Master employer branding to fuel talent acquisition

Vasudevan Parthasarathy is a talent acquisition leader and management professional with two decades of industry experience with a track record of designing and implementing talent acquisition plans and to effectively contribute to Organizational goals with an in-depth understanding of the Offshore - Onsite Software Delivery Model. 

Expert at building and executing full life cycle recruitment and staffing strategies for large scale and complex organizations across IT services, consulting and product organizations, supporting high volume and niche hiring complemented with employer branding, university relations and contingent workforce across different geographies in a multi-cultural environment.

Here are the excerpts of the interview.

How do you think has HR evolved over the years and how do you see the role of HR as a business partner?

HR as a function has been a critical and an integral part of any organization. Over the years with the industry changing dynamically, HR has been through a transformation journey of needing to understand in-depth of the business. With organization moving towards COE model differentiating the transactional related tasks of a traditional HR v/s business partnering, HR Business Partner role has evolved into being strategic relationships between business, people & organization, based on achieving best practice and sustainable competitive advantage.

Companies with a bad reputation not only struggle to attract candidates, but they also struggle to retain employees. This is why employer branding is one of the top recruitment trends of 2019

Have talent acquisition practices and hiring models changed in 2019 with the rise of emerging technologies and changing demands of businesses?

I would not restrict my response only to emerging technologies. Hiring being in the forefront for any organization, identifying the right talent has become a critical step especially when we see a significant gap in demand v/s supply of talent. With this said, continuous innovation in hiring is the need of the hour. Making the right investments in tools, focus on employer branding, candidate experience, data driven hiring practices, etc. will make a positive impact on hiring models.

Do you think recruiting is tougher in 2019? What are the top strategies that you follow to win the war for top talent?

In short, recruiting can never be an easy game. There are many approaches that can be considered to win talent however to me what stands out is Inbound Recruiting. This is a recruitment marketing strategy where you proactively and continually attract candidates with the goal to make them choose you as their next employer.

Do you think the conventional process of pre-hire screening, assessment, scheduling, and onboarding has changed? How can organizations ensure they hire the right people with the right skills sets?

Candidate evaluation has had many iterations but there is tremendous scope to improve in this space. Organizations should look towards hiring for “Fit for Purpose” and not keeping in mind, only the role.

Among the top HR trends that LinkedIn's Global Talent Trends 2019 report identified are soft skills and work flexibility. What are some of the hiring strategies that you follow to identify soft skills?

As a first step, it’s important that the hiring manager does invest time on building the right profile for the role and create a job description for each of the roles which do call out the relevant soft skills that are required to be demonstrated in the role. The use of problem solving questions/scenarios will do bring out the right attributes of soft skills.

With Artificial Intelligence set to impact every aspect of HR and talent acquisition in particular, how do you see the rise of next-gen technologies and its role on recruitment in general?

We are already witnessing shades of AI in HR space. The idea is to increase productivity and eliminate rudimentary steps, which possibly would make our jobs much more effective. AI just not helps assessing talent decisions, but also enables predicting hiring outcomes. It’s a myth that AI will take away jobs instead AI is acting as enablers in our day-to-day activities.

Identifying the right talent has become critical for organizations especially when we see a significant gap in demand v/s supply of talent. Hence, continuous innovation in hiring is the need of the hour

How important is employer branding for organizations to persuade qualified candidates? 

In the current industry scenario, being an engaged employer is of utmost importance. 75 Percent of job seekers research about a company’s reputation and employer brand before applying. Companies with a bad reputation not only struggle to attract candidates, but they also struggle to retain employees. This is why employer branding is one of the top recruitment trends of 2019. You don’t pick talent anymore. Talent picks you.

What's the future of talent acquisition? What are the top challenges HR organizations face when it comes to talent acquisition and recruitment?

Innovation, Simplification, Out of the box way to hire talent will continue to be the drivers. Key critical challenges that organization could face if they

a.   Are not aligned and do not understand the business landscape,

b.   Do not partner & collaborate with stakeholders

c.    Not making strategic investments on the right tools and system and not able to use data effectively

d.   Are not able to maintain a fine balance between speed of hiring v/s quality of hiring and lastly