Talent Acquisition, a changed ball game today!
Ten minutes with Roli Singh, Head Talent Development, Vistara
Jaipuria Institue of Management, Noida’s students had the opportunity to interact and interview one of the leading, young HR professionals Roli Singh, Head Talent Development, Vistara and tried to gain insights to matters of importance of the HR world.
“Talent acquisition is an extremely dynamic field and one of the most emerging trends in the last few years is recruitment through social media,” says Roli Singh, Head Talent Development, TATA SIA (Vistara). She made her presence felt at the HR Round Table Meet on “Emerging trends in Talent Acquisition” held at Jaipuria Institute of Management, Noida. The seasoned professional with over two decades of experience in the field then shared insights into the world of Recruitment and Talent Acquisition in an interview. Here are the excerpts.
No candidate today just wants a job. They seek meaningful challenges.
If you thought the recruitment process was skewed in the favor of recruiters, think again. Roli reminds as that in the 90s when she would go to campus for recruitment, few traditional companies would attract the best. “But today candidates opt for new brands and startups. For example, Air BnB is appealing for students because of the entrepreneurship, the product, the digital technology. They won’t stick to tried and tested brands unless they have strong energy. They have begun to think about what’s in it for them,” she explains.
Diversity and Inclusion- the new focus for companies
According to Roli, earlier one policy would work for everyone, but today they have to be flexible given the changing candidate demands. She spells out the success mantra for Talent Acquisition in present times as she says, “You have to understand candidate profiling and it has to match with your brand strategy. There has to be a buy-in for various people and they need to be able to find out certain anchors. If that happens then their candidature with the company is more long term, and that should be the aim in the first place.”
Candidate’s social media presence is deciding a lot about their future
Roli has seen many changing faces of recruitment and talent acquisition in the country. But in the last few years recruitment through social media has made a huge impact. She throws light on the biggest trend in the field as she says, “When you are looking to build your talent pipeline you want to recruit through different ways. You want to reach out to the right candidates that resonate with your brands. The most strategic place to go for that is social media because it has different channels to tap the best talent.”
Linking talent acquisition with Brand positioning
Roli shares her experience with Vistara, a brand new full-service airline where the main recruitment is for cabin crew. She says that whenever the airline launches a new destination, the idea is to promote tourism and people moving there. “The same concept of travelling, meeting people, media coverage gets reflected in recruitment. You need to attract people who are good at social talks, meeting people and are interested in travelling. So you look at Twitter and Facebook accounts that speak of travel, young people, and aviation industry. You integrate that and come up with a strategy that is brand focused,” she ends on a highly informative note.
