Over the last several weeks, I’ve heard from a number of people who are less than six months into working at a new company and think they may have made the wrong decision. Surprisingly, the majority of these were Talent/Recruiting leaders. This seems counterintuitive—you would think we would be better at evaluating new opportunities as subject matter experts in all things hiring! Let’s talk about why this happens, and what you can do about it.
While AI took center stage, conversations among TA leaders were heavy on team engagement, recruitment ROI, and innovative approaches to getting the work done. A sense of cautious optimism around hiring growth in 2024 spurred engaging discussions on how TA teams are meeting the reality of achieving business needs with limited resources. Specifically and not surprisingly, many leaders shared that their priorities are focused on enhancing the effectiveness of their teams without the option of growing team size. This continued focus on doing more with the same team or even fewer resources has put a renewed spotlight on recruiting operations and understanding what changes will actually have an impact.
“How do I make this process repeatable, and less time consuming for me?” This is the question recently asked by a leader at one of the early stage companies we’re working with. Through our Fractional Talent Partner offering, we partner with a VC firm to give extra support to their portfolio companies and that’s how we met this leader.
Happy New Year! As we think about what’s ahead in 2024, we’re reminded that hiring is a product of business performance and business performance is a product of market conditions and financial health.
At the end of each year, we launch a benchmarking survey on Recruiting Productivity and Operating Metrics focused on recruiting team ratios, recruiter productivity, req loads, time to hire, diversity recruiting goals/tracking methods, cost per hire, and quality of hire. It’s been a tumultuous year for recruiting teams, so we were interested to see what has changed and what has not.
It’s been a fun several weeks where we’ve had an opportunity to get back to connecting in person with many of you. We hosted talent in person community events in Nashville, Raleigh, and San Francisco and a virtual event last week. We’re so energized by the work all of you are doing and hope to continue finding ways to bring the community together.
Over the last month, we’ve spent a lot of time with recruiting leaders at events like RecFest, with our client companies, and in 1:1 conversations. Here is what we are hearing as top of mind going into Q4 and planning for next year.
