Modern recruitment process as a competitive advantage in talent acquisition: A Recruiter's Playbook

This master’s thesis for the Degree Programme in International Business Management studied the phenomenon of employment mismatch (also known as the “war for talent”) and modern recruitment process and how companies have and could use it as a competitive advantage in their talent acquisition and furthermore growth strategy. The study includes guidelines, tips, observations and “best practises” for how to create a modern-day best practices for recruitment process and how to use excellent candidate experience as a competitive advantage as a part of company’s talent acquisition strategy. All the above mentioned were wrapped up as the “Recruiter’s Playbook”, which is a modern-day recruitment process manual for anyone wanting to develop, improve or check the status of their recruitment process and candidate experience. The research was made concentrating especially in IT roles where there is a severe employment mismatch, such as software developers. The theoretical framework was based on published studies done in the field of recruiting, job interviews, talent acquisition strategies and employer branding as well as on books, online articles and theses. The study was carried out in the form of constructive research and the data were collected through semi-structured interviews of four recruitment or recruitment technology specialists and candidate experience professionals in Finland who seek to make recruiting more candidate-centric. The analytical approach was qualitative. The findings showed that the things that cause most of bad candidate experiences are very simple; lack of communication and sharing information as well as the difficulty and arduousness of submitting applications. In conclusion, talent acquisition and its strategical importance should be acknowledged in all organizations. As the companies are only as good as its people are, finding and recruiting new talents are in crucial role. Employers need to descend from their ivory towers and meet the applicants and candidates as individuals and show sincere interest in their potential and career plans, not only in their CVs and current skills. Attracting talents today require exceptional skills and companies need to invest in offering multiple, easy ways for the applicants to find information and have dialogue with the companies. Also applying needs to be quick. The companies who can offer mobile applying process without filling in complex forms or typing long cover letters, are the winners of tomorrow