Alex Lennon’s Post

Last night the Sydney Talent Meetup hosted their first social mixer. It was great to see some familiar faces, and meet some new ones too. A couple of things stood out to me when talking to people. Talent professionals have had a brutal couple of years. Hired just before or at the height of the 2022 hiring boom, put under huge pressure to deliver hiring campaigns in an unsustainable hiring market was tough enough on its own. Unfortunately, once companies realised they’d over hired, or were navigating the talk of impending recession, many companies simply cut their TA teams. As recruiters, we know this comes with the territory, but for something as important as hiring, is this how it’s always going to be? It’s not too far off feeling like a mercenary relationship for some of the people that went through it. “Thanks for completing that mission. Your services are no longer needed”. Two themes came up in conversation, and I predict (or hope at least) they’ll become more common. Firstly, is Fractional Talent Acquisition the answer? Fractional is a relatively new concept in Australia but is gaining momentum. It's big in the US and Europe, but it’s got some way to go here. Jamie Finnegan summed it up last night: “People kept asking me what Fractional do, they think it’s a company”. I believe Fractional work will become much more common in the next 2-5 years. A lot of incredible TA operators got burned badly recently. By operating in a Fractional role, they protect themselves. It may also be a better solution for the company so that they can scale their Talent operations to the demand of hiring. But… we all know the cost of living is brutal at the moment. And try getting a mortgage with a fractional role. Until we can figure that out, it may be a blocker. Secondly, how many TAs and Recruiters could have been cross-trained into a new role and continued to be a great asset to the company? TAs (if they wanted to) could easily be repurposed into CS, Sales or People & Culture roles in my opinion. How many were given the option? I’ve only heard of a few companies doing this, but it should be the default question if redundancies are on the horizon for Talent staff. “Hiring is slowing down, but you’ve been great in Talent. Where else can we use your skills? And if given the choice between being made redundant and repurposing to a new role, which would you prefer?” It’s not going to work every time, the individual may not want to step away from recruiting, and should have the choice. That's fine. But surely ask or explore it. I can’t help feeling a lot of talent has gone to waste these past 24 months.

Pam Stevenson

Head of Talent & People, OIF Ventures 🚀 | Founder, Sydney Talent Meetup 🤝

7mo

Absolutely spot on, Alex Lennon! 🙌 Here's my 2 cents: - 'Fractional' is a word & way of working that has REALLY taken off post-Covid. Especially for roles that experienced the brunt of lay-offs the past couple years - including Talent, HR, Marketing, Product etc. - Many (include myself) had never heard of the term until recent ~1-3 years (!). - Fractional has many pros and cons, but for anyone with decent work experience & financial savings behind them, plus a desire to help as many companies as possible while retaining their autonomy/flexibility (and not wishing to be at the mercy of an employer's whim!) -- it's a fantastic alternative to the 9-5 mainstay. I'm a big supporter of fractional, impactful work 🙌

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