After a crazy up-and-down three years in the profession, we got some of Australia’s leading senior talent acquisition professionals together to hear from a panel of experts on how they see the state of the profession and what we might expect in the coming few years.
With People of Influence’s Shaun Kenny facilitating the discussion, we had Ben Bars (CEO at We are Unity), Martin Herbst (CEO at JobAdder) and Alissa Patoulios (Head of TA at Optus) make up our stella panel.
Some of the questions that were asked included:
What are the most important skills for TA in 2023?
Adding Value – Always consider how to keep relevant and alive as a TA professional whether it be from providing market mapping, assessing key data, looking at rem bandings or being proactive around strategic hires. Those who are more proactive will be more successful.
Story-telling – Great recruiters need to be great story-tellers. You need to establish chemistry and maintain energy, even when meeting and interviewing behind a camera. Think about, and learn, how to create that chemistry and bond with candidates and stakeholders, even if the meetings are virtual.
Connection to culture and brand – In order to truly succeed in TA you need to know what story you want to be sharing in market. How do you turn into a brand ambassador and create advocacy for your organisation?
Think Laterally – Yes, you need to go out to market when searching for candidates, but what about the talent you already have in your organisation? You must be able to identify hidden talent and need to have a work environment that considers talent management holistically.
How do you recommend an organisation can stand out in terms of their EVP? What should we consider?
EVP stand for Employment Value Proposition (not ‘employee’ or ‘employer’ value proposition. Ben said that the distinction is important as essentially it is a ‘contract’ between the employee and employer.
Ben suggested that organisations need to form a bridge with who they are today and what the business needs to become. He explained that a lot of it comes down to the language you use. Does it represent the conditions or environment at your organisation?
It should articulate why an organisation exists, where you can go as a business, and then also link it to the transformation agenda. Constantly challenge leadership with questions like: What reputation do you want to have as an organisation? What do you want to be known for? How will you/we live our Value proposition?
Ben pointed out that a CEO will always want to invest budget in an organisation’s reputation and advocacy, and so explain to leaders that is what the TA function is.
There was even talk of the TA Manager title changing to ‘R&A Manager’ (Reputation & Advocacy Manager!!).
Where do you see the future of AI in Talent?
Martin simplified the noise around AI and Chat GPT by asking everyone to think of the bits they would happily not do in their jobs as a recruiter, and then the bits that they really loved about their role.
As you might expect, the ‘admin’ heavy aspects were recruiters least favourite aspects, whilst ‘meeting people’ and ‘decision making’ was what they loved.
With the rapid and significant developments in this space, we will find that AI allows recruiters to do the things they like, more easily and efficiently. We won’t all have our jobs replaced by robots, but Alissa warned that they will replace people who don’t have an interest in how AI (or robots!) can work in conjunction with recruiters.
Martin said that the AI world is changing so quickly, that new advancements are often happening on monthly basis. The panel agreed that there are of course a lot of unanswered questions around AI, including how to prevent unconscious bias with the coding, and also the data privacy issues that can arise.
Our thanks once again to JobAdder for hosting us all, to our guests for joining and to Shaun, Ben, Alissa and Martin for giving up their time to share their views.
