Using a flexible solution for your talent partner needs

As we enter 2023 following a turbulent 2022, where many companies froze their hiring plans or had to make large scale redundancies you may be hesitant to think about hiring and how this fits in with a longer term plan of surviving and growing against tumultuous market conditions. But in times like these, what is needed is not to take yourself out of the game altogether but to use a flexible solution for your talent partner needs.

Economies are cyclical and cutting recruitment could mean your business falls behind in future. In fact, according to the Harvard Business Review, businesses who only cut down their workforce during a downturn have just an 11% chance of achieving breakaway performance once that downturn is over.

A slowdown could be the perfect time to optimise your recruitment process by onboarding an embedded talent partner who can help you accelerate growth when it’s time. The secret is adjusting to the slowdown and coming up with a future-proof hiring strategy. So here are our top tips for weathering the unpredictable storm of 2023.

It’s important to have a solid hiring plan but to keep up with these ever-changing times. With the embedded recruitment model, you outsource all or part of your recruitment to our experts. It’s similar to RPO (recruitment process outsourcing), but it’s flexible enough to allow you to scale your recruitment up or down, depending on the current need. Troi is engaged on a subscription basis, with packages that can be expanded or contracted with the times. 

Troi’s flexible solution means you can expand your recruitment without being stuck paying for internal recruiters who you may later need to lay off. Our subscription allows you to slow down your recruitment temporarily and then increase it when business improves. What’s more, because of our constant auditing of the recruitment process, our strategy is agile too, which means we can flip from looking for candidates nationally to internationally or explore new talent pools at the drop of a hat.

An embedded talent partner can assess your hiring strategy and reset it to make it as lean as possible. A ‘lean’ hiring strategy is one which is as efficient as it can be. By continuously auditing your hiring processes, adapting to findings and measuring the results, you can save both time and money in your hiring process. Troi can look at anything in your hiring process which is hindering your efficiency–that includes time wastage, including sourcing, screening, qualifying or interviewing potential candidates.

Troi’s embedded recruitment model can reset your hiring process to make it the most efficient possible. Similar to an RPO, but with the added benefit of being fully embedded in your team, we get to know your business and offer our expert insight on a monthly subscription. A lean hiring strategy is important during a slowdown when you don’t need any unnecessary wastage. Employing an embedded talent partner like Troi is the ideal way to do this, as we can take over your recruitment function or slot into your existing talent team so that you can benefit from our top expertise.

Recruitment is not just about quantity but about quality. There’s no point hiring someone and expending resources to onboard and train them if you or the candidate soon after realise it isn’t a good fit, or hiring someone who isn’t right for the job because of a tight labour market when a more appropriate candidate could have been found with the right expertise. An embedded recruitment model can help you to take this time of slowdown to manage the value adding parts of recruiting instead of hiring at scale.

For instance, employee engagement is key to ensuring that prospective candidates don’t drop out of the recruitment process or accept other offers in this time of tight labour markets. DE&I is key for both you and your candidates; on the one hand, DE&I can help you tap into talent pools which you haven’t to date, increasing your supply of potential candidates, whilst on the other hand it ensures qualified candidates apply for your advertised roles and don’t get put off by your vacancy postings, recruitment process, or company culture, creating a positive candidate experience. Troi’s embedded recruitment model can help you look beyond your number of hires alone to make sure you’re making the best quality hires.

Branding is also key in attracting and keeping the candidates you do hire, which is key in times of uncertainty. In fact, a recent study from Beamery found that 69% of active job candidates are encouraged to apply to a role if the employer actively manages its employer brand. An embedded recruitment partner can help you reshape your branding or amplify your presence to make sure you’re fully communicating your company culture to prospective candidates. According to the Guardian, ‘as well as inspiring existing employees, a strong employer brand puts you in a good position for attracting high-quality candidates to fill your roles.’

Whilst with an external recruitment provider or a recruitment agency, you might lose control of your branding, an embedded recruitment provider works with you to ensure that the message your branding is communicating is the one you want. By embedding into your team, Troi effectively acts as an internal recruitment function, but with flexibility. We get to know your business and its culture so that we can communicate that fully and truly in your recruitment. 

Using an embedded recruitment model means that you’ll benefit from a data-driven approach. Our experts have the latest tools to closely track and monitor our partners’ market data to build an agile recruitment strategy. We include our tools in your subscription at no extra cost and we can even help to train you to use them. We can help you to boost employee engagement by creating a thorough and effective yet time-sensitive recruitment process.

AI can be used in the recruitment process to assess candidates in a fair yet efficient manner. According to Forbes, the use of AI ‘can lead to less biased and more effective recruiting decisions’ in hiring. Recruiters can use AI tools to improve hiring practices by identifying more qualified candidates and sourcing more candidates for each role. It can also be used to improve the candidate experience by making it easier for candidates to apply for open positions and communicate with the company before and during the hiring process.

Although the outlook for 2023 is unpredictable at the moment, such times of economic uncertainty are the perfect timing to switch to a flexible talent partner such as Troi. We can help you weather the storm of the coming year and prepare for when things will eventually get better, so you’ll be ready to thrive from the start of the next upturn. 

If you’d like to learn more about Troi’s embedded recruitment model, click here or book a chat with us here. 

Troi recently hosted a webinar with Alva Labs to discuss the topic of ‘How to hire during a recession’. The overarching theme throughout this webinar was how companies can rethink approaches to their recruitment process during an economic downturn. As we move through Q1 of 2023 and we start to see hopeful signs of recovery and renewed hiring activity the topic is incredibly relevant in ensuring your hiring strategies are smart and focused on the long term goal.