If there’s one thing HR professionals agree on today, it is that the business wants more — not less — from HR. But when business and HR leaders sit down to work together, they often find themselves focused less on what needs to be done and more on how. That’s a waste of time, because we already know what business leaders are looking for: better, faster and cheaper services that are more strategically aligned with business objectives.

The challenge of meeting these expectations has stymied even the best HR organizations. Especially when coordination is required across multiple business units and geographies. In those areas, integration is often handled on an ad hoc basis through an informal network of “go-to” HR people – with success hinging on relationships and special effort rather than reliable processes, lines of authority and structure. As a result, there’s often a gap between the expectations of business leaders and what HR is set up to deliver.

To improve performance, we propose a simple step in the evolution of HR organizations: a division of responsibility between HR executives charged with making broad, strategic choices and those focused more on operational execution. This requires creating a new, senior HR role — the HR Chief Operating Officer. It’s a key step in clearing the way for CHROs to focus onwhat needs to get done, with support from an HR COO who has responsibility for how it gets done.

Final thought. The HR Chief Operating Officer is not a role that someone can be phased into over time. Nor can it be piloted. It requires a depth of conviction from CHROs who know they are not yet delivering the services that the business needs.

Find the article here: http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/Insights/Browse-by-Content-Type/deloitte-debates/HR-and-Talent/index.htm

If you’re looking for a job right now and you aren’t on LinkedIn, you’ve got a problem. With social media networking at an all time high, many recruiters are using this professional online network to connect with potential candidates for their clients. Even if you aren’t actively searching for a new job, having a LinkedIn profile with some desirable keywords that you maintain and update will allow recruiters to see you and possibly offer you a better opportunity than your current gig.

Although there are many other social network sites available, LinkedIn is the most important for business professionals just because it was created just for business and networking reasons. With LinkedIn you can make professional connections that may help you land your dream career, participate in discussions with other like-minded people, get people to recommend you online, upload your resume and post about your most recent projects and accomplishments. You can also tell about what kind of job you are currently searching for. It’s all about sharing professional information with others like you, or recruiters who may be looking for someone with your credentials, and it’s completely free.

Keep in mind that just creating a LinkedIn account is not enough. You need to be an active participant on the site, this means reaching out to make connections, update your profile frequently and participate in discussions and dialogue with other professionals. Don’t worry if you don’t have hundreds of connections, if the ones you have are quality, relevant and active connections, that’s all that matters.

Through LinkedIn you may be able to connect with people who can share information about a company you want to work for that could help you during your interview. You may also be able to get names of human resource people or the interviewer, which can often be really difficult, especially if you’re filling out applications online. You can also try to connect yourself with recruiters on LinkedIn to get yourself on their radar in case they do have a job come out that would be great for you.

I think that we can all agree that the deepest motivation of a job seeker is to just get a job with a salary that comes with it.  But I think that we’d be amiss if we didn’t take a deeper look into the other motivations that job seekers have when choosing (because the best candidates choose) a position.

Most importantly, to be effective in bringing in the right top talent, you need to know what your target candidates motivations are for choosing an company to work for.  To do this, you should set up a top candidate profile.  First, understand what skills & personality traits you are looking for in your ideal candidates (basically what are you looking for)? Second, try and identify what these ideal candidates top motivations are and rank them.  Do they want to be part of something special?  Do they value company culture?  Do they like building stuff or focusing on making existing things better?

How do you figure this out?

Ask your employees.  Your employees are a hotbed for this information as they are the best test cases for the type of candidates that have been successful at your company.  Ask them what their motivations are and what they value most.  It should be similar to the candidates you are trying to recruit.

What do you do once you figure it out?

Once you have a clear idea of what motivations rank highly for your ideal candidates, you can target your recruitment marketing messaging around them.  Make sure to highlight the ways your company excels in areas that relate to these motivations and play to your target audience.  You are selling your company to top candidates, so you should start trying to think about what they want instead of just providing the status quo.

Most importantly, track how this new messaging performs in bringing top candidates through your door with recruitment metrics that you’ve built in your system.  If the new messaging isn’t working, update it and continue to track and analyze.  Find a message and story that works and continually try and make it better.

Targeted recruiting messaging can help you reach this top talent!  You just need to find what that targeted messaging should be.