Stuff We're Reading: Redefining HR by Lars Schmidt

Lars is a longtime friend of our team.  He was kind enough to feature some of our approach to modern recruiting in his new book, and featured a few ideas in this great post from the LinkedIn Talent Blog Article, 3 Forward-Thinking Recruiting Practices from Industry Leader Lars Schmidt's New Book - 'Redefining HR'.  

 

Here’s the first idea.  

 

1. Upgrade your role from recruiter to talent advisor

Historically, recruiters viewed hiring managers as their “customers,” the people from whom they took orders. But in the most progressive companies, Lars writes, recruiters are evolving into “talent advisors,” and their relationship with hiring managers is becoming more one of equals. 

What does this look like? Consider the words of John Vlastelica, founder and managing director of Recruiting Toolbox, whom Lars interviewed for Redefining HR. “It’s no longer about ‘taking the order,’ and accepting unrealistic target candidate profiles, unrealistic salary ranges, and bad interviewing practices,” John says. “It’s moved into something more akin to a strategic partner.” 

As a talent advisor, you bring all your business knowledge and hard-earned wisdom to the hiring process. You leverage the market realities you encounter everyday to hold data-informed, expectation-setting conversations with hiring managers. You work together to build realistic candidate profiles and recommend appropriate salary ranges. You coach the hiring manager on how to play a leadership role during the interviewing and selection process. 

“Diversity is embedded in [talent advisors’] approach,” John adds. “Not because of compliance but because [talent advisors] know that talent is equally distributed across people, but access and opportunity is not. To improve diversity, they ensure hiring managers don’t depend on candidate pedigree as a signal for quality, look outside of their homogenous teams for referrals, build interviewing teams that reflect the diversity they seek, and make fair, transparent, bias-free hiring decisions.”