Attract & Select | Gauri Rege

Strategic Talent Acquisition and Selection Processes

Proactively building the workforce needed to achieve present and future business goals.

My expertise in pipeline management, job analysis, selection, and hiring allows me to help clients tackle the top-of-the funnel talent issues. My experience has afforded me first-hand experience in strategies that spans from strengthening industry pipelines to developing selection systems for specific organizations and roles.

Developing a Robust Talent Pipeline

In today's fast-paced business world, a strong and steady supply of skilled talent is essential for success. A robust talent pipeline is a proactive business strategy that ensures your organization is always ready to fill critical roles by identifying, attracting, and engaging top talent well before a need even arises.

Context and Challenge. The integrity of democratic processes is directly linked to the strength of the election workforce. Without a steady stream of qualified individuals, election offices can face

operational challenges that put the security and efficiency of elections at risk. A philanthropic

organization dedicated to supporting election administration sought evidence-based recommendations for where to invest their resources to help mitigate the risks associated with a fragile workforce.

Our Solution. My team's goal was to develop data-driven recommendations that were the and a roadmap, that are responsive to the most pressing election administration workforce challenges.

Role: Project Director
Team: 5 Researchers with backgrounds in I-O Psychology, Workforce Development, and Sector Strategies
Timeline: 6 months (overlapping with a national election and end of year holidays!)

We adopted a multi-step approach to data collection and analysis, with findings from each task informing the development of materials for subsequent tasks. Our methods carefully balanced learning about on-the-ground challenges and leveraging insights from subject matter expert to extrapolate the challenges and needs of the election administration workforce across election offices.

My Responsibilities. In my role as the project director, I led a multidisciplinary team of researchers and consultants, guiding their work to produce evidence-based recommendations for the client. I worked closely with task leads and team members to:

Provide the strategic vision for the project by translating the client's needs into a research questions and a comprehensive study design.
Oversee all technical tasks from data collection and analyses to final deliverables on an ambitious timeline, ensuring the project met all deadlines and quality standards.
Manage all aspects of the project lifecycle, including allocating tasks, managing the budget, creating and tracking the work plan, and ensuring the deliverables were submitted on time.
Serve as the primary client liaison, managing expectations, communicating progress, and presenting final recommendations to client leadership.

Impact and Why This Matters. Our research provided a clear, evidence-based recommendations for future investments and a roadmap for the philanthropic organization. We prioritized our recommendations based on investments that would not only help alleviate the most pressing

workforce challenges, but also further the professionalism characteristics of jobs in election administration.

Our recommendations included concrete actions such as:

Create a virtual community of practice to connect and support election professionals.
Develop a competency model to define the skills needed for election roles.
Design and disseminate standardized selection tools and templates.

By identifying the specific challenges and needs of the election workforce, my team empowered a key philanthropic organization to make targeted investments that will build a more robust, stable, and resilient talent pipeline. Ultimately, this work helps to secure the integrity of democratic processes by ensuring that election offices have the skilled professionals they need to operate effectively.

2. Developing and Implementing Legally Defensible Selection Tools

Implementing selection tools that are validated, legally defensible, and standardized is crucial for several reasons. By ensuring that hiring decisions are based on job-relevant criteria, it reduces bias from the hiring process and helps improve the quality of hire. It also protects an organization from legal challenges and discrimination lawsuits. Furthemore, providing a positive experience for all candidates, regardless of the outcome, can help it enhance an organization's reputation .

Context and Challenge. Apprenticeships provide a vital method for employers to build a consistent and skilled talent pipeline, ensuring they have workers with the specific skills needed for their jobs. One of the nation's largest apprenticeship and training programs faced asignificant challenge: they

needed a legally defensible, standardized, and job-relevant apprentice selection process. This meant creating a process that was fair, consistent across all locations, and directly related to the actual duties and requirements of the job.

Our Solution. Under my direction, my team adopted a multi-step approach across multiple years, which started with analyzing the job, which in turn informed the subsequent development of the selection tools and processes.

Role: Project Director
Team: 8 I-O Psychology Researchers
Timeline: 8+ years

Our approach included:

A thorough job analysis to understand the specific duties and requirements of the roles. We reviewed existing data and gathered new information through site visits, focus groups, surveys, and committee reviews. This analysis provided the foundation for everything that followed.
Development of a new set of selection tools, including candidate-facing materials, a new selection assessment, resources that supplemented the implementation of the selection assessment, and a standardized interview form.
Continiuous and ongoing analysis of test data to ensure the selection assessment was performing as expected and was not causing adverse impact on any group of candidates.

My Responsibilities. Since 2017, in my role as the project director on this project, I have led a team of I/O psychology researchers. I have gained a deep understanding for our client's needs and work closely with task leads and team members to:

Direct the strategic vision for a multi-year project, translating the client's need for a legally defensible selection process into a comprehensive, phased research and development plan.
Manage the project's entire lifecycle, including budget oversight, timeline adherence, and the allocation of tasks to task leads who oversaw specific workstreams like job analysis and assessment development.
Cultivate a long-term, trusting relationship with the client, acting as the primary liaison and strategic partner to communicate progress, manage expectations, and ultimately open new avenues for collaboration beyond the initial scope.
Oversee all technical aspects of the study, guiding task leads in executing the job analysis, developing and implementing new selection tools, and conducting continuous validation and adverse impact analyses to ensure legal defensibility.

Impact and Why This Matters. The new selection tools have equipped apprenticeship centers in every state with a standardized and validated way to select apprentices. This ensures a consistent and fair process nationwide. This work ensures that a major apprenticeship program selects

apprentices in a fair, legally defensible, and effective manner. This not only benefits the organization by providing a sustainable pipeline of skilled talent but also supports apprentices by ensuring the selection process is job-relevant.

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