Danielle Weinblatt, CEO of Take The Interview (TTI), a StarVest portfolio company, shared her predictions for the Talent Acquisition Industry in 2016 based on her experience as CEO of TTI. We look forward  to hearing more from Danielle as the year progresses.

  1. We have seen more and more organizations move to consensus-driven decision making for candidates during the interview process which has elongated hiring —> there is a desire to streamline this in most companies – no one wants to rock the boat, but there has to be a better way.
  2. As the war for talent wages on, a candidate’s experience and his or her view of a hiring process has become more important —> more companies are putting emphasis on this, particularly companies that have consumer-based brands and where the candidates are often consumers.
  3. More companies are hiring remote workers, so the need for digital solutions, particularly mobile, and methods for interviewing remotely is becoming increasingly important.  Additionally, tracking hiring managers down for feedback and scheduling becomes more complex.
  4. Companies have seen awards such as the CANDEs expose poor hiring practices.  Glassdoor and its success is also a method of creating bad press about a company.  Social media has created a democratized forum for candidates to complain and this hurts a company’s cost-of-hire over time making it harder to recruit and retain top talent.
  5. Companies have also seen that talent acquisition has become more and more important, as more mainstream articles in reputable business periodicals such as HBR and access to more data has proven that people are the drivers of business success —> this also applies to data/stats on a diverse workforce.  This shows that any organization not investing in its talent acquisition practice will fall by the wayside.
  6. Authenticity and transparency have grown in importance as a new generation takes over as a larger percentage of the workforce —> the Millennial generation prefers digital means to apply and be communicated with.  We grew up with YouTube, FaceTime and Smartphones and these are our preferred methods for searching for jobs, researching companies and interviewing.  We don’t want BS.  We want to really understand what it’s like to work for a company.
  7. Organizations that have shortcomings in hiring are becoming more self-aware and are turning to technology to solve their problems.  This has been evidenced by more money being spent in TA solutions including software to drive better hiring.  Less focus on agencies and more focus on internal corporate recruiting has been a big shift that is more cost effective and better for long-term retention.  Culture is big and hiring is being based less on skills and experience alone and more based on cultural fit, skills and also potential to grow at a company.
  8. Google has received a lot of press recently with its more data-driven hiring process and that has been a boon to solutions such as ours because it exposes the lack of data of other companies that don’t have track key metrics.  They have recently published Rework and Laszlo Bock has publicized the structured interview process.
  9. The future of talent acquisition is operating your recruitment organization like a sales & marketing function as a key driver of competitive advantage because the business line is merely a funnel with similar drivers.  Talent acquisition is becoming much more aligned with the business and their needs.

The original post can be found here.