Contributed by Bernadette Launi
At ATAP, we have the goal of advancing the Talent Acquisition profession. We plan to accomplish this mission through developing a universal body of ethical and measurement standards, advocating on account of industry issues, and cultivating a global community of engaged professionals.
ATAP has accomplished a lot in the past year, and it’s more important than ever to remember why ATAP is here in the first place: for Talent Acquisition professionals.
That’s why we spent a day with three professionals in different areas of Talent Acquisition, collecting their stories as they reflected on their careers in the industry and what ATAP would mean (or have meant!) for them. These stories were used to create a short video celebrating ATAP and the professionals the organization serves.
YOU are ATAP! from ATAP Global on Vimeo.
Explore some of the stories we found:
“So I really had to figure out what to do first.”
When Linda Gillen joined Blackboard in 2004, she was joining a brand new Human Resources leadership team and tasked with building out the first global recruiting function for the 400-employee and $150 million organization. Where to begin!?
Gillen forged ahead by creating Blackboard’s first global referral program and adopting an applicant tracking system, all while maintaining the day-to-day hiring needs of such a rapidly growing organization. She knew she was laying foundations that would need to be grown and improved upon in the future.
Currently the Head of Global Talent Assessment Talent Acquisition at Gartner, Gillen is proud of what she accomplished in those early days at Blackboard. But looking back, she wished she had had a community of professionals she could have leaned on for advice and support during those “daunting” early days.
ATAP and its inclusive body of professionals will be there to support professionals like Gillen as they tackle their Talent Acquisition challenges.
“It’s all about learning best practices.”
Randy Bailey co-founded the Boston Area Talent Sourcing Association (BATSA) in 2014, a community that brought together talent sourcing professionals to create a space where they could share and exchange knowledge. Sound familiar?
“There are some luminaries in our business that have become my friends,” Bailey reflected. “They have helped me learn this craft as well as I know it.”
It was his experience with BATSA that made Bailey so eager to join ATAP. The sourcing community made such a larger difference in his career, that expanding this community to all of Talent Acquisition is nothing short of “fantastic.”
“When I moved to the U.S. I thought the transition would be very simple. It wasn’t.”
Uprooting your life and moving to a new country is hard enough; add the transition to a new work culture on top of it all, and it’s a lot to adjust to.
Suvasanamayee Viswanatha has a passion for recruiting. When she moved to the United States in 2010, she expected her recruiting skills to translate fairly seamlessly. Recruiting is recruiting, right?
“The way people work out here is different, the style is different,” Viswanatha recalls. “It meant learning something completely new.”
ATAP does not want to just be a resource within the U.S. market – ATAP is a universal resource connecting professionals around the world.
Said Viswanatha, “I think if I had had ATAP at that point in time, it would have made the transition much easier.”
ATAP is advancing the Talent Acquisition profession one individual at a time. Become a member or a sponsor today to join our mission!
Have a Talent Acquisition story you want to share? Email your story to marketing@atapglobal.org to be featured as we count down to #GlobalTADay on September 5th.