Tag: Human Resources Outsourcing

2017: The Utopian Year for Talent Acquisition? | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

Talent acquisition teams across companies and countries have spent decades looking for a utopian talent acquisition solution through which they can find the right talent, at the right time, in the right place, and at the right cost. This rare, elusive combination may just start becoming a reality in 2017, as promising themes from 2016 begin to emerge on the mainstream, and new technologies and ideas surface.

Think about the unification of these, resulting in an ideal world order for talent acquisition teams in which:

• Companies can leverage workforce planning tools to decide on the type of talent – permanent versus, temporary, internal versus external –they want to hire
• Sourcers, in a split second, can decide on the talent source they want to leverage, immediately access their diligently cultivated employer-specific talent pools, and screen candidates by parsing resumes using cognitive, AI and NLP-enabled tools
• There is a seamless flow of data between HRMS and talent acquisition systems, and recruiters can leverage this data to run predictive analytics to gauge the candidate fit
• Employers can attract and engage candidates through their brand by continuously interacting with them leveraging chatbots for email, chat, and voice communication. Availability of add-on tools allows recruiters to interview candidates remotely, run background checks, and conduct mobile assessments
• HR managers can identify candidates who are susceptible to attrition, and devise effective strategies to retain them
• Recruiters are able to map the entire employment lifecycle of a potential hire, and leverage it for making an informed decision about the candidate

Integrating all these scenarios into one single solution offering might feel like fiction, but Everest Group feels it will start manifesting into reality later in the year. Enterprises and providers alike have been using video interviewing, self-scheduling, and background screening tools for quite some time. Other more advanced technologies such as AI, cognitive, predictive analytics, and NLP-enabled tools are evolving fast. And service providers that are the flag bearers of innovation in RPO are already investing in and working on some of these technologies. It will be interesting to see which service provider is able to integrate all these technologies into a one-stop solution, whether through new investments, or through partnerships and acquisitions.

But, one thing is certain: this whole ecosystem is about to be disrupted, to such an extent that we believe that 2017 will probably be remembered as the year in which the concept of technology became deeply entrenched in the talent acquisition function psyche. This will also result in technology slowly becoming an extension of a recruiter’s physical being in the years to come.

For more insight into some of these technologies, please see our reports including Technology in Recruitment Process Outsourcing – Enabling a Paradigm Shift, and Giving Talent Acquisition the “Analytics Nirvana” Edge.