When planning to improve a business process, it is common to take a technology-first perspective – examining the available technology before asking how it might be applied.

We instead adopt a holistic approach, assessing all aspects of our talent operations comprehensively – from screening and recruitment to performance management and development, encompassing areas such as upskilling and culture building. This is what we refer to as the full “talent cycle”.

This makes it easier to identify opportunities for improvement, focusing on building more effective teams across our firm and portfolio companies. We then seek out technological solutions to address these gaps to increase efficiency across the talent cycle.

One of our core talent principles is ongoing, proactive search for talent, rather than reacting to specific needs as they arise. We systematically map talent and leaders across a range of industries and firms, creating a comprehensive heat map of candidates globally. This enables our leaders and managers to identify and connect with talented prospects worldwide during their travels, building relationships and gauging candidate interest.

We have further developed an internal digital referral system that encourages our employees to recruit talent across their own networks. Employees earn points for referrals and bonuses when a candidate is hired.

Our approach, however, is not static. We continually iterate our recruitment processes and candidate experience with new approaches. One example is in screening candidates: we have replaced the traditional resume screening and phone interviews with an online assessment platform. The platform screens candidates through a range of methods, from short written questions and multiple choice to videos and personality tests. A multifaceted approach allows us to build a more comprehensive view of individuals’ characteristics and capabilities, while offering candidates more flexibility than a scheduled phone call or interview.

Many candidates tell us that they enjoy our assessment approach over traditional methods, and that it differentiates us from other employers. We find that this is especially important when seeking to hire Gen Z talent, as they place a higher value on companies that they perceive as interesting, fun and innovative.

While technology is valuable throughout the hiring process, it is important not to become overly reliant on it. We make a limited number of highly specialized hires in any given year; our process is optimized to make those hires as targeted and strategic as possible. We don’t carry out mass screenings, but instead focus on continually refining our customized talent pool.

Effective talent development is critical for any business, and we believe the best way to approach it is to combine both top-down and bottom-up approaches. We encourage our portfolio companies to build out a nuanced picture of the skills and capabilities required to support their next phase of growth, whether that’s achieved by equipping existing talent with the tools and resources to progress in their careers, or through new targeted hires.

We seek to equip our teams with a suite of proprietary digital tools developed to support the management of different workstreams, receive feedback and upskill.

Elsewhere, the development of Hillhouse’s e-learning app has enabled employees to learn from our extensive network of experts. We have built out collective learning resources on emerging and trending topics, such as the latest business service software, to share the latest perspectives, market views and expertise across our global teams.

Using the digital tools that we have created internally, we share the latest insights from entrepreneurs, portfolio companies, analysts and research teams directly with our investment teams and Chief Investment Officers, allowing our teams to continually refine, enhance and update our decision making with the latest information.

We have recently focused on developing a talent dashboard that we use to map development across our whole business and all stages of the talent cycle. By building an overall picture of our talent performance across the firm, we can identify the experience, traits and behaviors that drive our organization forward.

Formalizing our talent cycle has contributed to this initiative, allowing us to leverage data modelling and visualization to support decision-making and deepen our understanding of the traits and characteristics that underpin our top-performing teams.

The true value of technology lies in enhancing human potential by augmenting capabilities through better insights and improving efficiencies. We believe that by prioritizing people, technology can help to create an environment where innovation flourishes and people thrive. Ultimately, we believe that enabling growth in our team will have a beneficial impact on our portfolio companies, helping them to succeed for the long term.