The Partnering Recruiter
Welcome to the first installment of the Partnering Recruiter Newsletter
Unless you’ve been living under a rock and given that you work in or around TA, I’ll assume that’s probably not the case, you’ll know there has understandably been a huge focus across recruitment and talent acquisition on technology, automation, AI and process efficiency.
We can see that technology is already reshaping large parts of recruitment delivery: Sourcing, scheduling, workflow management, candidate communication, information gathering, screening and administrative coordination are all areas where AI and automation are already impacting. These areas are the “low hanging fruit” for tech.
To be clear, I'm a tech advocate and my view is that the best TA professionals in 2, 5 or 10 years time will be those who have embraced tech and evolved into something far more valuable than many recruiter roles look like today. In 2021 I launched one of the first global automated hiring processes for Just Eat. We launched a “Hi-Tech Hi-Touch” process which reinvested the time that automation freed up for recruiters into delivering a greater candidate experience and in turn significant commercial benefits.
Technology is going to continue to transform how we do our jobs and that is a good thing. One of the unintended consequences of that evolution is that it increases the importance of the capabilities technology cannot easily replicate:
Judgement
Influence
Commerciality
Stakeholder Engagement
Relationship Building
Organisational Credibility
In many ways, the more recruitment delivery becomes automated, the more valuable strong business partnering capability becomes.
Now I'm going to ask how much training you have had on the above subjects? If you have had some training here I would say that you’re in the minority. I will guess though you’ve had lots of training on systems, sourcing, process, tools and all the other mechanics of the recruitment process.
Here’s a bit of brutal truth about why that is…
Firstly your organisation has likely invested a lot into tech. Getting a return on investment is important. Ensuring that you’re properly trained and using that tech to the best of its ability is vital - Linkedin Recruiter is expensive so you get training on how to source and outreach using it - Linkedin has a vested interest in you being successful in using their platform. No denying that training on these aren't important but why no training or development in these other skills?
Because they aren't black and white. Systems training is often straightforward: you press X and you get Y… building commercial acumen, stakeholder engagement - these other skills don’t have a clear return on investment.
Time for another honesty bomb…
Training these skills and more importantly implementing them into your day to day job are hard. However, learn and implement them and your importance in an organisation will be rapidly elevated!
So where do I think recruiters should start if they genuinely want to become stronger business partners?
My belief is it starts with understanding the business itself. Not just the recruitment process. Not just the hiring managers. Not just the org chart. The actual business.
Think about how the organisation actually makes money… the answer isn’t always as obvious as it sounds.
Consider 2 examples - brands you will absolutely know.
McDonalds and Coca Cola.
Obviously McDonalds sell burgers and Coca Cola sell soft drinks but is that how they make their money?
Yes and No.
Important here is to differentiate between revenue and profit. McDonalds Corporation makes the majority of their profits from buying and renting the land that the restaurants sit on to franchisees who then also pay royalties. Typical profit margins from franchisees are between 80 - 90%, whereas company-owned restaurants operate closer to 10 - 20%.
Coca Cola is similar in that it does sell Coca-Cola products directly however bottling plants are expensive to run. The higher-margin part of the business is often selling syrup concentrate to bottling companies.
Taking a slightly different view you can look at a consulting firm. That firm may be famous for being a consulting and advisory firm. Consulting services are constrained by billable hours which bring a significant labour/talent cost. That firm is likely to make more money from services that are scalable such as managed services or products or services that they have built themselves which they are able to sell at much higher margins.
The point here is to improve your partnering skills to start you need to get to know your business.
That’s the theoretical but how do you start to create some actions around that.
If your company produces an annual report - read it. You don’t need to read it cover to cover with the scrutiny of a market analyst but familiarise yourself with some of the key elements or use your favourite AI interface to summarise it and tell you what you need to know. What is useful to understand is:
The CEO/Strategic report
Business Model information
Organisational Risks
People Insight
Financial Highlights
Ask to spend time with your stakeholders to understand how what they do drives value to the organisation. Whether they will take that time usually comes down to framing. If you position this as just you wanting to get knowledge of the business you're unlikely to get the time. If you consider the principle of "What's In It For Me” (WIIFM - we’ll explore this more in a future newsletter) and root your request in enabling them somehow you’re far more likely to get the outcome you want. Make sure the time isn’t just about recruitment. Take genuine interest in what they do but more importantly what value they create.
Talk to your manager - tell them that you want to understand more about how the organisation works and importantly tell them why you want that. They should be able to either give you things to read or contacts to talk to in the organisation. It may even be that they invite someone who can explain more about how the business “works” to talk in your team meeting. (I've been the manager that's been asked and it also makes you genuinely stand out from your peers in a good way!)
Why does all of this matter so much?
Because the better you understand how the business operates commercially the better you’ll be able to understand the various departments that you’ll support. Better understanding leads to a greater ability to judge, challenge and support. In the next edition we’ll start to break down how understanding at the organisational level allows you greater understanding at a departmental level meaning you’ll be able to start connecting hiring decisions to impact.
That is where recruiters begin moving from transactional delivery into genuine business partnership.
One thing I want to do with this newsletter is to ensure that as well as helping recruiters it also supports TA Leaders and Managers to support and develop their own teams.
When I speak to organisations about building commercial acumen within their teams I start with building a high level understanding of the business. Recruiters at this stage don’t need to read a balance sheet or P&L to be able to understand the commercial drivers of a business. Gaining a real world understanding of how the business generates revenue and profit is the starting point.
In any manager role, TA or otherwise part of your role is to give the team aircover to be able to deliver what they need to. Whether that’s shielding from undue pressure from stakeholders or enough time away from delivery to be able to develop new knowledge and skills. I recognise there are pressures with recruiters carrying heavy req loads and those reqs are getting a greater level of applications than almost ever before. However unless you allow a break from the hamster wheel there will be no downstream development and for you no return on any developmental investment. Development in soft skills can enable your recruiters to unlock bottlenecks that you get pulled into creating a much faster flowing process with fewer managerial interventions.
This first edition has been about creating understanding at an organisational level. In the next edition I will take a further step by looking at how you can start translating organisational knowledge into departmental and individual stakeholder understanding.
Understanding how the business makes money is one thing. Understanding how different functions contribute to those outcomes and how talent impacts their success is where recruitment conversations start becoming genuinely commercial.
The recruiters who become genuinely indispensable internally are rarely the ones who simply understand recruitment best. They’re usually the ones who best understand the business they recruit for.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this first edition of the Partnering Recruiter. If there are any specific challenges you have that you’d like me to explore please let me know and I will try to cover them in future editions - I can also respond directly if you want immediate support too. info@talentperform.co.uk
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