Finding the Right Talent: Building a Cohesive Hiring Strategy

As today’s hiring landscape only grows more competitive, it is more important than ever to build a cohesive hiring strategy to attract and retain the best talent. In SHRM’s webinar titled “Finding the Right Talent Through a Cohesive Hiring Strategy,” Nicole Belyna, SHRM-SCP, director of talent acquisition and inclusion at SHRM, and Chris Courneen, senior vice president and  global head of human resources at MS International Inc., discussed the key principles, tools, and best practices for creating a strategy that aligns with a company’s goals and promotes long-term success. 

Webinar: Finding the Right Talent Through a Cohesive Hiring Strategy  

Effective Recruiting 

Today’s talent pool has high expectations and a lot of resources available to help workers find the right employer. To attract the best hires in a competitive labor market, businesses require a consistent plan of action. “It’s absolutely critical to have a cohesive hiring strategy today, now more than ever,” Belyna said. “Alignment across people, platforms, and purpose creates consistency and — ultimately — better hires.”

Courneen emphasized the practical side of modern recruiting. Talent acquisition ultimately ties back “to the profitability of [the] organization, whether it’s about the cost of acquiring the talent, the cost of acquiring the wrong talent, the opportunity cost of open seats,” he said. 

Recruiting and hiring thus affects the entire business, so the process should be as effective as possible to avoid costly errors. 

Sample Policy: Recruitment and Selection Process

Key Strategic Components 

To hire for any position, talent acquisition specialists need to, above all, understand the elements of a role and what skills are required to perform it well. They need to know how they “define what good work looks like,” Courneen said. This will allow them to translate that definition to traits they are looking for in a successful hire. 

He also emphasized the importance of eliminating bureaucracy in the recruiting process, because the goal is to create a candidate experience that is “valuable, that is meaningful, but is fast.” Similarly, the process should not stick to a rigid structure; flexibility is critical because what might work in one area of a business may not work in another.

Budding technology such as generative artificial intelligence can be used to speed up and streamline the recruiting process. However, there are limits to its application. Employers should be “using technology as a tool, but not building [their] process to the technology,” Courneen cautioned. 

Diversity in Hiring

Recent executive orders from the Trump administration have resulted in a debate concerning diversity in hiring. “Having a diverse workforce in your organization is critical to innovation,” Belyna said, even if the methods of fostering that diversity have come under scrutiny. 

“If you’ve identified great resources for diverse candidates, you should continue to tap in to those resources,” she said. But “if you were recruiting to meet a quota, you should stop doing that.” 

Talent acquisition specialists may wonder how to ensure a diverse workforce without using controversial, and now unlawful, approaches. “You need to look broadly,” Courneen suggested. Recruiters should even “hide the source” from the hiring manager to prevent intentional or unintentional bias. 

Courneen also recommended considering candidates with transferable skills as a way to diversify the workforce. Hiring “a nontraditional candidate doesn’t mean ‘Go find someone with a criminal background that you might have not otherwise considered,’” he said, but rather, looking at people, for example, from different industries or experiences. By “challenging assumptions,” as Courneen said, employers can hire people from a range of backgrounds, all of whom have unique skills that can enhance an organization. 

Belyna emphasized the importance of uniformity in hiring to avoid bias or discriminatory practices. She recommended “using structured and consistent interviews and skills-based rubrics when interviewing candidates.” This kind of reliable procedure ensures that all applicants are treated equally and evaluated based on relevant traits and skills. 

Aligning with Organizational Goals 

Just as a company’s sales team is the face of the organization to customers, “talent acquisition folks are the face of the company” to candidates, Courneen said. Because recruiters are essentially advertising the business to applicants, they need to understand every facet of the “product.” 

It is therefore vital that every member of the talent acquisition team, including entry-level positions, “understands what it is that the business is trying to do,” Courneen said. He went so far as to say that employers should involve their talent acquisition teams in the actual operations of the business so that they understand the roles they are advertising and filling. 

Importantly, all departments involved in hiring new talent need to be on the same page. According to Courneen, HR and talent acquisition teams should work together to “evaluate and understand the decisions they’re making” so that the process is consistent and free of misunderstanding. 

AI and Automation

As AI and automation produce more and more tools geared toward the HR professional, it can be tempting to let technology take over the complex, and sometimes taxing, recruiting process. This would be a mistake, in Courneen’s view. 

“Tools that allow [productivity and speed] are more interesting to me than the tools that automate decision-making,” he said. Such tools are helpful in “areas in the process in which a human is not adding value.” 

By taking over the more repetitive, mundane tasks, AI and automation tools allow humans to focus on the decision-making itself. 

Courneen said the question for HR and talent acquisition needs to be: “How do we implement technology that fits what I’m trying to accomplish?” HR professionals should beware allowing “the tool to drive the process,” he said, because AI will be unable to understand the nuances of the particular business’ operations and what it requires in terms of talent.