How to find the talent of tomorrow

Are CVs soon to be a thing of the past? Is the time coming to put away the traditional career ladder? Find out how companies are using people analytics and artificial intelligence to go beyond just hierarchy, training and past career path and find the young talents of the future.

Are CVs soon to be a thing of the past? According to Tom Brown, HR Vice President at eBay, people analytics and artificial intelligence will play a decisive role in talent development and training in the future. The idea is that this approach will help to reveal people’s true talents without the risk of recruiters getting sidetracked by CVs or rejecting candidates prematurely (source: The Future of E-commerce Lies in Talent Development and Smart Data | by Rallyware | Rallyware | Medium).

In future, the talent search won’t have to be limited to a select pool of a few candidates. Thanks to virtual talent scouting, remote assessment centers and mobile-based exploration of career aspirations and personality preferences, all employees can be integrated into the process. Game-based competitions give participants the opportunity to show their true potential, far more than hierarchies and CVs. This gives companies the chance to find out a lot more about their employees and identify and promote their strengths, talents and growth opportunities (source: What can HR learn from the e-commerce sector as digital becomes the future? | LinkedIn).

The traditional career ladder will become a thing of the past. Instead, roles and responsibilities will be defined flexibly based on current requirements and teams will be composed in an agile manner. Moving beyond job titles, the key players in each case will be qualified on an individual and situational basis so as to acquire the skills required by the market flexibly and in an agile manner. For companies, that means ensuring employees have the necessary opportunities for personalized training. While elite further training was previously a privilege reserved for a select few young talents, in future there will be greater emphasis on autonomous learning and systematic learning support for all employees. Employees will take on a greater level of responsibility for their development. Formal and informal learning via social and digital learning formats are mutually supportive, work hand in hand and help to reveal the talents of tomorrow.

While on the one hand technological advances will mean that more work is done by machines in future, on the other, there will be a need for specialists and skills that we can’t even imagine today. However, companies will take a much more holistic and objective approach to employee growth using AI and people analytics to find these newly required specialists and develop the necessary skills. Personal prejudice and bias will no longer have a part to play.

These developments will also change the role of the HR department. There will be a great need for critical people who can take on the strategic development of the business, since the day-to-day management of tasks will be done by machines. It’s a good idea even today to establish an HR culture which sees each potential employee as a customer. As with customers, the focus should be on the user experience, the time requirement and the design of the user journey in order to achieve an optimal level of satisfaction and enable long-lasting ties with the employee.

Due to the current situation, Connecta Bern will again be held as a digital event in 2021. Connecta is renowned for shining a light on the diverse nature of digitization and this year will be no different with content presented across the three formats of Connecta Blog, Connecta TV and Connecta Talk. Find out more here: www.swisspost.ch/connecta.