The Hong Kong Talent Acquisition Community Gathered to Debate Building Recruiter Capability and Social Media

The Chapman Consulting Group co-hosted the first gathering in 2013 of the APAC Talent Acquisition community at the offices of Moody’s on Monday 11th March. We were joined by TA Leaders from companies such as ANZ, Walmart, Nomura, Cisco, 3M, Deloitte, Flextronics and Avery Dennison. It was a good chance to catch up on the latest market sentiment across industries as Q1 wraps up.

The discussion was anchored by two short presentations about building recruiter capability and successfully re-booting social media, as well as some general discussion of hot topics from the group.

Some keynote take always that stood out:

• ‘Building recruiter capability’ is being explored by some companies as they assess the structure and role/s needed in their function. No one formula seemed to fit every industry.
• The continued specialisation of researchers/sources/social media managers within the function is challenging the norms of capability.
• RPO and outsourcing aspects of the process (research and administration were mentioned) have been implemented within larger volume businesses as opposed to niche teams of specialists which are preferred by others. However, ownership and business linkage was the main driver.
• Workforce planning during Q1 across many businesses still seemed to be positive although as hard to accurately predict as ever! New market openings (Myanmar) and an appetite for growth (Philippines) and sense of opportunity (Indonesia) still appeared to be the message outside banking.
• Social media policy and process management via corporate offices outside Asia is hampering the speed and purity of progress for some. Global editing is diluting the bespoke Asia messages that are needed.

The next Hong Kong gathering for TA Heads will be in June 2013.