MITSloan management review | work 2023.
May 4, 2023
"The New World of Accessing Talent"
MITCompanies are changing how they approach and apply technology to finding the people they need. Mike Smith, chief executive of global staffing company Randstad Enterprise, spoke with MIT Sloan Management Review’s David Kiron about the trends he’s seeing that are most interesting, surprising, and consequential.
Smith pointed to trust-based hiring as “one of the most innovative.” Corporate recruitment typically involves a talent acquisition team, often external, that hands off candidates to an internal hiring manager. Trust-based hiring shifts more of the responsibility to recruiters. After they’re made “absolute experts in every facet of what happens in this particular line of business,” Smith said, recruiters can run 90% of the process, including most interviews. “The talent’s happier because they get through the process faster,” he said. “The hiring manager spends more time on their core business. And the recruiter is happier because they’re having a more deep and profound impact.”
Another trend is the move toward what Smith called “talent and HR orchestration recipes.” This enables companies to fold data, technology, and process — especially predictive analytics — into their existing chat platforms, providing personalization at scale to help people get work done faster. As an example, Smith described sending resumes to a hiring manager but incorporating a new automatic ping through chat that says, “Here are hyperlinks to CVs for your review; if you want to interview any of these candidates, click here and we’ll get them onto your calendar.” Automated processes meet hiring managers where they are, Smith said, and reduce the need for managers to log into multiple applications.
Finally, Smith said he’s seeing organizations actively rethink how they get work done. Randstad’s 2023 Talent Trends research echoes that: Eighty-two percent of respondents said talent acquisition now involves thinking about career pathways, development, skilling, and mobility in addition to recruitment.