“A Sourcing Leader’s Top Ten Counter-intuitive tips for Leading in an Economic Downturn” by Denny Clark.
- Open the budget kimono. Many experts will tell you that now is the time to “protect your budget”. That may be true, but the way to do is this is to do a deep dive analysis of your budget- and by the way, bring in your CFO to help. You will build trust and advocacy that you won’t get behind your own closed doors.
- Can your metrics. In the best of times most of our clients and C suite leaders don’t know what sourcing metrics truly measure. This is not the time to report on more of the same. Sit down with clients and leaders to find out what’s relevant to them, align your metrics with your company’s strategic objectives and watch your value rise within your organization.
- Do more with less. A standard request, but still counterintuitive- right? This is a time to take a hard look at what your team does that is essential to landing high quality talent for your organization. In other words, find out what is “core”, and be open to outsourcing the rest. Your team will then be able to focus on high impact tasks that truly add value.
- Don’t respond, predict. We are not saying to NOT be responsive here, we are challenging you to get ahead of the game where you can predict turnover in job profiles and build plans to close the hiring gap- maybe before your hiring manager even knows there is a gap. Innovative companies like AIMCO and Intuit are partnering with universities to find low cost experts to help them build predictive analytics; learn from them.
- Make mistakes. With hiring down in many circles this is the time to test your processes and systems- but in a controlled way. Making a deliberate mistake is a way to breakthrough to sourcing and recruiting success.
- Alllow scope creep. Look for new ways to experiment with the role your sourcers play. If you aren’t actively looking for external talent, partner with your recruiting teams to take on “benchclearing” roles; use the phone to do competitive intelligence and research. Add value in new ways.
- If you are stuck, don’t call on the experts. Just kidding, this could put me out of a job…. The point here is that many companies reach game changing breakthroughs by inviting non souring/recruiting partners into their meetings. You get a different perspective and you are sure to break some paradigms. Imagine, asking a customer or candidate to help solve a recruiting problem?
- Centralized? Then De-centralize (or vice versa). Most recruiting experts would tell you that you are going to get high efficiency with a centralized recruiting structure and high effectiveness with a decentralized one.
Check what you get when you try a “hybrid” approach. Who knows, maybe you get better at both.
- Throw away your technology tools. My friend, Shally Steckerl of JobMachine believes that sourcers have way too many technology tools to be effective. Take this time to whittle down the tools you use, integrate them. Remember, in this case, less is probably more (and better).
- Sell your services to your clients. Most definitely novel, but hear my point. In most companies you have hiring managers going external for some if not all of their talent needs- frequently by passing your sourcing unit in the process. These managers are now caught in a bind: they don’t have the money they once had, but they still need the talent. Now is the time to sell them on the fact that your team can find higher quality talent faster. The reward, your team negotiates to get paid somewhat like an external firm and you build trust and relationships.