Enterprise Talent Intelligence has arrived and is disrupting the way companies think about talent and how they hire the best.
Josh Bersin, the HR thought leader, recently published a report on why Enterprise Talent Intelligence is one of the most exciting trends in years. In that report he explains that in many ways, talent intelligence is following the path of advertising technology where companies like Meta, TikTok, and Google analyse data about individuals to serve up ads tailored to individual consumers. The ability to quickly assemble information on any role completely changes how information and insight can be used as part of an executive recruitment process.
At Savannah Group, we have spent the last four years developing talent intelligence products and services specifically designed to improve talent acquisition outcomes. We saw the opportunity to bring business intelligence to talent, align stakeholders and ensure companies are acquiring the skills they need for the future rather than repeating past hiring patterns.
Talent intelligence can give companies a real time understanding of any role, capability or company. By building AI models that can ingest and process data on job titles, career paths, leadership experiences, industries, and types of companies worked in, we can quickly visualise the patterns and trends that exist in any particular market. As a result, we can guide decision makers on how many profiles exist that meet their requirements and what parts of their criteria are limiting the talent pool the most. What used to take weeks, and sometimes months, to understand can be generated in days or hours. This helps identify opportunities or challenges that a hiring brief presents, provides suggestions on additional industries in which to search, and gives confidence through transparency of information supported by data.
Savannah Group is now deploying talent intelligence to support our expert teams and clients who are experiencing three clear, tangible benefits.
1. More successful outcomes: unsuccessful executive searches prevented before they start through understanding candidate markets up front
Talent intelligence allows organisations to anticipate challenges and mitigate risks associated with executive searches up front. It can provide data-driven assessment of the talent landscape, including the availability of candidates with desired skill sets, industry experience, and leadership qualities. Armed with this information, organisations can evaluate the likelihood of success for executive searches and make informed decisions about whether to proceed with recruitment efforts or adjust their hiring criteria to align with market realities. This proactive approach helps organisations avoid investing time and resources in executive searches that are unlikely to yield successful outcomes.
2. Broader reach – tangential industries, geographies, functions and companies covered in research
Talent intelligence enables executive recruitment teams to cover more ground by leveraging advanced analytics and insights to identify and engage with a broader pool of candidates. By aggregating data from multiple sources such as professional networking sites, company websites, government data, annual reports and private databases with advanced labelling and categorisation techniques, talent intelligence enables recruiters to access a wealth of candidate information and identify potential candidates who may not obviously be covered using traditional research methods.
3. More informed briefing – create candidate briefs with full knowledge of what the addition or subtraction of criteria does to the size of candidate pool
By leveraging data analytics, recruiters can assess the potential impact of different criteria from a brief on the size, quality, and diversity of the candidate pool, allowing them to make informed decisions about which qualifications and attributes are essential for success in specific roles.
For instance, talent intelligence can provide insight into the demographic composition, skill distribution, and experience levels of candidates who meet various criteria. By understanding how different criteria affect the composition of the candidate pool, recruiters can mitigate against the risks of making a talent pool too narrow to be confident of a successful hire. And provide meaningful feedback to a hiring manager which helps them feel more informed on the market too.
The advancements in Talent Intelligence pave the way for NextGen executive search characterised by precision, fairness, and strategic foresight. By harnessing the power of data, insights and AI, organisations can elevate their executive talent acquisition, and ultimately, success in the competitive global marketplace.
