Three HR experts from global organizations dispel 4 common career pathing myths that will allow you to attract—and more importantly—retain new talent.

With unemployment at a 17-year low of 4.1 percent, and baby-boomers retiring at a rate of one every nine seconds, the US faces a potential worker shortage of 8.2 million from 2017-2027. It comes as no surprise, then, that 27 percent of organizations in North America spent more on learning and development (L&D) in 2017  than in the year previous. These businesses recognize that upskilling and developing employees will hold them over in times of talent scarcity, and create a culture of continuous learning that wards off stagnation.

However, it’s not just companies who benefits, as workers increasingly desire clear paths to success. CNBC recently reported the top five things millennials (now the majority of the workforce) desire when they start a new job are

1. 1. Sufficient training — 40 percent

1. 1. Clear goals and expectations — 31 percent

1. 1. Given all the information needed to do the job — 30 percent

1. 1. Reasonable goals and timelines — 26 percent

1. Leaders are invested in employee success — 23 percent

This means having an internal structure for career development isn’t just a retention tactic, but a recruiting selling point for attracting top candidates.

Career development is different for everyone, especially in the modern age of work-experimentation. Flat hierarchies, project-based work, and the constant demand for new skills have caused us to rethink the traditional career ladder concept, but that doesn’t mean we’re throwing it all out the window.

To better understand what has changed, and what hasn’t, we take a trip back to Hiring Success 18 EU, to the session Internal Career Pathing, where HR experts Hillary Klassen of Career Ari, Laura Moreno Salinas of Zattoo (formerly Native Instruments), and Sanam Moayedi-Stummer of Coca-Cola European Partners share their experiences with employee advancement programs to identify four misconceptions about advancement at your company to get them on board and keep them onboard.

1. Career development doesn’t need to be discussed right away.

Many people wouldn’t think to detail advancement strategy with a new hire, but Hillary says “career pathing conversations need to happen within the first week, that way you know what you need to achieve to get to where you want to go.” Giving new hires the opportunity for growth immediately lets them know there’s room to explore at your organization, and that you want them to succeed.

2. Advancement is all the employee – you want it? Go get it.

“On your first day, you don’t even know where the fire exits are, let alone what career pathing should look like at this new company.” Says Laura. “You need to be grown into making these development decisions.” Employee advancement is a shared endeavor. Companies bear most of the responsibility towards the beginning of a new employee’s career by making opportunities and resources available to them, and highlighting which department leaders are readily accessible. In time, employees should start to gradually take on more ownership as they gain experience at the organization.

3. You have to be able to manage people in order to advance.

In highly technical jobs like engineering, the idea that a person must be good at managing people in order to advance is falling by the wayside. Now, companies are offering an alternative to the traditional track of “people development” in the form of “expert development”, which puts the focus on advancing in a particular discipline as opposed to climbing the company ladder. “Engineers especially need opportunities to grow where they don’t have to become people leaders.” Says Laura. “Not everyone is good at that, or even wants to be good at that and they need to have an equal opportunity to advance.”

4. The career ladder is dead.

The career ladder isn’t dead according to Sanam, it just looks different than it once did. “I like to think of the career ladder as more of a house.” She says, “you climb up to one floor, explore there, learn new things, then maybe you see a door and that’s the next step for you.” The system of advancement isn’t strictly vertical anymore, people explore laterally as well. This freedom of movement is crucial to business agility and should be viewed as valuable.

Watch the full session now!

Virtual reality, instrumental jam sessions, live chat-bot battles, and everything else you would – and wouldn’t – expect from an HR conference.

Hiring Success 18 EU is here! 250 Talent Acquisition leaders from around the globe – including yourself, perhaps – have landed in Berlin for 48-hours of thought-provoking interactive sessions and live demos on three main tracks, #Innovation, #Inclusion, and #HiringSuccess, that will delve into the most important topical issues in recruiting today.

With over 30 sessions to choose from in only two days, we thought it wouldn’t hurt to recommend a few!

Have you hired a refugee?

#Inclusion

Is your company interested in starting a program to hire refugees? The first step is empathy and understanding. Hear from actual displaced persons about what it means to leave behind the life you know and rebuild everything from the ground up. The second half of the session invites informational Scientists from Humboldt University to participate in a panel discussion to deep dive into the programs available to refugees now, and how your company could start building its own.

Unlock potential with augmented and virtual reality

#Innovation

Explore the burgeoning fields of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality, first through art, then though recruiting. Josephine Ackerman COO & Deputy Global Head Art, Culture & Sports at Deutsche Bank gives a live demonstration of how her company uses AR and VR to bring artworks to life in contemporary art exhibitions they support. These new technologies allow an artist’s intention and historical context to come to the forefront of the museum experience without dense wall text. Using only a smartphone, a static image or text can turn into a rotating font of information. Learn how Deutsche Bank and others have begun to apply the same principles to job advertising, onboarding, and training.

Battle of the Bots

#Innovation

Watch the leading chat bots battle it out in a live face-off. Leading recruiting chatbots will have a face-off in a live battle. Ask these virtual helpers questions to test the limits of their natural-language processing, get to know their unique personalities, and see how gracefully they fail. Your vote determines the winner at the end!

Accelerate revenue with TA

#HiringSuccess

Stop looking at TA as a cost center. Learn how the recruiting team at Microsoft were able to accelerate revenue for Azure Cloud during their digital transformation with heir Director of TA for EMEA, Elke Jorens. This workshop shows how infusing data from market and funnel-analysis contributes to the bottom line, so you can apply that same expert methodology to a project of your choice.

Synchronicity

#Inclusion

Whether you are a practicing musician or haven’t picked up an instrument since the recorder, this session is for you. Join the MIT grad and leadership expert, M Baha in an interactive jam session that uses the principles of music to promote the tenets of diversity and inclusion in a business setting.

Inspire your Remote Workforce

#Inclusion

While the draw of global talent is great, managing remote teams is still largely unexplored territory. Which is why we brought in Beat Buhlmann, one of the few people in the world who have a doctorate related to managing virtual teams, and the current GM for Evernote.  

Buhlmann lays out the benefits of employing a remote workforce and then shows how to address the challenges these offsite teams pose,  from both a culture and a tech standpoint. Walk away with the tools to sell your board on remotes hires, and the know-how of how to engage them throughout their tenure.

Internal Career Pathing

#HiringSuccess

Companies unanimously recognize the value of employees who have experience in more than one department, yet these high performers remain an anomaly rather than a matter of course. The abstract promise of great return on investment (ROI) in hiring, never seems to be enough to push internal mobility initiatives to the top of the to-do list. So we bring you the director of people for Native Instruments, Laura Moreno Salinas, and the Director and Program Lead Accelerate One HR at Coca-Cola European Partners, Sanam Moayedi-Stummer to demonstrate the success of their internal career pathing programs and help you get started on your own.

Recruiting Startup Awards

#Innovation

Step into the future of TA technology with our Recruiting Startup of the Year Competition, where the newest and most daring startups in HR pitch it out on our main stage. The winner will receive €9,000 in sponsorship and an article about them written by a leading TA influencer. The contest began July 1st, when these fledgling startups leveraged the strength of their social network to be voted into the top five, who will now convince the expert panel at Hiring Success 18 they have what it takes.