How Talent Acquisition Has Changed Over the Years

by Grace Sorongon

Over the last 15 years, we have experienced tremendous access to information. Such accessibility to information has dramatically changed the landscape of talent acquisition. One instance is personal data, which is readily available via social media platforms or even on Google. “Googling” is now a verb that means finding the data that you need on Google.

It is imperative, therefore, that HR practitioners — specifically talent acquisition specialists — respond to these rapid changes. Since data is rapidly available, can we still keep the traditional ways of doing talent acquisition? How do we keep abreast of technology so that we can respond quickly to the changing times?

As we know, change is a painful process, and “old habits” are difficult to shed off. I have been at the forefront of these changes in our organization, so I personally know the pain of changing. I have seen how people struggle to adapt to new ways. But we need to change no matter how painful it is to do so. We have no choice. Otherwise, we will be left behind, and worse, we will become obsolete.

Talent acquisition is not lacking with new technologies to use. There are too many tools available in the market. Each tool has merits and demerits. Hence, to choose one tool over the other becomes a process in itself. I remember that prior to deciding which tool to use, my team had to do a lot of research and contact a lot of people to do presentations to compare each tool. We had to review tons of spread sheets, comparative analyses, and talk to a number of references before we came up with an intelligent decision. And implementation is another process, one which can become difficult if not managed well.

I used to believe that automation and robotics are only good for operations and manufacturing processes. This belief has been dispelled as I became immersed in automation and robotics during the last five years. I find excitement in seeing the immense opportunities where these two concepts can be applied. Most especially, talent acquisition can benefit from these two concepts. And the end goal is to enhance productivity and efficiency.

Indeed, the landscape has greatly evolved and changed. Talent acquisition has adapted to the age of digitalization and rapid process automation quite extensively. We can see new terms like chat bots, resume pursing, data crawling, CRM, ATS, synch, linking, and many others. We cannot even begin to fathom the breadth of tools available in the market.

So what are you waiting for? Transform your talent acquisition process and become relevant.

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About the author:

Grace Sorongon was the 2013 president of People Management Association of the Philippines. She has been working with John Clements Consultants for more than three decades now. She is a senior vice president and is in charge of various corporate projects and steering these projects towards completion. She also manages the operations of Professional Staffers, a business unit within the John Clements group.