Jan Tegze: “Convincing candidates to choose your company is becoming a real art”

Jan Tegze is the author of the book Full Stack Recruiter. He is a results-oriented talent acquisition leader with extensive experience in full life cycle recruiting and broad knowledge of international recruiting, sourcing, recruitment branding, recruitment marketing, and proactive innovative sourcing techniques. 

He is also the author of The Sourcing Games. And a blogger who believes that recruitment is a great field and is constantly trying to make it better. Moreover, he defines himself as a regular guy who fell in love with recruitment, sourcing, and writing. He is working to improve the world one day at a time.

We had the pleasure of talking with him. The topics discussed were talent, recruiting, what we should expect in the future, and, obviously, his book.

What talent means to you?

Finding a clear definition of talent is challenging. Especially since “talent” has become one of those buzzwords that get thrown around in the recruitment and HR worlds. My favorite definition of talent is “Talents are recurring patterns of thought, feeling, and behaviour.” (Book: First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman)

And I believe that everyone is born with a certain amount of talent. But talent is only the starting point that will help you discover your potential to be great at something. To fully unlock your potential talent, you need to put hard work into it.

How does Jan Tegze see the future of recruiting?

Predicting the future is difficult, like weather forecasting. It hasn’t improved even though we have satellites, fast computers, and enough data. Predictions may be good for a couple of days, but we cannot predict the weather for the next two months and be right about every day. And any prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.

I know it is popular to say that the future will be full of chatbots, AI, etc. We have heard that so many times. And still, you do not have chatbots that can understand properly what you are trying to say. And AI technology in recruitment is slowly being banned in several countries due to its bias.

I always believed that the future of recruiting lies in well-trained recruiters who not only understand the recruitment field and have good knowledge of technology but are empathic. It is easy to find anyone these days. But convincing candidates to choose your company is becoming a real art. 

Due to the shortage of talent on the market and the ability to hire remotely, you are fighting a battle for every candidate. Not with dozens of competitors but with hundreds or even thousands of them. That is why the future of recruiting will be more about humans and their well-being, and their experience through the entire process, than chatting with chatbots. Of course, this will all depend on the industry and location. But how people feel during the process will matter a lot.

What do you think would be the next game-changer for recruiters?

Everyone is looking for the next big thing, the silver bullet. But in reality, if you treat your employees with respect, pay them well, let them grow and provide the right career opportunities, and let their feedback and opinions be heard, not only will you drastically improve retention, but this will also have a positive impact on hiring.

The “next game-changer” for any company will be a good company culture and if the recruitment team will get a seat in the leadership when all those big decisions are made. The TA team will be able to influence when the company will be hiring new employees. This is because they know where the talent is. They will also be able to set the expectations of other departments for how quickly they will be able to get new talent on board. And other departments will realize that hiring is everyone’s responsibility. And it is not only the TA’s responsibility to attract the right talent to the company.

You wrote a very successful sourcing and a recruiting book named Full Stack Recruiter which is considered by some a must-have for every recruiter. Why did you decide to write it? What is in it that made it so successful?

Thank you for your kind feedback! I wrote Full Stack Recruiter for several reasons. One of which was to have a book that could be shared with junior recruiters, so they could have a resource that would help them at the start of their careers. And for seasoned recruiters, this is a great way to refresh your knowledge and learn a few new tricks. And I hope to open your mind to new ways, methods, and approaches. 

I believe it is my years of experience that made it successful. I wrote about things I did or am doing every day, so it is not a collection of thoughts I might have about some topic. What I am sharing is my own experience and the knowledge that I collected over the years working in recruitment. A knowledge that I very often obtained through a series of failures and tests.

If you only could give one piece of advice to a recruiter that is struggling to find talent, what it would be?

You are not alone! Sometimes your struggle is caused by a lack of experience, so invest in yourself and learn as many things as possible. It really doesn’t matter if you learn something new from recruitment, sales, marketing, psychology, or any other industry. You will undoubtedly apply your new knowledge at work. Recruitment is about continuing to learn, so investing in yourself is the best investment you can make.

And if you struggle to find talent, because nobody is listening to your advice and feedback about why it’s impossible to find the right talent due to low salaries, wrong expectations, company culture, etc., maybe it is time for you to change. Life is short, and it is better to spend it learning from a great leader than to be stuck with a bad one for years and not learn anything new.

Are any exciting projects on Jan Tegze ‘s horizon? Maybe another book?

There is always some book on the horizon, and due to the lockdown in 2020, I was able to finish my fictional novel (Blinding Lights) and my book for kids (Martin’s First Day). And of course, I am working on one more book that should be out in 2022.

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