I attended a thought-provoking keynote on AI at the recent Gartner ReimagineHR Conference in Florida. The speaker on stage, Rahaf Harfoush, shared how she likes to play with AI tools to explore and discover all that is becoming possible with new and emerging technologies. In one instance, she was trying to generate an image of a peacock.  She gave the AI tool some prompts, hoping it would create a beautiful image for her. Despite her best efforts, it simply didn’t work as she had imagined it.

Then, Rahaf asked a friend who’s an artist to help her. Working from the same AI platform, her friend – told her to suggest certain texture, color, etc. and use the proper terminology needed for this task – in the AI tool. And voilà – a beautiful image of a peacock was generated instantly!

What is the moral of this story? AI is only as good as the person behind it. You get the best results when there is an expert leading the charge. Such experts are the key behind the successes we see every day.

This wisdom, however, is also directly applicable to recruitment.  When you want to attract the best talent, the best way to do this is to enlist the help of an expert. In doing so, you can be sure that you’ll get the exceptional new hire you seek.

At the Gartner conference, I met some very talented executives from New York City. They were lamenting about how they are struggling to hire Bilingual talent who speak both Spanish and English. We ended up having some great conversations where we discussed overlapping strategies that they could adopt in the US, from how our team works in Canada to recruit talent who are fluent in French and English.

We foresee this kind of niched intel becoming increasingly important to recruiting and hiring strategies. Incidentally, earlier this fall, I was invited to speak for the American Staffing Association (ASA) at their annual conference that was held in Nashville, and my session was titled: “Why SPECIALTY will Become Recruitment’s Next ‘It’ Word.” I had the opportunity to share BlueSky Personnel Solution’s rise to becoming one of Canada’s top Bilingual (French/English) recruitment firms. I also dove into the business case for why niched expertise in recruitment will become a critical growth driver in the future.

 

 

Here are three reasons why engaging recruiters with niched expertise gives HR and hiring managers a proven competitive advantage:

1. Specialty recruiters are connected to highly talented, but otherwise hard-to-find candidates: At BlueSky Personnel Solutions for example, we proactively identify and reach out to top Bilingual (French/English) talent, whether they are already employed, or looking for work. We invite them to join our proprietary network and then expand to their peers with similar skills and experiences. We cultivate authentic relationships with these talented workers. We get to know them. We learn about their career aspirations and growth goals for the short and long-term. When a client is looking for someone with a specific profile, we can easily tap into our network. Often, we can then reach out to candidates who aren’t actively looking for new employment at the time. Our client’s competitors – if they are not engaging with talented recruiters specializing in this field, simply won’t have easy access to talent at this level of depth. Net-net: never underestimate the power of a solidly built network.

2. Specialty recruitment is about going deep instead of casting a wide, often ineffective net for positions requiring specific skills: Though it may feel counter-intuitive at first, this is not about playing with a “smaller piece of the pie.” Niched expertise is all about going deeper, much deeper, to find that unicorn for your team – that person who possesses that exact set of rare and valuable skills that you’re seeking. Most generalist recruiters simply can’t navigate at that level of depth. It’s like having a specific challenge in your eye and seeing a medical doctor who is a general practitioner, when you need the expertise of an ophthalmologist. 

3. Specialty recruiters often see what others don’t see, and accordingly, can address emerging or repetitive patterns: Consider a hypothetical Company XYZ. We see people leaving this company again and again. Our intel indicates that these individuals are all leaving for the same kind of reason. We can see a pattern here. Because we build trusted relationships with candidates, and because we are third-party recruiters, prospective candidates are often way more honest with us than with prospective employers (never burn a bridge, as they say). If we come across a client, whose management style, or company culture is like Company XYZ, we immediately know not to send them candidates with a certain profile. Jobseekers with such profiles, who are responding to a posting on their own, won’t be privy to such intel. Often, internally, executives can’t see these patterns either, because they are too close to it themselves. In such scenarios, clients have a higher chance of placing the right candidate with the right fit for them, when they work with a specialized recruiter such as ourselves.

---

If you’re looking for the best Bilingual (French/English) talent in Canada to join your team, call or email us today at: (416) 236-3303, [email protected].  We’re connected to top Bilingual talent from coast to coast, and we would be honoured to help you build your dream team.