2012 Strategic Talent Acquisition Conference

Leaders and recruiters alike know that social media must be incorporated into recruiting strategies. Even with a wide array of sites and tools available, most organizations primarily focus on (or at the very least include) LinkedIn as a key part of these strategies. However, this powerful tool, the “Facebook for professionals,” doesn’t get used to its maximum capability due to lack of understanding of what it’s truly capable of.  LinkedIn is a tremendous sourcing and recruiting tool; to benefit from its use, organizations must go beyond conventional knowledge and seek lessons from the “missing manual.”
In this session; sourcing gurus Glen Cathey and Eric Jaquith will share:

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• Tips and tactics to elevate recruiting’s LinkedIn game
• An overview of LinkedIn’s recruiting functions, from advanced search to Signal, profile searches, rankings, and company functions
• How to use profiles to receive top ranking and visibility
• How to improve the ability to identify the type of people recruiting seeks across groups
• How to get the most value from free and paid functions

This interactive workshop will equip participants with research and best practices. Breakout groups will discuss their current recruitment strategies using LinkedIn and how to apply these lessons to their own organization.

Today’s world of talent acquisition looks significantly different than it did even a year ago. Last year Recruitment 2.0 was about the symbiosis of marketing and recruiting, but now in 2012, talent acquisition has transformed once again. Recruitment 3.0’s beating heart is the non-active/passive candidate with an added focus on finding top talent within this pool.  In addition, the philosophy that everyone is a potential candidate who needs to be engaged is central.
Recruitment 3.0 requires building engaged, two-way, free-conversation based, transparent communities. This strategy is anchored by components such as employer branding and marketing.  Many talent acquisition leaders are struggling with transitioning their older, non-performing recruiting methods to the next generation of recruitment and utilizing technologies such as social search, viral marketing, and mobile apps.
In this session Tom Steele and Michael Hakeem will share:

• Building a predictable talent pipeline
• Creating communities and mapping key competitors
• Using brand to lure top talent
• Driving internal stakeholders to invest in these new world methods

This interactive workshop will equip participants with research and best practices. Breakout groups will discuss their current recruitment strategies and how to apply these lessons to their own organization.

The constant evolution of social media is equipping recruiters with endless tools to source top talent, opening up new ways to dramatically increase the ability to find the right people for the right roles quickly. 
This workshop will look at key factors companies need to include as part of their workforce and talent acquisition strategies, such as:

• Embracing social technology and leveraging the right tools for the organization’s needs
• Understanding global factors including financial outlook and how they impact talent acquisition
• Adopting key marketing solutions for effective employer branding and attracting the passive candidate

This interactive workshop will supply participants with research and best practices. Breakout groups will discuss their current talent acquisition strategies and howto apply these lessons to their own organization.

2012 is the year to bring new, innovative solutions to extensive talent acquisition challenges.  The talent acquisition team is facing increased pressure to find top talent and the C-suite is accentuating this pressure by imposing a sense of urgency. Looking at the numbers, it’s often unclear why this is now such a challenge. Supply is deep and hiring the right people for the right role should be easy. The passive candidate seems to be the recruiter’s best chance of filling critical roles, but they also can be the hardest talent pool to win over. Focusing on the right social media strategy, identifying where to effectively source quality candidates, and revolutionizing talent acquisition strategies and their teams will help win the war for talent.

Many companies stand at a recruitment crossroads, unsure where to head in their talent acquisition strategy, but possess a desire to ensure that they are ahead of the curve, and adapting to the new demands of recruiting in a social media and communication age. Modern recruitment is awash with an ocean of buzzwords, such as: Recruitment 3.0 / 4.0, gamification, crowdsourcing, talent communities, mobile apps, m-strategy, recruitment as a profit center…What do all these buzzwords mean?  Do they have any value?  What initiatives are vital to recruiting versus those that are just nice to have?
In this thought provoking and inspiring session, Matthew Jeffery will reflect on what can be successfully implemented by ALL companies no matter the size or industry. He will describe the power of emotive story-telling, engagement, the value of employment brand, how to get a true ROI from social media, how to build ‘power’ communities and their recruitment benefits.
This session challenges the status quo and raises new questions about whether talent leaders are adapting to the demands of modern recruitment.

Talent acquisition is under pressure now more than ever to fulfill the shifting needs of their organizations with high quality talent and greater agility.  This imperative is driven mainly by economic instability and the talent shortage that is only growing as older generations leave the workforce. The fact that most organizations may count as much as 25% of their workforce as contract talent only reinforces the need for quality and agility in talent acquisition strategy.  However, many organizations have those responsible for sourcing and managing contract workers (procurement) separated from those responsible for sourcing and managing full-time employees (talent acquisition and HR).  This separation prevents talent acquisition leaders from seeing the complete blended workforce, thereby making it difficult to supply their organizations with the talent they need, when they need it. This session will discuss what goes into making a blended workforce approach effective, how organizations can get procurement owners of contract talent on the same page as the talent acquisition owners of FTE recruitment, and how they can ensure a great career experience for all candidates, free-agents and employees alike.

According to Gartner Predicts 2009, mobility is the future of computing, and by 2013, there will be more people using smart phones with access to web-based applications than laptops. Suffice it to say, the next generation of computing is upon us and it is fueled by powerful mobile devices.  Over the last few years social media recruiting has become the norm in HR and acquisition conversations, however, mobile recruiting has yet to become as mainstream.  Employers lack knowledge of how job seekers are using mobile devices and how their businesses could take advantage of the mobile web to find top talent. As a result, only a limited number of employers have implemented mobile recruiting strategies via apps and mobile websites. In fact, only 20% of the Fortune 1000 currently has mobile optimized sites. This session will examine the importance of making talent acquisition “mobile ready,” since over 50% of job seekers would like to be able to conduct their job search online and wish to receive job alerts about new positions  via SMS/mobile email.  PepsiCo will relay effective strategies to do this and outline the technology needed.

In the past decade we have migrated from the “War for Talent” to the current fear of impending “Talent Scarcity.”  Competing for talent in the future will require new ways of thinking about attraction, retention, and engagement.  No one single practice will be the critical differentiator.  The organizations that are set to become talent magnets will have a compelling talent value proposition that promises an integrated talent management experience to its employees.  In this session Pamela Stroko will explore actionable steps that can help organizations build strategy and connect talent to business performance.

Social media is a key facet of any recruiting function, and organizations are beginning to dedicate full-time staff to social media. However, organizations that lack social media experience often waste time on ineffective activity and lack an understanding of whether their strategy is generating a return on investment. Andrea Dundas of Disney describes how she built a social media recruiting team from the ground up and measure ROI to determine how to best divide their energy between the “big four” of social media: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

It is the age-old question that circulates through corporate talent acquisition functions:  How do you plan and act strategically, while balancing daily operations and the white noise that comes with the average work day?  In this session, Lisa Maronski will outline an exclusive four-spoke talent acquisition strategy that incorporates and leverages new reference-checking practices for better sourcing.  She will share how to immediately engage the business at all levels of leadership, increase efficiency with existing tools, and will introduce new and surprising technologies that influence hiring decisions. With this four-spoke strategy, the end result is a smarter talent acquisition operation that increases sourcing capabilities and quality-of-hire throughout the organization.
 

When it comes to developing corporate strategy, innovation is the resounding and overarching theme in boardrooms around the world.  Forward-thinking organizations realize that human capital innovation is the one critical component that truly differentiates them from the competition.  What are the talent acquisition strategies that leading-edge companies are embracing to set them apart from their peers?  What are they doing to source the next generation of innovative leaders?  This session will cover new ways of finding, attracting and retaining innovative talent in 2012 and beyond.  Steve Boese will also share best practices on capitalizing employee referrals, using social media and new media, tapping into internal talent sources and ultimately, placing organizations in the “winning circle” of innovation.

The challenges of mergers, acquisitions and re-engineering efforts over the years have caused JPMorgan Chase to adjust both their recruiting strategy and organizational structure.  In order for the organization to maintain its recruiting momentum they’ve had to leverage many organizational models globally to power their talent acquisition strategy.  James Cochran, Global Head of Recruiting, will provide an inside look and review key aspects of these organizational design models and their impact of the power of the recruiting team. 

An organization that only uses recruiting to fill current and immediate talent needs will always be one step behind those that act proactively and focus on future hiring projections. With tools available such as social media, CRM technology and dedicated marketing teams, there is no excuse to start talent searches only when positions become available. Having a demand plan in place and using this strategic approach allows the talent acquisition team to collaborate with leaders and stay ahead of the competition for talent. This session will discuss how to implement a strategic plan that is both effective and easy to manage, specific to the organization’s recruiting goals. Highlights will include: Maintaining an effective career site, capitalizing on employer branding, keeping talent pipelines in check and engaged and reaching the end result of recruiting valuable, passive candidates and over-performing talent.

Skill shortages increasingly plague today’s organizations as the population ages and the education system fails to produce candidates with the knowledge and skills to reach market demands. Because of this shortage, the balance of power has tipped in favor of those with highly sought after skills and experience. This trend has re-aligned the recruiting process so that what the candidate thinks of their potential employer matters just as much (if not more) as what the employer thinks of the candidate. This shift has naturally incented organizations to focus on employer branding, attracting passive candidates and to improve the overall candidate experience.
Cutting-edge organizations have found that video interviewing can compliment all three of these areas and improve upon overall quality of hire. This panel discussion examines the challenges that talent acquisition leaders face, and discusses how video interviewing has helped them achieve their talent acquisition goals in an ever-more competitive and confusing environment.

Paul has made a career of evaluating, measuring and assigning value to talent. Paul makes drawing the connection from baseball to business simple. He uses analytics to determine the competencies that he needs on his team.  Just like him, organizations need to determine the competencies they need in a role, and to source someone who pocesses them.
Michael Lewis documented the A's remarkable success, despite a shoestring budget, under the Beane/DePodesta team in his New York Times best-seller, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. The book is a hit not just with baseball fans but also with business leaders looking for new approaches to stagnant systems. Overhauling, rather than merely tweaking the thought processes behind an outdated organization is essential for innovation and success, something DePodesta knows better than most.