TA Talk Tank (T3) is a concerted effort to empower employed talent professionals to dedicate themselves to having one conversation with one job seeker – all in an effort to make a positive impact for countless industry peers. Get started at: TATalkTank.com
T3 is a CXR Foundation project in partnership with RealLinks. And because it’s managed through a nonprofit, employees have the option of providing charitable hours and/or matching time comitted to the effort by their employees.
It certainly is. We know most Talent Acquisition professionals who make a career of recruiting are willing to pay it forward when asked. All of us at various times in our career want to pick the brains of company leaders, other recruiters, technology services professionals about how they got there and what they like about it. We set T3 up to make it easy for you to reach out AND to be the one others reach out to. The only cost is to consider paying it forward to someone else.
Well, that is a great question. We had lots of suggestions and liked the ‘TA’ part of TAlk TAnk. Maybe we’ll find something that is better and rename it but we didn’t want to leave people feeling that it was a formal mentoring program when it is simply asking a volunteer for a virtual coffee to pick their brain for 30-60 minutes about jobs, careers and life as a recruiter in general. How about “Mentor Lite”?
The definition of mentor is definitely a problem because it means too many things and we don’t want to imply a long term relationship as essential to the program.
What we do want is to connect two people in the moment based on what is keeping the mentee up at night right now. The virtual conversation might solve the issue or serve to encourage more conversations… but not necessarily with the same ‘mentor’. So on this platform, a mentor is a recruiting professional willing to be a ‘momentary advisor’ to peers and colleagues.
You should have four qualities to be a ‘momentary advisor’ for TAlk TAnk:
A passion for recruiting. A compulsion to always try and improve. The critical thinking skills of a student who is always questioning. And be someone willing to share your story unconditionally.
You should notice there isn’t anything in the above that relates to years of experience or role in our industry. Some of that can be found in the mentor profiles to help a mentee choose who to reach out to but everyone needs to be willing and able to pay it forward with what they have. We are all both mentees and mentors in the scheme of things
After exploring a few conversations on this platform you might come to the conclusion that a formal mentoring program is important and we recommend you look first in your company. If coaching is not an employer benefit, we encourage you to Google “Career Coaching Associations” and do a bit of research to find the right platform and individual. Keep in mind that in the United States there aren’t any legal requirements for hanging a coaching/mentoring shingle. Always do in-depth interviews before committing.
Reach out today and find out how you can help improve the recruiting industry.