10 Aug New Paradigm of a Diagram Builds on Relationships in Global Mobility Hiring
Allyn Bailey, a talent acquisition transformation manager, offers a new diagram for talent acquisition that makes absolute sense: a talent acquisition infinity loop that conveys what the job is really about — a relationship business, not merely a transactional one.
Yes, more than creating a memorable visual, Bailey’s paradigm of a diagram helps us understand the relationship aspect of talent acquisition and how to match different types of talent to optimal opportunities on a continual basis.
The infinity loop approach is even better appreciated if one looks at the shortcomings of a funnel methodology, which reaches an endpoint when a candidate is hired. Here are some probing questions to know if you’re in an infinity loop or funnel methodology:
- What happens to candidates at the end of each transaction when only one candidate gets hired? Are all of the other candidates during the transaction a waste in the process? Aren’t candidates who are not a good fit for one job perhaps a great fit for a different one? How does it match them up to those other opportunities when the transaction ends?
- At the end of each transaction, a global mobility manager closes it by passing the next phase to the hiring manager and moves onto the next transaction. What happens to everything about what the business needs, what the hiring manager needs, and how to match the right talent to the organization? Is that information not important to systematically gather, hold onto, and leverage for the next transaction?
- At the beginning of each transaction, a global mobility manager looks to attract candidates for that unique opportunity. Does that mean they have to run attraction efforts for each and every requisition? What do they need to do with candidates they attract but are not ready to apply to that specific opportunity right then? Do they ignore them?
By asking these questions among themselves, talent acquisition managers will find if an infinity loop is a better model for hiring talent. In this manner, one can focus on keeping, reusing, and leveraging all of the candidates, and the information and experience gained in each hiring transaction.
The infinity loop process does away with the assumption and practices that have talent acquisition teams starting from scratch each time they start a hiring transaction.
Here are Bailey’s assumptions of the infinity loop process:
- Candidates and what global mobility managers know about them evolve over time. Every interaction with a candidate, and every new experience a candidate gets with talent acquisition managers tell them about and provides them more information to better match candidates to the right opportunities. It makes them more efficient, more purposeful, and more impactful in their work to support the business with top talent.
- The more talent acquisition managers know about hiring managers, the business and the needs of the organization, the better equipped we are to find the best talent to meet their needs. Every interaction is an opportunity for us to get smarter and more informed about the business, and it is our responsibility to carry that knowledge from one interaction with the business to the next.
- Each interaction and “hiring transaction” completed is an opportunity to gather more information about candidates and hiring managers. This means it is not just their job to complete a transaction by landing a hire for the requisition, but it is their job to collect, document, and leverage every piece of information for reuse.
- Candidates who are not a great fit for one job may be a great fit for a different job. It is a talent acquisition manager’s job to help match them to the right opportunity instead of waiting for them to find that right opportunity on their own, because in most cases they will not do that and instead just disappear from their hiring pool.
- Every person who enters their pipeline costs time and money to get there and is potentially valuable. If not for one job, then a different one. If not right now, maybe later. If not themselves, then maybe their friends or colleagues. Because of this, we need a way to manage candidate relationships, expectations, and interactions when we are not engaging with them around a specific hiring transaction. Pipeline management is critical.
“The infinity loop process has candidates entering the pipeline through various attraction mechanisms, being organized, prioritize and nurtured in that pipeline and when relevant, being pulled out of that pipeline to be considered for specific jobs,” she said.
During the process of considering candidates for a specific job, global mobility managers learn more about them, enrich their candidate record, and build a stronger relationship with them: If they are selected, great; if not, they are purposefully guided back into the pipeline, having deepened their relationship with their talents.
This way, every interaction is meaningful and no candidates or information goes to waste. Talent acquisition managers become faster at matching the right candidates to the hiring needs because there is a pool of candidates.