Five signs your TA function runs on instinct

You may be falling prey to one of the major signs that your talent acquisition function runs on instinct.

Instincts are great if you’re deep in the jungle or playing the lottery, but for serious business decisions that will shape the future of your company, we think a little more care and attention is warranted.

Here are five key indicators that your TA function could be in need of a revamp.

You hire people you get a ‘good vibe’ from

If, when it comes time to choose the most qualified candidate, you’re picking based on a loose idea of how someone came across, then you may need to take a long hard look at how your hiring works.

While you pick people based on vibes, your competitors are making decisions based on battle-tested metrics and processes that radically increase the odds of finding a great fit.

This starts with the interviewers. Those conducting the conversations need to be properly trained in how to ask intelligent questions that extract the answers you need to make your hiring decisions.

If you need to hire someone who understands social media marketing, for example, the people conducting the interview need to be armed with the right questions to ask so that you can compare and contrast the different candidates.

But they also need to know why they are asking these questions. What are the business gaps that this role is trying to fill?

Concepts like training and crafting interviews to downplay inherent biases are also vital, otherwise you risk giving away the benefits of diversity.

Only under these conditions can they properly support a really successful hiring journey.

You don’t know where the candidates are coming from

This might seem like a strange one, but when you think about it a little more deeply you’ll understand how this creates an exponential problem.

It’s a fact of life that job ads are often posted in several different locations, maybe a recruiter has joined in on the fun or a candidate may find their way to the job interview through your company’s wider network.

However, if that information is not extracted and recorded in some way, it becomes impossible to know what methods of hiring are the most effective for your business.

At best, this means that you’re operating in the dark, wasting time on dead ends when you could be making the most of the time spent on the hiring process and the overall quality of candidates.

At worst, you end up discarding the methods that brought you success in the past and in a frustrating cul-de-sac.

With each hiring process conducted without proper knowledge and analysis of where candidates are coming from, this risk is repeated, meaning that it’s more or less inevitable that you will discard something that was working well in favour of repeating past failures.

Your approach is tech-light

We’re not saying you should eliminate the human touch in talent acquisition, but the raw facts are that software can level up your hiring processes and now with the injection of AI, help you get to the finish line faster and in better shape.

The rollout of a good applicant tracking system (ATS), for example, is a must in modern TA teams.

Research has found that 75% of hiring professionals and recruiters make use of ATS or similar specialised recruitment software.

Tech like this can help radically streamline your workflows, enable stronger collaboration between hiring team members and overall ensure that the best candidates rise to the top.

A big question to ask of your hiring function is whether it has any capacity for understanding AI governance.

There are lots of products on the market now that promise to supercharge your TA function with the help of AI, but the truth is that without proper governance you will not only get poorer results, but you won’t know that you’re not getting top drawer information.‍

You have no idea if you did a good job

A hiring team’s job is not done when the candidate signs on the dotted line. Forget about onboarding and HR - top TA teams are remaining plugged into a staff member’s journey long beyond their first week to help inform and iterate for the future.

Can you really say with confidence that your hiring function is performing well if you don’t have evidence to prove that the people you brought on are fulfilling the objectives you set out when the job role was first created?

Metrics like time-to-productivity and retention correlation need to be recorded and analyzed.

Learning that things aren’t working is arguably even more valuable than having your whole hiring practice vindicated. Identifying the tweaks that need to happen as early as possible will save you a lot of heartache down the road.

In the modern day it’s essential that TA teams remain connected to the entire workforce in a real and data-driven way.‍

The process repeats itself

The final clue, and the one that brings it all together, is that the mistakes made in hiring keep happening.

Even the most well-oiled hiring team isn’t going to get it right every time, but they will learn and adapt when things don’t go perfectly.

If you’re taking the same process, with the same tech stack, without any data on past performance and expecting better results, you’re going to be disappointed.

But it can be hard looking from the inside out to know where your weaknesses are and what errors are baked into your hiring techniques.

It’s here that an independent assessment can really shine - with independent recruitment specialists able to tell you which parts of your talent acquisition need love and attention and where you should double-down on already successful strategies.