Building (or Rebuilding) a Talent Function
Note: this is an expanded version of a lightning talk I presented at Silicon Valley TechRecruit Conference in October 2023. If you’d like me to make an appearance at your event, panel, podcast, or webinar, please reach out to me here.
You’ve just crash landed (or gently parachuted) into a new team - armed with some too vague or too pointed feedback about why hiring isn’t working you have less than 3 months to turn things around…but where do you start?
There’s the VP in Engineering that wants to tell you what the recruiters should have been doing this whole time (same person who also wants to review every inbound resume), the lone IT Manager who nearing collapse is begging for any idea of how many new hires might show up in 2 weeks, and a couple of jumpy recruiters trying to track headcount approvals in email threads from the CFO.
Your new boss has told you that the most critical issue you have to address is the employer brand because another CEO at a summit from last week bragged about a marketing campaign. There isn’t a headcount plan and no one is quite sure what your team has been doing or will be doing. And a co-founder just told the company at an all hands meeting you’ll be hiring 100 people next year. (What 100 people? <- your recruiters).
At first glance, it feels like the lions have taken charge of the circus…
There’s some variation of that scenario that plays out in every team I’ve joined - or maybe you’re re-joining, trying to sort out new direction post layoff, re-assigned to a new hiring division, taking on 2 other people’s roles and re-evaluating how you’ll get anything done…take your pick.
I’ve found that the fastest and most effective way to start making an impact is to execute 4 workflows in parallel from day 1: Investigate, Drive Transparency, Craft the Team, and Build the Roadmap. So let’s dive in.
Investigate
Most executives or leadership-y types call this their “listening tour” or “getting acquainted with the business” but we’re in talent acquisition - we do not have the time or the interest in branding ourselves with passive shiny catch phrases. I investigate. Words matter - this one says: I’m looking for something, there’s an action being taken, I am having conversations to get results.
Typically, conversations get dropped on your calendar in one of 3 ways:
Part of your onboarding - someone has decided the talent leader should meet with X, Y, and Z team members
Proactive employees - folks not included in the interview process or onboarding who really want the new talent leader’s ear
Existing team - current employees meeting with their new boss (you!)
The other workflows will fill in the gaps with additional employees to chase down, so don’t worry about who might be missing from those 3 buckets above. For example, you need a headcount plan so meeting with the finance team is critical to understand how they’re planning out budgets and what their existing process looks like.
For each conversation - do your prep work like you would any other interview:
Check their LinkedIn (and connect) - where did they work previously, do you have any connections or experiences in common?
What is their current role and reporting line?
Draft specific questions
For hiring managers or leaders where I may not have a specific objective, I start with these questions:
What has your experience been with hiring at the company so far?
Why: I want to quickly jump into the conversation they want to have with the new talent leader (me), and answering this question is typically their one and only agenda item
Do you have any feedback for me as I’m getting up to speed with the team and building our roadmap?
Why: You can frame this question depending on the first answer - so if the person is mostly recounting factual information (I have had 2 searches and I made 2 hires so it seems fine) this gets them into how that experience felt, where they saw room for improvement, any ideas for the future, etc.
(Tip: most people will take this opportunity to vent, so ALWAYS ask for at least one positive piece of feedback)
What are some of your hiring goals in the next (month/quarter/year)?
Why: I’m now pivoting to the future - I’m here to get hires made and want to understand their team’s goals starting with hiring. You may get a simple answer of: I need 5 more engineers in the next month. Follow up with: Tell me more about what these hires will be doing and how they align with your team’s delivery goals?
Is there anything about talent acquisition that you’re curious about or would like to explore in a future conversation?
Why: Thought partner! Consultative approach! I’m here to help! I want to get a sense of any knowledge gaps this person may have about hiring as well as any data points or transparency we can drive in the next workflow.
This is all great for planned conversations with agendas and prep time, etc. but much of your first few weeks will be spur of the moment interactions. No matter how enticing it is, I advise against offering a solution, opinion, or decision based on one conversation. Ever. Ask follow ups, get the context, then commit to a next step like: I’m going to learn more about this topic and come back to you next week.
You’ll need to suss out what kind of conversation you’re having - is this a vent sesh? Is this person giving me feedback that I need to take action on? Are they leading up to asking me for advice? Mid-rant while you’re scribbling notes or staring mid distance wondering why someone is so worked up over the careers page, they may be getting ready to be vulnerable and admit they aren’t sure about how to ask better interview questions or how long a search should actually take.
Finally - stall for data. You need to find signals in the “noise” and after hours of listening to feedback you may start thinking: wow this recruiting team must be the worst. Leaders may be stewing over their pet issue for months and present a compelling story - but you have to dig into the data to verify what is really happening with recruiting delivery.
Start identifying trends in your investigative feedback, find data to validate, ask more questions, rinse, repeat.
Drive Transparency
Transparency builds trust. Ok 3 words that every tech anybody has used for years until they now sound hollow and a bit fake. People mistrust and even resent teams where they don’t know what all those people do and are they even doing it well. We’ve all been there - you and your work besties start griping about that team (every company has one) - what do they even do?They aren’t even helping with X (revenue, etc.). Did you see they hired another person?
Without transparency around your goals, team’s performance, and direction - people will default to their personal context: is my team fully staffed? Usually answered with a resounding “no”. What are all those recruiters doing anyways?
I start with the foundation - a Headcount Plan. This maps out what the team has done, what we’re currently working on, and what we will be doing. And can provide a wealth of data points to measure performance, starting with attainment to plan. Simple but powerful metric for getting folks outside of the talent team, leadership, interviewers, etc. to answer: How is hiring going?
From there I’ll start with the most expensive part of the hiring process: Offers. More specifically - why are they accepted, declined, how long do they take to get approved and presented, how are we structuring compensation, etc. At offer we’ve invested the maximum amount of cost into the hiring process - so understanding that conversion rate and mapping levers to increase it is a priority for every talent team.
For an in depth snapshot at the beginning of your tenure - if you can pair Offer Acceptance Rate (OAR) with engagement survey data, attrition rates, exit survey feedback, tenure data (and more) you’ll have a map of how and why talent is joining, leaving, and staying with your company. This snapshot and plotting changes over time will form the beginnings of your talent management strategy.
Next, I work my way up the hiring funnel and stakeholder experiences which includes any of the following: pipeline and conversion rate analysis, interviewer and hiring manager feedback, application flow for candidates, timing in process, candidate experience, etc. This is ideally done 1:1 with recruiters or in small groups as a talent team so we can start aligning on where we need to adjust our practices.
A note on KPIs - most interviewers pointedly tell me how recruiter performance should be tightly measured and managed, and most envision a secret spreadsheet I’ll keep with everyone’s name on a list with a few metrics and red/yellow/green color coding, and whip that out when performance review time comes around. THIS IS THE WORST.
So as you’re evaluating where the team is from a performance perspective and providing transparency into the hiring progress, you’re also starting to measure how the current team operates and begin setting expectations on what a great search looks like - and how to measure it. This puts the accountability, ownership, and data into the hands of the people making the work happen. Recruiter driven KPIs, OKRs, and engagement to fine tune the two is critical to a high performing team.
Finally - avoid “Reporting Fridays” where you’re stuck compiling recruiter’s notes, spreadsheets, slide decks, and more into a meticulously crafted email so everyone feels informed. Reporting practices should work with you, not against you. My preferred cadence is an in depth quarterly business review presented up to leadership and down the org to your team. All other reports should hinge on two factors: is this data driving a specific action or behavior, or is this monitoring a specific project or initiative? When you provide reports or status updates - aim to make them valuable and engaging to avoid going into a folder of “Hiring Stuff” in your leader’s inbox. (And sucking the joy out of your Friday afternoon.)
Craft Your Team
In parallel - you’re evaluating and changing the shape of the team you’ve inherited or need to build. When I think about hiring for my teams I consider:
Business maturity (size, process documentation, appetite for risk, growth rate)
Hiring leaders (personality types, strengths and weaknesses)
Candidates (specialities, evergreen talent pools, candidate experience expectations)
5 mistakes I’ve made when staffing my teams, and some better ideas:
#1 Hiring the process obsessed recruiter while the company is still in chaos
Understandable, you are looking at a 3 ring circus on fire and the idea of hiring the type-a-organized-color-coding-alphabetizing-metric’d-out recruiter sounds like a welcome relief. Unfortunately, when faced with a mess, often this persona will react by over-documenting and trying to bend the team to their will (think 35 step process document and a 30min slideshow that they make mandatory for their hiring managers). Bend this instinct towards hires that are flexible and consultative - they build trust with hiring managers, coaching and persuasion are high up on their skillset, and before you know it engineering begins following the same 4 step process without anyone realizing it, much less filling out “mandatory” google intake forms.
#2 Bringing in SME recruiters solve a short term pain without a long term vision
Similarly to the chaos <> consultative recruiter relationship, the degree and flavor of headcount growth should inform how specialized of a recruiter is the right hire now. With a headcount plan that stops, starts, and teams being shifted - you’ll want to focus on generalists with solid best practices who can flex their day with the hiring needs. Have a small specialized team to hire one off? Bring in a contractor or agency.
#3 Leaving contractors in limbo
This brings me to contractors - which can be a much needed boost as you’re getting up to speed on current demands vs staffing available to you. Even if the future is unclear - for any contractor you bring on, set expectations on who they’ll work with, how long, their scope, and regularly check in with them on extending or converting them to FTEs during their contract. This helps avoid surprises for either party.
#4 Too many lone wolves and not enough team players
Getting a solid mix of folks that prefer to work solo or will gladly help a teammate depends largely on your hiring team’s styles and ability to silo out recruiting work or need for collaboration. I lean towards team players: people who would readily share candidates, support, and best practices; they see the team as one unit with common goals. This helps avoid situations like 3 recruiters with almost identical candidate profiles refusing to share candidates without getting “credit” or a rogue recruiter running a shadow TA org.
#5 Realize investigating also requires a fair bit of myth busting
I stepped into a team once where every recruiter (including the one in question) told me one of the team can’t hire anyone above a level 3 - junior reqs only for this person. I asked why and not a single person could answer. This recruiter turned out to be one of the strongest team members we had, earning a promotion and mastering hiring for all levels of the organization. So often we’re told someone doesn’t want something or can’t do something and it’s just accepted as fact when it’s more myth. Ask why.
Meanwhile…
You’ll also need to establish a clear method to develop, promote, and compensate your team - while in your first 6 months this may happen in rapid succession as you set things up, you’ll need reasoning and a framework that you can apply consistently from day 1 onwards.
A great way to start this framework is to build a skills or leveling guide, which may include:
Titles, levels, and degree of ownership for each position on your team
Flexible scopes for unique roles like coordinators or operations team members
Gating requirements to be considered for promotion between levels
Or you may develop something more general which lays out your thinking on how people are promoted, where they can go for professional development or advancement resources, or a commitment on when and how you will evaluate performance - i.e. what is most critical to you, the team, and the company? That may be a different framework from the first 6mos to what you may lay out at 18mos, so set that expectation what will change and why. Being open and upfront with how and why you make personnel decisions with your team will pay dividends when you inevitably make tough calls.
Build the Roadmap
Finally - we come to the roadmap - aka the mother of all to do lists. But not YOUR to do list! The temptation to write down each action item and go sort it out yourself to ensure you do all the investigating and you do all the reporting, and so on - is not sustainable and can quickly lead to an overwhelmed lack of focus around day 45. Your roadmap captures your vision and direction for the team.
It can contain every sub-function of recruiting, or just the ones that need attention at your new organization, etc. But you’ll want a general topic or initiative area, then two columns - one for quick wins, and the other for long term initiatives. Quick wins from start to finish should take less than 30 days. Over 30? It’s long term. Your roadmap will become your source material for OKRs - and reappear quarterly or annually to brainstorm tasks and ideas with your team.
What’s key here is the same principle around building headcount plans and measuring performance - you need to build trust with your team and your leadership. Share your roadmap - or iterations as you go - so folks understand what solutions need to be implemented and where the priorities are over the next month -> quarter. The roadmap provides insight into what you’re learning, building, or correcting and a slew of development or stretch goals for individuals on your team to pitch in on. It’s also a great artifact to share with your founders and leadership team during your first 90 days.
Last Things Last
It’s easy to get absorbed into the frantic evaluation of and righting of the ship you’ve just boarded. Don’t lose sight of your own balance, and the people and relationships you’re building at the same time. First impressions of how you work, how you’ll treat people, and the tone you set for behavior on your team are crucial to future successes.
And with that - happy building!
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Lions tamed and ducks in a row!
