perception of a TA function, so don’t ignore feedback and work with your partners in the business to make a difference.
In the words of Billy Beane: ‘If we pull this off, we change the game. We change the game for good.’
If you found this article helpful and you would like to talk more about how you can improve the effectiveness of your volume recruitment, please do get in touch.
Despite current predictions that the U.S. is on the cusp of a recession, we remain in one of the tightest labor markets in history. Companies haven’t been able to fill their skills gaps in years, so while some sectors have slowed down, companies are still desperately seeking to acquire certain skill sets.
Tech skills such as AI, cybersecurity and digital marketing are highest in demand. While the technology industry has made layoffs, these workers are finding new opportunities in other sectors such as life sciences, healthcare, hospitality and travel. The airlines industry, for example, has promised more investment in tech this year to avoid technology failures.
Growth in these industries has yet to slow down, and companies are hungry for digital talent but they must be prepared to adapt their employer brand proposition in order to attract new, digital talent to their workforce.
A big talent strategy in 2023 will focus on emerging talent. We’ve seen a 30% increase year-over-year in this area with our clients in the Americas. Because the labor market is so tight, companies are laser-focused on interns converting to full-time hires. That means recruiting strategies for students will concentrate on the intern candidate experience; more in-person, intimate events to attract students; and heavy social media engagement campaigns.
This year companies will also be increasing their upskilling and reskilling programs and retention strategies to hold on to the talent they already have. The biggest issue remains workforce participation which has been reducing since 1995.
With 11 million job openings and 5.7 million unemployed and a large skills gap within the employed population, organizations must be very intentional about their talent acquisition strategies.
“Despite concerns of a recession, one of the tightest labor markets in history remains. Companies haven’t been able to fill skills gaps, so while some sectors have slowed down, others are still seeking to acquire certain skill sets.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
I am incredibly excited to have moved to a new role within AMS where I now lead our global Client Operations capabilities. Those operations include the candidate sourcing and administration functions that support our clients with permanent hiring as well as the teams that help fulfil contingent hiring requirements.
Spending time with my new leadership team I’ve been keen to discuss the value that we provide to our many stakeholders and the ways in which we articulate that value. It’s a topic that I wrote about last year in the context of quality of hire and a topic that I think has even more importance in 2023.
2022 was an exceptional year for those of us that work in Talent Acquisition (TA). Hiring volumes were exceptionally high, demand for talent in most sectors exceeded supply and, as a result, time to hire was consistently up on prior year.
As we enter 2023, many are expecting to see a softening in hiring activity as economic growth slows. But with some notable exceptions, the tech sector being one, that slow-down does not yet look to have materialised. As Josh Bersin states, “For the first time I can remember we’re entering a global economic slowdown yet the unemployment rate has dropped to the lowest it’s been in 53 years (3.4%). There is a shortage of people to take the jobs we have, and even though revenue and profits are slowing, companies continue to hire.”
As the article, linked below, from HBR demonstrates, layoffs in the US are actually significantly lower than historical averages. So it seems that the challenges TA leaders have faced in 2022 look set to continue in 2023 with perhaps the added burden that there is unlikely to be additional net investment in TA functions in a time of slowing revenue and profits.
So now, more than ever, is the time for TA leaders to be articulating the value that they deliver to their businesses over and beyond the simple fulfilment of hiring demand. I continue to be passionate about the fact that we need to demonstrate strategic value through talent acquisition – the value of hiring for skills, the value of hiring for potential, the value of hiring better talent for our businesses.
In addition to that strategic value, our TA teams need to be able to demonstrate the value that they provide as individuals to their businesses and business stakeholders. Our Recruiters need to be able to demonstrate the value that they provide as talent advisors to their hiring managers. Our Sourcers need to be able to demonstrate the value that they provide in their ability to access and engage with the best and diverse talent. And our Administrators need to be able to demonstrate the value that they provide in ensuring an impeccable candidate experience. That value should be evident in individual goals and objectives.
As I have set my vision for Client Operations in AMS, I have asked my leadership team to better define and demonstrate those areas of value for each of our team members. A great example of which is candidate experience. There is an abundance of research that demonstrates the impact that candidate experience has on the overall effectiveness of TA. Here are six key metrics that demonstrate that point:
60% of job seekers have reported quitting an application due to the length and complexity of the process.
75% of candidates report that they have no engagement with a company following the submission of an application and 22% would discourage others applying for a job at the same company.
80% of job seekers say they would not reapply to a company that didn’t notify them of their application status.
80–90% of candidates report that the candidate experience could change their minds about accepting an offer with a company whilst a positive experience makes a candidate 38% more likely to accept a job offer.
Nearly 60% of job seekers have had a poor candidate experience, and 72% have shared their experience on online employer review sites such as Glassdoor.com
50% of candidates will not purchase goods or services from a company after a bad job application experience
No TA leader should tolerate the provision of a poor candidate experience, particularly given the challenges of hiring in today’s talent market. Whilst candidate experience has always been a priority for AMS, I now want to ensure that it’s embedded as a key goal for every one of our thousands of team members supporting hiring processes. At AMS talent is our world. It’s a vision that we’re seeking to embed in everything that we do and a vision that will drive us to do bigger and better things every day.
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In fact, the economy in early 2023 is not being roiled by layoffs — which are currently abnormally low compared to historical standards. This means the labor market remains really tight, despite arguments to the contrary. As a result, hiring will remain tough, and it may even mean central banks will have to keep interest rates higher for longer.
