As you all know the Talent Acquisition & Sourcing Conclave (#TASCON15) held recently was divided into 2 sections the Strategy Hub and Sourcing Lab were held simultaneously. The attendees were thus required to choose the sessions that interest them. The host Sarang Brahme began the session with a fun activity of questioning the audience. The individuals who answered the questions during the sessions correctly or with unique inputs were rewarded with goodies. The activities that were conducted were-

Say Something Unique about yourself

They had to tell one thing about themselves that is not on their resume and Social Media. This received a good response with inputs like

• Sarang mentioned he was a classical singer and that he liked back benchers, so they had to beware as he would ask them questions for sure.
• the need to know about something unique as Ankush mentioned
• Trivedi mentioned that he was a good trainer
• Masood Sayed mentioned that he had won the geography quiz competitions while in school and college

Recruitment History Recap

This was conducted by Rajendra Raut who asked the audience to name one H. R. Company that was well known and the pioneer of Recruiting policies. The answer was TCS, which is later explained why because they were the Pioneers of Recruitment Policies as they came up with policies which were later translated into policies by the government –

• 1920 Leave with Pay hence PF
• 1940 Workman Excellence Compensation Act government adopted
• 1949 HR dedicated Courses for HR was started
• 1921 Multidivisional organisational structure was started
• 1950 Need for Consultants to guide HRs
• 1969 Vish Aggarwal the ‘Vishvapeta’ of Indian Recruitment Industry started ABC Consultants
• 1974 a dedicated H.R.E. department started first at LNT Infotech

Thoughts Exchanged

Here the audience was asked to mention any tricks used by them to reduce vendor dependency? Wherein Yusuf mentioned that he conducted a mapping and headhunting Sourcing from the Internet database.

Creativity Challenge

There was another activity conducted by Sarang Brahme to get the audience engaged. He posed a challenge to the audience by questioning the audience, what is the most innovative thing you can do with Employer Referrals? Here are the ideas that were expressed…

• Gamifications
• Brownie points in performance appraisals or give an appraisal itself instead
• Engage influencers like Spouses by giving them points
• Non – voluntary appraisal or Learning aspects
• Giving employee referral points with goodies attached to each point

Industry Knowledge Quizzer

Jashan Joshi conducted an Industry Knowledge quiz during his session by questioning the audience –

1. Name the 1st Software Company in the world.
A. The answer was Computer Usage Company (CUC)

a.Founded by John W. Sheldon and Kubie, E.C.
b.In the year 1955
c.Shut down in the year 1970

2. Which are the big 4 Consulting Companies in the world?
A. ENY, PWC, PMG & Deloit

3.Name the Top 4 IT Companies in India.

TCS, Infosys, Wipro & HCL

The host was Sharath Kumar, Partner at SourcePRO, who began the session with fun activities too. The ones who gave the best answers were rewarded with SourcePRO mugs and badges. Here are the activities were conducted by Sharath Kumar…

Sharing Entertaining Ideas

The session began with an opening statement combined with Recruiting Humour where…

• The statement was an entertaining job description, “The wisdom of a 50 year old, the experience of a 40 year old, the drive of a 30 year old and the pay-scale of a 20 year old.”
• The recruiting humour was where Sourcing was looked at or compared to an Intelligence Service or Secret Service to highlight what we as Sourcers do by Using other Intelligence such as –
  • Portal Intelligence to bring up active lists of candidates for open positions
  • Social, Google, Telephone Intelligence etc. to create a profile of a candidate
  • Mobile intelligence & Platforms for attracting candidates to us or our company
  • Human Intelligence to analyse, understand and then match candidates for the vacancy which is called “Humint”

Repeat Names of the people at the same table

The Participants were picked randomly and asked to repeat the names of everyone at their table in order to get people to interact with others and if they were able that were rewarded.

Funny Recruitment Stories

Here the audience was asked to share these stories. For instance

• Recruiting in China is difficult due to a language barrier i.e. English so neither party understood the either
• When a candidate was contacted to set up an Interview, the candidates immediate reply was that they weren’t able to respond due to their ears being bandaged L.O.L.!

Mention Sourcing Tools that haven’t been covered during the entire event

Here the audience was asked to mention other sourcing tools that haven’t been mentioned during the entire event for instance Dex.

A Recruiters profile is quite demanding and those of you who practice it will agree. Just like any other job profile so also a Recruiter or Sourcers job too requires a set of skills if a company is sure to prosper. But how many of us actually stop to map out what kind of a candidate we are looking for? Having said that, this week’s chat was about, “What do you look for in a Recruiter or Sourcer when hiring? And here’s what was discussed amongst the 6 Chat groups namely Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai & Pune.

Well that brings another chat to an end with interesting insights that you can implement in your hiring strategy or even modify to speed up the desired results. How great is that? Don’t you agree? at least, I do. But don’t go yet, join us next week at the same time for another Chat that I’m sure you’ll enjoy and gain interesting insights in the process too.

 

The Talent Acquisition and Sourcing Conclave (#TASCON15) was a great success with interesting insights to take back. If you were present then I’m sure you’ve benefitted a great deal by the insights you acquired. But for the ones, who couldn’t make it, you have no idea what you’ve missed nevertheless you can still catch up.

The event began with an opening session by Yusuf Pathan, the Managing Director of Key Resourcing (@keyresourcing) who gave a brief introduction about Sourcing Adda (@SourcingAdda) and TASCON. After which the cake cutting session to mark the anniversary of Sourcing Adda was conducted. Then we had Angeline Peters the Marketing head of SourcePRO (@TheSourcePro) addressing the crowd followed by the next opening session…

The Future of Sourcing & Recruiting and where it is heading

This session was taken up by Shrinivas Rao who talked about “The Future of Sourcing and Recruiting and where it is heading” and was introduced by Sarang Brahme. Shrinivas began with a brief outline of the Talent Acquisition and Sourcing Industry where these aspects were discussed…

• Avoid Customer Service Relations (CSR) used for Executing Sales & Management
• Common problems faced without the use of Social Media
• Social Media as a solution to most of these issues
• Use Social Media effectively
• Social Media affects the future of a company & the Talent Acquisition process

Strategy Hub

WNS Case Study

The very first session was Ragendra Raut’s who discussed a “Case study” of his company about “Adopting the Sourcing Module successfully” and the keys to outperform. Here’s what was discussed…

• The concept of crowd sourcing and whether Sourcing is the new recruitment
• Discussion on how WNS has adopted the Sourcing Module successfully
• Keys to outperform –
  • Be passionate about the profession
  • Know your competition and be updated with the latest developments
  • Continuously build your competencies & come out of your comfort zone
  • Understand the company, clients and its process, communicate smartly and have self – awareness
  • Function as a team, not individually and leverage your networks

Panel Discussion on Employer Branding

The next session was a Panel discussion on “Employer Branding (EB)”, with Yusuf Pathan as the moderator along with Ruchi Bhatia, Novex Alex and RimJhim Ray. These were the points discussed –

• What is Employer Branding, how is it done in different segments and whether Indian Companies are good at EB
• Difference between EB and Employee Branding (EmB)
• Whether EB or EmB is to be used?
• Product and Services marketing was conducted earlier but now products and services based on customer experience is marketed
• The basic strategy followed while marketing is ‘pull rather than push’
• Debate on whether branding should be a part of marketing
• Can ROI be measured?
• How to handle negative reviews on Social Media, tackle layoffs and still protect your brand name?

How to build a Sourcing Team?

The next session by Jashan Joshi was on “How to build a Sourcing Team” where he mentioned that Sourcing is an art that requires you to source in order to find the right person at the right time. The session highlighted the skills required to be a good Sourcer like –

• Good at the calling process and Boolean Search Strings no matter which portal
• Have a relationship building Sourcing team
• Conduct timely follow ups and give instant feedback
• Stop segregating UK vs US & learn global techniques instead
• Have industry knowledge, skills & be street smart
• Profession and beliefs are very important after being patient

Riding the Referral Wave

Next we had Nrusingh Samant with a session on “Riding the Referral Wave.” Where several ways to create referrals was discussed –

• Keep the referral in cc when emailing
• Looping in spouses (crowding)
• When there’s a vacant position link it by Gamifying every step of the position
• In LinkedIn when you have connections that might fit the vacant position it prompts you to refer that person for the position
• When using referrals make sure to reward the referrer
• Have tracking mechanism in place to ensure you reward the right person

Panel Discussion on Impact of Technology on Sourcing

The next session was another Panel Discussion on “Impact of Technology on Sourcing” with the moderator Masood Sayed, Micky Chopra and Satya Reddy. Here’s what was discussed –

• With technology detecting the cultural fit is easy, everything is traceable even consumerism
• Technology and human logic should go hand in hand where selection is concerned
• Segregate the tools used for filtering active candidates
• Use tools that can be customised to your needs
• Know the organisation’s goals
• Based on your requirements build an ATS to end up in a win, win situation
• Use Psychometric assessment tools

Best practices in Social Recruiting

The last session was Sarang Brahme’s on “Best practices in Social Recruiting”. He opened the session with an interesting comic strip that highlighted the current scenario where most Social Media users weren’t active, shared several mantras on the subject and discussed the key aspects to be considered such as –

• Define the audience & build awareness
• Establish trust to build relationships & get mobile savvy
• Use Social Recruitment Monitor tool for complete analytics of your website’s social channels
• Create, use & send jobgrams that highlight problems and that solve them

The last session was Masood Sayed talking about his new gamification website (sourcinggames.com) that was recently launched to help Recruiters and Sourcers improve their understanding and skills. Towards the end Sarang introduced a video L’Oreal Inspiration (@L’Oreal) which was creative, yet eye opening.

The main highlights of the entire session were the Panel discussions on Employer Branding & Impact of Technology on Sourcing, How to build a Sourcing Team and the Best practices in Social Recruiting. Overall the sessions were brain storming, interesting, informative and quite entertaining with insights and tips imparted as trade secrets you’d have to have been present for to learn them.

The birth of technology has transformed the lives of people to a great extent. It is used in almost all aspects of an individual’s life thus making it convenient. Connecting with friends and family at a global level is possible due to the Internet. With that being said, Recruiters can now connect easily with other Talent Acquisition professionals at a global and national level.In view of this development and to get more professionals to interact, share views and improve their knowledge in the process, Sourcing Adda’s next WhatsApp Group Chat focused on Dream.

Application Tracking System (ATS). Following which several professionals had interesting insights to add, so here’s what they had to say…

Well based on the aspects mentioned, I think it is safe to say that we all now have at least a brief idea as to how we would like our ATS to work for us. This should probably get all of us thinking about creating the perfect ATS. Let’s all aim to bring more people to interact and gain interesting insights. Be sure to join us for our next WhatsApp Group Chat.