Continuing Down the Talent River

The Final Steps

As discussed in my previous blogs there is a 5-step guide to moving from yesterday’s Talent Pools to today’s Digital Talent Rivers.

To recap:

1. Think outside-in
2. Increase hiring to ludicrous speed
3. Just-In-Time (JIT) Hiring
4. Shrink the top of the funnel
5. Take down the sign…

We’ll now discuss the final two steps of our guide towards Digital Talent Rivers

Shrink the top of the funnel

Admit it, even saying this could get a TA leader fired! But we must be brave and sometimes say difficult things.  But fortunately, our Digital Talent Rivers Strategy keeps paying dividends.  Each of the proceeding steps in our plan has gotten us here so it’s not a big leap at all:

1. By focusing on experience we’ve increased candidate and hiring manager engagement. This has improved the conversion rates from top to bottom of our funnel
2. By accelerating speed, we have further increased funnel conversion rates because we’re losing fewer and fewer candidates because we’re moving quickly
3. We’re recruiting and filling jobs based on real-time demand, which again improves our funnel conversion rates – no more wasted investment in “Just in case talent pools”.

So now, do you see the journey we’re taking? In this fourth step of our plan we will be forced to reduce our funnel because if we don’t, we’d spend too much and hire too many people. I like to visualize this transformation in two ways.  First by putting less in the top with more out the bottom we’ve shifted from a funnel to a tube. Or, using our automobile analogy, we’re changing our funnel efficiency from yesterday’s “people guzzlers” to tomorrow’s hybrid-electrics.

“People guzzler” funnels are gone in our digital talent rivers strategy. We don’t need as much in the top because our funnel is so much more efficient.

Recommendations: Explore real-time programmatic advertising platforms.  They can help you understand your real funnel.  The one that starts with job views on the web AND connects them to job views on your career site AND then measure applications started AND applications completed. Then add in all the funnel metrics in your ATS. If I’ve seen the ratios and they are shocking.  You will be surprised by just what a “people guzzler” you’ve got. Has this helped form the basis for your call to action to deploy your first Digital Talent River yet?

1. Take down the sign

You know, the sign I told you to put up in your office in my earlier blog. The one that says: “I’m mad – our largest competitor is hiring in 5 days – get out of my way”.  You’ve done it. Now have some fun and ship the sign to your competitor

1. You’ve overcome the hurdles and proved Experience is the fuel that matters
2. You’ve accelerated cycle time, the engine in your Digital Talent River
3. You’ve reduced your talent inventory and reduced cost
4. You’ve switched from people guzzler to hybrid

Congratulations. You’ve left the pool and are in the river

My team and I at Pontoon work with clients just like you to walk through this 5 step plan of transformation. As you can see it’s not an easy switch, but one that pays dividends in improved metrics and experience across your talent program. Following these progressive steps makes it easier for you to bring Digital Talent Rivers into a talent program that is still using the term “Talent Pools” So what do you think? Happy to connect and share more insights or to have a preliminary conversation to see if your talent program is ready to make the switch to Digital Talent Rivers.