For recruiting leaders, people operation teams, talent-supply chain pros, and ambitious leads wanting a competitive edge.

Think about how exciting an origin story can be. We always want to know why and how things came to be.  But why is it exciting to us and more importantly, why do we seek understanding?

 As an industry, we have to do a better job at looking at the business as an organism that is experiencing symptoms. These symptoms become a growth catalyst and the origin story is embedded in the symptom. However, instead of calling them origin stories, we refer to them as projects or initiatives. If we dig a little further and ask why, we can truly understand the need for a new project or initiative. This is the ultimate derivative to a new headcount. 

Unfortunately, when business leaders don't provide people operation teams early access for planning and discovery, everyone is behind the eight ball before anyone can say blueberry muffin. That's code for "cost of vacancy." 

So how do we get slightly ahead of the curve?

For a minute, lets imagine our pipeline isn't filled with people but is filled with widgets. A talent supply chain aims to hire people on time without a surplus or shortage. You can't be too proactive and take a surplus approach like you might back-stock a widget in traditional supply chains. However, you can substitute a surplus with a just-in-time talent engagement pipeline but the business must give early access to the knowledge of upcoming projects and initiatives. I'll share more about the talent engagement pipeline in 2017 and the role it plays in our brave new world of talent attraction. Until then, I'd like to arm every people operation, talent attraction, employee experience, and recruiting team (whatever you are calling yourself these days) with a simple situation playbook. Stay tuned for a deeper examination.

 This playbook will help you understand where you can allocate your team and resources in the following real-life situations. Think of this as a football game and you aim for coverage in three distinct situations: 

THE SITUATION

• Behind Schedule: 30+ Days Old
• On Schedule: On-boarding Last, This Month
• Forecasting: Upcoming 1, 3, 6, 9, 12 Months

THE PLAYERS

• Agencies
• Freelancers
• Talent Sourcer
• Recruiter
• Employee Experience
• Hiring Manager
• Hiring Lead
• People Ops
• Hiring Team

THE RESOURCES AKA THE SOURCING RUNWAY

• Tools
• Referrals
• Content
• Landing Pages
• Email Campaigns
• Events
• Webinars
• Videos

THE RULES

Never have your internal team compete with agencies. It isn't healthy competition. Very bad for teams. Partner with the agencies and have them compete with each other. Install a program and develop scorecards to assess performance in everyone.

Please try not to use your sourcers for 'behind schedule' efforts. I know it is extremely tempting but you are taking away your front line from the forecast hiring and pipeline building that will keep you on track throughout the year. You're better off enlisting the help of the hiring team and having them sponsor a new outreach campaign. 

Disclaimer: On the second comment - so many teams are behind the eight ball in hiring with limited resources so this isn't always possible....unfortunately.

THE PLAYBOOK  (Download High Quality Version)

Remember...Lancelot.io is coming soon...

Lancelot.io is a Freelancer Gig Marketplace for HR and Sourcing Professionals. Post and Work on Projects.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

James Chmielinski is a second generation recruiting veteran, former baseball player, and founder of Veruca.io, the first ever recruiting innovations lab. His company is built from two generations of sales and recruiting experience resting on the backbone of post-millennial technology.  

Last year, Veruca.io: Find (Mr. Chmielinski's inaugural software) attracted 178 active users in 114 cities from 17 countries.

This year, James created largest recruiting community on slack called "Recruiting Innovators", a hub-spot for recruiting jobs, networking, news, and best practices. 

His latest project, Lancelot.io (Sign up for upcoming pilot), is scheduled for a pilot program release within the quarter. Sign up for the pilot by emailing info@sourcingtalent.cloud.

James aims to make life easier for sourcing and recruiting teams and hopes to achieve this by developing an innovation lab where teams convert the best ideas into products.