This article was prepared based on the webinar by Vijay Swaminathan, CEO & Co-Founder of Draup.
Watch, as he answers questions on:
- How championing a hiring strategy that highlights potential will help employers meet their diversity hiring goals.
- Techniques to anticipate the skills or potential that will be needed in the future workforce
- How to attract the right candidates by showcasing the potential for career growth and
- How employers can identify candidates with potential before interviewing them
According to most industry observers in 2017, by now, self-driving trucks should’ve mostly ruled the logistics game, and truck drivers would’ve been out of jobs. Yet here we are in 2021, and the UK is issuing emergency visas to make up for a drastic shortage of truck drivers.
The autonomous self-driving revolution is just around the corner, the same place it was 3 years ago, except maybe a few inches ahead.
The point being that most forecasts that pointed to a fully automated world have not exactly been fructified. There is still a long way to go till we reach this level of digital disruption.
Till then, we can use the time we have to better prepare ourselves for the inevitable digital disruption looming on the horizon.
And one of the key aspects driving this need to better prepare for digital disruption is not talent shortage as most would guess; instead, it is the finetuning & perfecting the art & science of talent acquisition.
Talent will always be there, and yes, there is somewhat of an alarming shortage that is on the horizon; however, good talent will always be obtainable with the power of reskilling & upskilling.
However, acquiring said talent will be what makes the difference between successful teams & teams that struggle with high attrition rates.
Needless to say, recruiters have their jobs cut out for them.
What Recruiters Need to do their Jobs
More than anything, today’s recruiters need access to the right data at the right time to execute their hiring initiatives successfully.
This data should be accurate, up-to-date and above all, contextualized to the hiring scenario at hand.
Take, for example, the task of hiring a Data Scientist in the Greater Boston Area. Traditionally, recruiters hit the ground running with a cookie-cutter job description that highlights “competitive(read ‘base’) pay” for the role.
This is where most recruiters fail to take advantage of the talent market data.
Draup’s research estimates that you must offer between 1.23X-1.44X of base pay to unlock access to 75-90% of the talent pool at a tech talent hotspot in the US.
Knowing this information will help you prepare better job descriptions that attract the right kind of talent. But there’s more to it than that.
You can use this data for adjacent skills where the base pay is much lower and then use reskilling to help them take on the responsibilities of your target role. For example, for a base pay budget of $100,000, Data Analysts roles are easier to access in the Greater Boston Area, who can then be reskilled to become Data Scientists.
Below, you can see the percentage of talent for a role that gets unlocked as you alter your hiring parameters.
Not to mention the huge war for talent between startups & established enterprises. While most companies might ignore startups due to their lower funding capabilities, that can change overnight thanks to VCs, and they’ll end up attracting your prized talent.
But this is not the only way in which data is helping recruitment teams.
Using Data to Attract Candidates
So you’re planning to recruit a Data Analyst, and you intend to reskill them to become a Data Scientist. That’s a good start. However, it is not easy to attract talent if you don’t advertise this reskilling fact from the get-go.
How do you get the data to highlight this strategy that looks for potential rather than outright skill?
To do this, you need the help of Artificial Intelligence.
Here’s how it works.
Today’s Call Center Agents are actually primed to become tomorrow’s Sales Enablement Specialists with the right mixture of training in technical and soft skills. This fact is not evident at the surface and could turn off the current workforce from even considering a role as a call center agent.
But talent intelligence platforms such as Draup offer Recruiters a deep dive into all the possible roles ahead of a Call Center Agent, including client relations specialist and Customer Service Specialist. From here, they can then transition to the high-earning role of a Sales Enablement Specialist.
Draup’s Reskilling tool presents talent management teams with comprehensive insights on how to execute these transitions in the least possible time.
This way, recruiters can craft exciting job descriptions that highlight the potential long-term benefits of starting from a less-desired entry-level position.
Recruiting is a science. To attract the right set of candidates, you need to craft a job description that can be backed by empirical data at the least.
Another empirical strategy that recruiters can use to source candidates is by hiring with potential in mind.
Attract Candidates by Highlighting Potential
Going back to the example of the truck drivers, yes, a self-driving future will remove jobs from the market. But it will also add a whole new set of roles that will be severely lacking in talent as well.
In the case of the truck drivers, while driving jobs may go down drastically, there will be a rise in demand for people who can train self-driving algorithms efficiently navigate hilly terrain & winding roads across rivers & valleys.
In other words, with the right upskilling, these truck drivers can be skilled to take on these jobs.
Recruiters have a front-seat view of the changing skills ecosystem and are perfectly placed to understand such potential given the right data.
Even in the case of the Call Center Agent becoming a Sales Enablement Specialist, one can clearly see that the common denominator in the path is their ability to empathize with and solve customer pain points.
Understanding these common parameters and hiring for them is crucial for talent teams to build a sustainable workforce.
And hiring the right talent quickly is also a major pain point for recruiters today. A 3-4 month delay in bringing in the right talent means a direct reduction in the bottom line.
Today’s recruiters are faced with enormous pressure to hire talent while keeping diversity, emerging digital skillsets & soft competencies in mind.
Never before in history have the role of talent acquisition teams been more vital than it is today.
In a scenario where the digital landscape is evolving faster than the rate at which skills can adapt, candidates must be hired for their long-term potential rather than the short-term value they can add to your team.
