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.