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How Do You Measure Quality of Hire in this Talent Marketplace?
By Tom McGuire | January 28, 2025
In this full employment economy, finding and winning top talent for critical roles is a key business success factor. But if you’re still thinking about quality of hire in the old way (hiring manager surveys to assess ‘happiness’ with the recruiting team or managers' assessment of a new hire 30 days in), then you’re missing the chance to prove the value of Talent Acquisition in 2019 and beyond.
The Most Effective Recruitment Process in the Toughest Talent Marketplace
By Linda Brenner | January 28, 2025
It’s a trick: the most effective recruitment process isn’t one - it's multiple processes, differentiated and highly engineered. Because in the most challenging talent marketplace that most of us have ever worked in, we can't wing it anymore - nor can we build our processes based on what we've always done, or what hiring managers demand.
Talent Acquisition Audit: Six Signs You Need One
By Linda Brenner | January 28, 2025
Six circumstances where it makes sense to bring in outside, unbiased resources to conduct a talent acquisition audit.
How to Improve Recruiting: Begin with a SWOT Analysis
By Tom McGuire | January 28, 2025
Need to figure out how to improve hiring speed, quality and diversity? Begin with one of the most tried-and-true methods to assessing strengths and weaknesses: a SWOT framework for recruiting. Learn how this method can help you get started the right way.
Valuing Employees: Are People Your Most Important Asset? The Answer Might Surprise You.
By Linda Brenner | January 28, 2025
Well, if you’re an accountant, then the answer is probably a resounding “yes.” From an accounting standpoint, an asset is an economic resource that can be owned or controlled to produce value that can ultimately be converted into cash. For example,...
How to Use a Req Load Calculator for Recruiters
By Linda Brenner | January 28, 2025
The number of reqs a recruiter works has a direct impact on the speed, cost and quality of their hiring outcomes. Too many hiring reqs results in poor quality - skipped intake meetings, little or no sourcing of candidates, short-shrifting the...
HR Strategy = Talent Strategy: It’s All About Build, Buy, Borrow
By Linda Brenner | January 28, 2025
The creation of value in companies is primarily linked to intellectual capital driving cash flow, constituting over 80% of average market value. Companies like Apple, Visa, and Microsoft derive nearly all their value from intellectual assets rather...
Where the Talent Went and What To Do About It
By Linda Brenner | January 28, 2025
Despite the waning of the COVID-19 pandemic, hiring and retention remain a significant challenge for businesses. Factors contributing to this shortage include demographic shifts, declining birthrates, and lower labor force participation rates. Here are four strategies to address this issue. And do it now, because it's not going to get easier anytime soon.
Building a New Partnership Between CHROs and CEOs
By Tom McGuire | January 28, 2025
It's time for CHROs to build a better, more collaborative and business-based relationship with their CEOs. Read more about it in our latest book, "Building Business Value Through Talent: The CEO and CHRO Partnership Guide" available on Amazon: bit.ly/TGAbook
5 Ways to Turn Your Desire to Hire Diverse Talent into Actual Diversity Hiring
By Linda Brenner | January 28, 2025
The demand for greater representation within companies requires HR to successfully find, attract and win high-performing diverse talent. Here are five tips for doing it right.
Connecting Talent Investments to Business Outcomes (Infographic)
By Tom McGuire | January 28, 2025
All roles are not of equal importance. In fact, 20% of roles drive 90% of your growth. The following infographic explores the key differences between the old school industrial economy and our new knowledge based economy as it relates to an...
Are you in a War *ON* Talent or a War *FOR* Talent?
By Linda Brenner | January 28, 2025
Here are eight clues for determining where your organization falls.
2023 Talent Analytics Playbook for CHROs
By Tom McGuire | January 28, 2025
The explosion of HR tools, technology and trends makes zeroing in on essential analytics more difficult than ever. How should Talent Analytics define HR priorities? What are the greatest obstacles to achieving effectiveness? What does a Talent Analytics "homerun" look like? In 2023, talent analytics should not just support, but fundamentally drive, your organization's business strategy.
Critical Success Factors in Driving Intellectual Capital: Help! I Need Somebody (Not Just Anybody)
By Linda Brenner | January 28, 2025
Imagine for a moment if the Beatles had been a company. The “top talent,” as defined by the CEO, leadership team and Human Resources department, would clearly have been the musicians and singers known worldwide as John, Paul, George and Ringo. These...
4 Ways to Determine if You Need to Improve Your Job Postings ASAP
By Linda Brenner | January 28, 2025
This insane labor market requires employers to put their best foot forward in order to win top talent. But often, when the candidate sees a job posting, it's so bad that it literally repels the most qualified among them. Here are four ways to quickly audit your own postings.
Where Have All The Workers Gone: 5 Factors
By Linda Brenner | January 28, 2025
This is the question our consulting firm now hears more often than any other. And there is no simple answer. To understand the worker shortage, take a quick trip around the external market factors, that issues that exist within most companies, the dramatically different choices that talent (and particularly, high-performing diverse talent) are now making - and 5 places they've gone.
Let’s Modernize Talent Acquisition Before Jumping on the AI Train
By Linda Brenner | January 28, 2025
HR and Talent Acquisition teams often lack the necessary foundation to make AI truly effective because of undefined processes, ambiguous roles and unclear goals. So before delving into AI-driven solutions, TA needs to build its foundation: clear strategies, well-defined and differentiated processes, supporting org design and data-based measures of success. Only then it can be determined where AI can add the most value.
DIY: 3 Steps to Doing Your Own Talent Acquisition Audit
By Linda Brenner | January 28, 2025
Why is now the best time to evaluate and improve hiring in your organization? Because waiting for the perfect moment is futile. The talent marketplace evolves unpredictably, with some skills becoming increasingly scarce (AI, data analytics) while others are more abundant than ever (cashiers, call center rep, sales agents). Hiring leaders demand swift, high-quality hiring, and senior leaders are reluctant to fund more recruiters. Continuing to rely largely (or solely) on job postings is ineffective in today's changing landscape. Read on to discover strategies to take charge, assess your talent acquisition function, and prioritize improvements to make hiring faster and better.
The Data Dilemma: Navigating Challenges to Becoming a Data-Driven HR Function
By Linda Brenner | January 28, 2025
In today's fast-paced business environment, HR teams are increasingly turning to data and analytics to drive informed decision-making. The concept of data-driven HR has gained significant traction, with organizations leveraging data to optimize talent acquisition and talent management, and connect HR efforts and outcomes to business results. However, despite the potential benefits, many HR teams face significant challenges when it comes to obtaining and effectively analyzing data. This column explores the underlying challenges, why data acquisition is difficult, the conflict between being "customer-focused" and data-driven, and the struggle to utilize data for outcomes that align with critical business operations.
4 Great Questions to Ask HR Leader Candidates, and the Answers to Look For
By Linda Brenner | January 28, 2025
HR, Talent and TA professionals are generally very good at being interviewed. But that ability doesn’t correlate with true talent management, recruiting or leadership skills. *Your* skills as an interviewer are key to getting beyond showmanship and...

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Why Your HR Strategy Should Be All About Build, Buy, Borrow
Read ThisOur Bloggers

Linda Brenner
Linda is an industry vet with keen observations and a knack for calling it like it is.

Tom McGuire
Tom brings the unlikely blend of Finance & HR to the practice, illuminating readers with the link between talent and business value.