Originally posted on Medium/@Buildit
On this blog, we have shared many insights about the human side of digital transformation and why this element is even more essential to inciting change than the technology associated with it. When I joined Wipro Digital eight months ago, I came to realise the same is true for recruitment: value creation is driven by a ‘human-shaped’ approach.
In today’s recruitment world – and in other industries I’m sure – we are consumed by this idea that, just by being busy professionals, bringing in technology to make recruitment innovative, adding levels of processes and aiming to improve user experience and running 100 miles per hour, we are actually bringing value and making a difference to our organisations. In reality, though, this approach on its own doesn’t achieve much.
I’m often asked, is recruitment difficult? I would argue that those who would say yes are the professionals in this industry who make it so. The main reason being that many of us forget the simplest formula known to us all: “treat others how you want to be treated,” to which I would also add, “love what you do and do it with love.”
Peeling back the layers of technology
My first year in a new organisation has been an opportunity to stop and reflect: what is recruitment really about? What specifically in the digital space is needed to hire and retain amazing talent?
I work for Buildit @ Wipro Digital in the London studio (the studio concept was totally new to me) and on a day-to-day basis I interact with other studios in Dublin, Edinburgh, NYC, Denver and Bangalore. I work with engineers, creative technologists, strategists and designers and see how they operate as a cross-functional team to transform the digital agenda for our clients.
I say ‘’our’’ because I’m part of their team – and this was the first thing I learned on the job. Yet as much as the experience was about getting acquainted with the technology we use on a daily basis, I had to familiarise myself with our talent and their individual roles and capabilities. For the first couple of months, all I did was ask questions and immerse myself in their world. I continually asked myself how to support this brilliant group of people in every location to continue our recruitment agenda. I’ve come up with the acronym TALENT to describe my insights:
T- Thoughtfulness
As I mentioned, entering a new position was an opportunity to stop and reflect. But even if you have been at your organisation for some time, you can ask yourself, is there an opportunity to inject something different into your recruitment? How can you approach it through your business or client’s eyes? The answer should help you recognise simple tenets like keeping the promises you make, and ensuring you treat others how you want to be treated in every engagement – with your candidate, hiring manager, client, your team and colleagues.
A- Aspiration
Essential to recruiting is understanding the needs of our organisations. In order to do that, aspire to be more like the talent you wish to recruit and that’s already present in your team. Strive to learn the best from them. Take the opportunity to learn from your business and client, whether you are an in-house recruiter, in an agency or a managed service business.
L- Learning Daily
Learning from colleagues should be fun! Take the opportunity to learn coding from engineers, sit with your creative technologists and ask them about atomic design, look at their body language, see what makes them tick and look on the smiles on their faces when they talk about what they love doing. By understanding their ways of working and what makes them tick, you’ll shape your impressions of the talent around you to create an engaging recruitment experience, authentically embodying your organisational culture every step of the way.
E- Engineering
I already mentioned learning to code, but I have to stress the importance of getting familiar with engineering as the field you will likely spend most of your time recruiting for. Observing their team-based approach to problem solving has also been beneficial to me in my own work.
I even had the opportunity to learn Swagger – it’s a powerful open-source framework backed by a large ecosystem of tools to help you design, build, document, and consume your RESTful APIs – and yes, I have taken this into our talent recruitment process and would recommend you do so as well!
N- No Rules
The open, multi-disciplinary approach I have shared with you so far reflects our organisational culture. We all wear many hats: as much as I integrate others’ roles into mine, they are also taking on recruiting responsibilities. In order to find the best match for our teams, we have no rules or restrictions and each studio interacts with agencies and candidates just like a recruiter would. Hiring managers share their culture, identity, passion for engineering, design and transformation (what we call a sell to the candidates just like a recruiter would), they write and create their own job specs, adverts and communications, they pre-screen candidates in a panel approach just like a recruiter would in the early stages of the candidate journey (application/passive interaction), and they give feedback to the agency recruiters just like a recruiter would (you can then question, what do I do?)
T- Trust
I’m able to learn and collaborate intensely with our studios because of the implicit trust and autonomy to explore that is being part of Buildit @ Wipro Digital. In an organisation without silos, I’m not part of a managed service, talent acquisition or in-house model practice/department – I’m part of a strategic transformational digital organisation. We like to do things differently not just for clients, but also inject their best practices into our own internal transformation and approach to hiring talent, giving them an opportunity to do what they love.
Getting back to basics
I have been in the recruitment industry for some time, not as long as some of the amazing people I have had the opportunity to work with, but still a good journey. I have been pretty lucky to experience recruitment in different environments (agency, in-house and managed services). I’m sure I won’t be the first, or the last, to write about recruitment in a different way. There are already so many blogs, publications, practices and ways shared about recruitment. I likely haven’t said anything that hasn’t been shared before.
But in writing this, I wanted to stress that the rapid change of the digital world dazzles us and can make us forget what’s most important: to remain humble, make mistakes, question the status quo, share and transform your environment. I hope you make these ideas a reality even when they might not be original, but new and transformative to the people you work with.