Talent Management - November 2008 - (Page 47)

S tudy after study proves that leading talent management executives and business leaders place a high priority on stafﬁng as a necessary strategy to achieve business objectives. For instance, a 2006 global survey of executives by Accenture found attracting and retaining skilled staff is one of the top three factors impacting an organization’s ability to capitalize on growth opportunities. And the 2008 Aberdeen report “The State of the Market” states, “The ability to identify, engage, hire, develop and retain has never been more pressing or complex. The talent gaps that have been hypothesized over the past few years are now a reality, and are compounded further by globalization and the ‘Net’ generation.” With the proliferation of job boards and online classiﬁed ad sites, publicizing a job opening is easier than ever. The real challenge for recruiters is not getting the job description out, but getting it in front of the right people. Recruitment consulting ﬁrm The Adler Group found 71 percent of HR executives “indicated that ﬁnding strong candidates for critical positions was a growing or huge problem.” Solving this problem requires that companies not only execute highly targeted recruiting activities — they also must ﬁnd ways to brand and convey corporate culture to attract the right candidates. Further, in the ongoing competition for talent, companies must consider candidate experience long before making a job offer. Conveying the TiVo Culture One company that successfully communicates its corporate culture to potential candidates is TiVo Inc. Founded in 1997, TiVo, a pioneer in home entertainment, created a brand new product and service category with the development of the world’s ﬁrst digital video recorder (DVR) for home entertainment. TiVo’s corporate culture is much like the product itself: personable, innovative and straightforward. Further, TiVo employees are not just run-of-the-mill gadget gurus. Like the products they create, the people at TiVo are visionary. The stafﬁng team at TiVo seeks out candidates who exemplify the strengths of the TiVo team and culture. They want to ensure the organization’s recruiting process uses those unique TiVo attributes to attract and engage prospective employees. “We want to differentiate ourselves with candidates in the same way TiVo differentiates itself in the marketplace,” said William Uranga, senior director of stafﬁng at TiVo. “I didn’t want job seekers to look at us like any other major brand. Our goal is to leave the candidate with a better appreciation of TiVo. That is very important to us in the competition for talent.” When TiVo’s previous applicant tracking system (ATS) did not achieve this goal, Uranga searched for an ATS that went above and beyond traditional products and would help TiVo ﬁnd and hire the right people for its growing business. TiVo views its candidates in the recruitment process as customers and shareholders, and Uranga said he needed a system that would help his team convey this to candidates. “There were things we wanted to discover and do down the road that our former applicant tracking system did not support,” Uranga said. “We needed recruiting technology that wouldn’t hem us in.” After an extensive search for the right recruiting partner, Uranga chose recruitment solutions provider Jobvite. The intuitive Web 2.0 recruitment application manages TiVo’s entire recruiting cycle from job posting to hire, and supports TiVo’s external recruitment, applicant tracking, employee referral and internal mobility with one interface. All employees receive access so everyone involved in talent acquisition can work together easily. “With this recruitment technology, we can create a candidate experience that incorporates our corporate identity and provides a positive experience for the job seeker,” Uranga said. “It supports our hiring strategy and our vision of the future of recruitment.” The new ATS helps TiVo inject elements of its corporate culture into all aspects of the recruitment process, starting with its career page. TiVo’s career site has the same look and feel as the rest of the organization’s site, presenting jobs and information about prospective employment in a unique way rather than in a generic template shared by other companies. Even e-mail templates for candidate communications speak with TiVo’s unique voice. “The amount of communication between candidate and recruiter is another area we look to differentiate ourselves,” Uranga said. “Jobvite empowers both consumers and users, raising the level of conversation.” Tapping New Talent Sources Bringing the TiVo message to the right people is a crucial part to successfully obtain top talent in a competitive recruiting environment. The company is moving away from traditional methods to source applicants and into the social network and niche sites that its candidate pools frequent. Further, a ﬂexible recruitment system allows TiVo to change up its sourcing strategy as the company’s needs change by integrating with social networks, job boards, career Web sites and external recruiters. As have many companies, TiVo has found referrals are a reliable way to ﬁnd good candidates. According to CaNovember 2008 talent management magazine www.talentmgt.com 47 http://www.talentmgt.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Talent Management - November 2008

Talent Management - November 2008 Editor’s Letter Contents Human Performance Leading Edge Learning Connections Recruitment & Retention Assessment & Evaluation Compensation & Benefits Performance Management Learning & Development Succession Planning Insight Dashboard Application Advertisers’ Index Editorial Resources Full Potential

Talent Management - November 2008

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