Recruiter Enablement? What’s that all about?
It’s a job I’ve been doing for the last 3 years or so, and I’ve been meaning to write a post on it for quite some time but never really got around to it, because I’ve been busy enabling recruiters!
So here it goes, at least a year late, a bit of an overview of Recruiter Enablement.
Recruiter Enablement: A Breakdown
At it’s simplest, it’s about supercharging recruiters by arming them with the right tools, resources, and training needed to excel in their roles. It’s akin to sales enablement, with its focus on empowering salespeople but in TA terms its about making sure that your recruiters have the best possible chances to hire the talent that your organisation is looking for.
Why Recruiter Enablement Matters
Tooling
Tech is changing the TA landscape at an unprecedented rate, especially with AI & ChatGPT becoming even more prevalent in the last few months or so.
Enablement is about making sure that your team has the best possible tools to source, attract, assess and onboard talent and that they fit seamlessly into your hiring process. Are your tech recruiters able to find and engage with top tech talent efficiently, how does that differ from your GTM recruiters?
It’s about ensuring your teams have the best possible technology to allow recruiters to do what they do best, engage with talent rather than spending their precious time bogged down in admin or trying to find tech work arounds.
Processes & Continuous Improvement
Most businesses, particularly tech businesses, constantly review and tweak their standard processes, it’s not uncommon for some of these businesses to employ a whole team of people to constantly do this job.
Who’s doing it in TA? A recruiter at the side of their desk? A TA Leader or HR function trying to look at what improvements can be made amongst a million other priorities?
When was the last time you reviewed your hiring process? When did you make a tweak, analyse the impact and pivot? Is your process draining your recruiter’s time? Is it giving candidates or hiring managers a really poor experience?
This is where enablement helps. Analysing the process, looking for improvements, testing them, learning from them and always adapting.
Training
I know from my inhouse days that customised and bespoke training for TA folk was very low on L&D’s budget priorities.
Most internal teams don’t have dedicated L&D capability for their TA functions. If they’re lucky, the TA team may get one TA focused L&D session every year.
Enablement is about continuous & personalised training and development for TA teams. Tech Recruiters may get some customised training, GTM Recruiters may get another. Custom training for teams based in different geographies is another example. It’s about giving your TA folk real L&D opportunities that not only supercharge their delivery but also their own careers.
Data & Intelligence
Whilst most recruiters and TA folk are really good at market mapping, or pulling their own reports from the ATS or LinkedIn. Who is pulling it all together? Who is tracking it over time? Who is looking at key data points and how they relate to tooling, to process and to training?
Again, this is another key role within Recruiter Enablement. It’s using the data to drive intelligence that enable your recruiters to be even better at their jobs.
Recruiter enablement isn’t just about improving the current state of your TA function, it’s about setting it up for long term success by ensuring that you and your team can adapt in what is an ever changing, but always competitive, talent market.
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