To my way of thinking, there are really only two ways to improve an organization's performance: nurture and grow the talent you already have within it or hire in new talent. Sounds simple really, but as we all know making the statement is the easy bit-doing something about it is the challenge.

All too often, recruitment is about filling a vacancy-no more, no less. However, even more important today, and certainly when the economy really picks up again, is that organizations not just fill vacancies-but hire talent! If you don't have that mindset, and focus instead on "just filling the vacancy," you'll end up with someone else's problems.
This very important attitude shift needs to take place to ensure that an employer isn't immersed in inevitable short-term operational challenges. Many organizations seem to focus even now on filling vacancies quickly and cheaply, despite the fact that, at the current time, there is more choice available of people to fill a job than
ever before.

I do sympathize with this dilemma and know very well the business drivers that make this an imperative. HR hasn't helped by promoting the "Time to Hire" target as a real way of measuring their success. My view is who cares how long it takes to hire someone-the "Quality of the Hire" is far more meaningful and will always drive longer-term organizations that are more successful.

I've worked with organizations (very few) over the past 25 years or so that really do appear to have it worked out this dilemma. In these organizations, everyone you come into contact with, from the very first impression the receptionist gives, all have had a real passion and pride in what they are doing and what their organization stands for. The interesting thing is, whomever you meet in these organizations, this impression hits you every time.

The question I ask myself is whether it's possible for organizations to make a start in this direction by at least identifying and then separating those roles, thinking in terms of hiring talent as opposed to simply filling a vacancy. It's a part of the succession planning debate, and while most organizations are weak in implementing this critical process across their businesses, surely it's a debate that isn't difficult to have. It doesn't mean those lower-level, less complex roles aren't important. It merely allows you to ensure that you know where the jobs are that are critical to your business success and give some serious thought to the type of talent needed to fill them.

Once an organization can begin to think in terms of hiring talent rather than simply filling vacancies, two key things should realistically happen. First, hiring people should become a more business critical process, where the key capabilities and experiences necessary to make a lasting, rather than just an immediate, short-term contribution should be given higher priority. I've lost count of how many times I have seen an organization creating a job advertisement at the last minute, with a list of key skills needed for a job, because they haven't got a profile that shows what is expected from the job in the first place. Hiring managers must more clearly recognize the overall value to the business of getting it right and (just as importantly) the cost of getting it wrong. Kenexa's research shows the cost of a bad hiring decision can be between one-and-a-half and two-and-a-half times the job holder's salary-serious money.

Second, how and where an organization attracts talent and the recruitment methods they adopt also have a direct effect upon the caliber of person ultimately hired. Should an organization do this itself, or outsource it to expert organizations to do it for them? The quality of the recruitment process in terms of time, methods adopted and the impression given to candidates throughout every stage of the process are critical to getting the best talent you can.
Previously, whereas "filling vacancies" often meant simply recruiting in the cheapest way possible, "hiring talent" should encourage proper consideration of the entire process. Once it becomes widely accepted that sourcing talent is key to an organization's success, quality will take precedence over simply doing it in the cheapest and quickest way possible.

Therefore, deciding beforehand the right balance between quality (of the hiring process) and value for money (cost) is crucial. It's a simple fact that organizations do not achieve success; the people within them do.