5 HR and recruitment books we know you'll love

The top five HR and recruitment books our team have enjoyed recently

As the great Oscar Wilde once said, “It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.” We’re big believers in the power of learning through reading and have picked out the top five HR and recruitment books our team have enjoyed recently.

Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility, Patty McCord

Powerful really is a book that lives up to its name. It had us at the intro -

“A company’s job isn’t to empower people; it’s to remind people that they walk in the door with power and to create the conditions for them to exercise it. Do that, and you will be astonished by the great work they will do for you.”
- Patty McCord

It gets to the point and challenges HR conventions - all in a chatty and relatable way. A must read especially if you are in the startup world.

Recruiting in the age of Googlization: When the Shift Hits Your Plan, Ira S. Wolfe

We really think this is a ‘must read’ for 2019. With the ‘race for talent’ becoming increasingly competitive and recruitment marketing taking centre stage, this book really tackles some key themes and offers some great takeaways. We love the structure each chapter finishes with -

• Key points
• Questions for employers
• Questions for workers

You can dip in and out of this book as you need to and we are pretty sure you’ll take away something else every time you do.

The Talent Fix: A Leader's Guide to Recruiting Great Talent, Tim Sackett

Tim’s book a bit like his blog, it gets to the point and there’s no fluff. It’s a real-life guide to recruiting great talent. If you want to skip to the best bits, Chapter 6 - The TA Tech Stack for the Rest of Us - is our favourite,

Exceptional Talent: How to Attract, Acquire and Retain the Very Best Employees, Mervyn Dinnen, Matt Alder

Another super digestible, relevant and relatable book which should be on your 2019 reading list. Exceptional Talent has a really strong ‘trust’ theme throughout, which we love and there’s also some more great content on recruitment marketing in this book.

Talent Magnet: How to Attract and keep the best people, Mark Miller

Talent Magnet is written as a story so it is super simple to digest and a quick read. Despite that, it still tackles some complex and key issues, including -

• Generational differences in the workplace
• Attracting top talent in talent short market
• Bad leadership
• Bad hiring and lack of process around hiring

We hope these five suggestions help in your hunt for great books! We loved them and think they could bring a wealth of inspiration and insights to the industry. Happy reading!