HR Tech: 5 Skills Modern Day HR Professionals Need
Recruitment has never been this challenging. HR professionals are swamped with software tools that are supposed to make their lives easier — whether it’s an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) that takes care of job postings and CV screenings, or Preselection Software that predicts a candidate’s future success; there is an HR tech solution for every possible HR issue.
On top of that, 21st century recruiters have to deal with a new, tech savvy generation of workers that expects different things from a job. Personal growth, work life balance and flexibility have become magic ingredients for the perfect, Millennial pleasing, gig. With this Evolution of Recruitment, naturally comes the evolution of the recruiter. Here are 5 skills any modern day HR Professional needs.
1. Keep Up with New Technologies
An obvious one to start with. There is so much new HR technology popping up, that it’s important to find a way to stay on top of things. Sure, you won’t need to use every single feature that comes out, but it’s good to know that it’s out there. It’s all about staying informed and understanding what type of technology could improve the recruitment process within your organisation.
As things can become a little busy, it might be a good idea to share the workload; ask every team member to keep track of a certain number of HR tech related websites or companies, and let them write down a summary of what’s new in a shared document for example. That way, it’s easy for everyone in the team to see what’s going on and to stay informed of the latest developments. If someone thinks a certain tool could be useful for your process, let them try it out; it’s good to test new things, it might improve your work, and usually HR tech companies will provide a free trial period, so it doesn’t need to cost you money. Besides, what better way to keep up with new technologies than by trying out a few of them every now and then?
2. Treat Candidates like Customers
The way you treat applicants during the recruitment process is crucial for several reasons. For starters, it gives candidates a preview of what they can expect once they work for the company. Secondly, even if applicants don’t make it into your organisation, the experience they’ve had during the applicant process is decisive in how they’ll talk about your organisation afterwards. Was the candidate (read: customer) experience good? Then they’re likely to recommend your company to friends and family and buy your products or services. Was the experience not so good? Unfortunately it’s very probable they won’t recommend you nor buy from you in the future.
Here you can read more about the importance of the applicant experience and what things you should keep in mind.
3. Mobile Knowledge
This should be no news to anyone really. Mobile isn’t even the future anymore, it’s the present. Job seekers use mobile devices more than they use desktops in their search for new career opportunities. Millennials and people from generations younger than them, connect practically always to the internet on-the-go. As a consequence, people consider applying online via their mobile phone almost as normal as having a mobile phone. Lengthily application procedures with plenty of forms to fill out and lots of texts to read are definite no-go’s when it comes to mobile applying. Slow loading pages and uploading mechanisms are out of the question too.
Here you can read what you need to focus on when implementing your mobile master plan.
What it comes down to here is that customer experience mindset we mentioned earlier. Think of your mobile website or application from a customer point of view; is it easy to use? Does everything load up smoothly? Is your content ‘mobile proof’ i.e. are the texts short and to the point, with a clear call to action? In today’s mobile focused world there is no excuse to have a faulty mobile experience, if you’re not up to speed yet, you need to make this one of your top priorities now.
4. Social Media Skills
Whether you like it or not, social media have become a part of our world and the HR industry is no exception to that. Social networks are being used more and more by companies as well as candidates to find their next professional match. Challenges on for example Instagram or Twitter as a way of finding that ‘one perfect talent’ are a relatively common hiring strategy — or at least part of it — for organisations nowadays. And a dedicated group on Facebook can be a good way of maintaining a talent pool of people interested in your company.
Now, we’re not telling you to become a Twitter or LinkedIn expert overnight. As with all the new HR technology that’s coming out, it’s not about using every single social network that’s out there, it’s about knowing they exist, and understanding what some of them could do for you. What’s important here, is to know where — meaning on what type of social media — you’re most likely to find your particular target group of candidates. Obviously this will depend on the area in which you’re active; graphic designers will probably have a different social network preference to finance professionals for instance. Find out what’s ‘your social network’ and then make sure you learn how to use it to your organisation’s advantage.
5. Know Your Data
There are quite a few so-called HR tech trends, and data-based decision making certainly is one of them. Within the data trend, expectations are the highest regarding predictive analytics (PA). Predictive Analytics can be described as follows:
“As the name suggests, Predictive Analytics are used to make predictions about unknown future events. Supported by a mix of statistical, machine learning, modelling and data mining techniques, it is possible to set up models that provide estimations about the likelihood of a future outcome.”
In HR, predictive analytics are commonly used in preselection tools, such as the TalentPitch. Companies tend to use this type of software to make predictions about a candidate’s future success in a particular role. Predictive analytics and the use of data is — not — meant to be a replacement of human decision making, it merely is a valuable addition to it. The importance of having a basic knowledge of data solutions however is clearly there. Data-based software will continue to grow, and the HR industry will see more applications of it over the next few years. You don’t need to know how to actually gather the data — there are experts to do that — but you will need to know a minimum about interpreting this data, and how to make decisions based on it.
A Final Word
Today’s recruitment environment is changing faster than ever. There is an almost constant wave of new technologies to keep us busy — as if there wasn’t enough to deal with already. In order to try and keep up with things, modern day HR professionals need to be agile; they have to be able to adapt quickly. Whether this means learning how to deal with a new, particular type of software, or stop using an outdated but familiar ATS system doesn’t matter, what counts is the ability to learn fast and move on. With everything that’s going on, from a technology as well as a candidate perspective, being agile might be the most important skill of all for 21st century recruiters.
If you found this an interesting read, you can find more of my articles on HR Technology here.
