AstraZeneca's VP of TA: 'Recruitment is the first step'

Maggie Spong, Vice President of Talent Acquisition at AstraZeneca discusses the importance of recruitment as a central part of managing your best talent…

Why is recruitment an important part of talent management?

The recruitment process is the first step in managing your new talent. During this process we give our employees a feel of our proposition and our offer - which is one of the reasons why they came to us. Through the talent process we need to continue this experience and deliver on the promise we made to them.  This is why at AZ we are developing a strategic, proactive, agile, in-house, expert function that will deliver strong candidate pipelines for the business. This will focus on the process of hiring and the candidate and hiring manager experience. A strong employer brand is shown to be a huge driver in securing good talent, so we want to ensure the experience each candidate receives from AstraZeneca (AZ) - whether they are successful in their interview process or not - is a positive one.

What can HR do to improve the relationship between the two?