A Pig and a Chicken[1] are walking down the road.

The Chicken says: "Hey Pig, I was thinking we should open a restaurant!"

Pig replies: "Hm, maybe, what would we call it?"

The Chicken responds: "How about 'ham-n-eggs'?"

The Pig thinks for a moment and says: "No thanks. I'd be committed, but you'd only be involved!"

 The fable above echoes the yawning gap Recruiting as a function & Industry must navigate from its commonly perceived role as a tactical support function to one of a genuine business partner. The increasingly VUCA environment we find ourselves in & the trends driving today’s recruiting marketplace are creating special challenges for organizations in the way they attract & engage with Talent. The shift we are seeing here is one of moving away from the model of attracting & selecting the best talent to one of attracting, engaging & selecting the best talent. Another challenge is that talent acquisition has become far more resource intensive than the recruiting function of the past. Resources are needed to develop the employment brand, create referral programs, manage candidate audiences, campus programs and similar such strategic initiatives. Making a strategic impact in the face of pressures to reduce recruitment costs resembles a Sisyphean task.

                                                  Recruitment Trends – Circa 2013

 The changing scenario & trends necessitate that the recruiting function create innovative efficiencies to make a visible impact on the organization performance and work as true, committed value- adding partners with key stakeholders.

So how does the recruiting function go about creating innovative efficiencies that drives strong corporate performance?  

The answer probably lies in leveraging some of the innovations we are seeing around us, specifically the advent of Big Data and the ramifications it has for recruitments going forward. Imagine functions such as marketing, finance, production proposing solutions to their key constituents unsupported by data points, but the logic of the recruiting function has always been centric around trust  and building relationship capital -the antithesis of analytical, evidence based decision making. While relationships have been and must continue to be the epicentre for the recruiting function it must take its data- savviness to new heights.

At its core the real value of Big Data is its ability to give us quantitative insights, throw up patterns from the end user perspective about where do we currently stand and where are we falling behind in our services. Interpretation of this data can provide us the answer to what to do for our end users – hiring managers, business leaders, candidate- in terms of innovation.  A word of caution though – As producers and consumers of data analysis it is important that we as recruitment professional are able to differentiate between an unbiased interpretation of data and one that uses data to tell a story.

One could draw a lesson here from Nate Silver- the political predictor and the baseball sabermetric man – who didn’t just understand data to predict the US Presidential election results with certainty, but understood storytelling & that data must be baked into a broader and better story within a context. Recruiting professionals must regularly evaluate the data and information as it guides and leads the businesses it operates in attracting, engaging & selecting the best talent.

Ability to complement the numerate insights – the science with the relationship building – the art can help solidify the reputation of the recruiting function as a committed strategic partner. But this would require the function and the profession to stop being a chicken