Hiring these days is tough. When the unemployment rate was high, there were a lot more qualified candidates in the pool. Companies weren't looking to fill as many jobs either.
It’s different now — from a high of 10% unemployment in October of 2009 to 4.1% in October of 2017.
Hiring is a courtship. The best candidates have to be convinced that your company is a place they want to work. It takes time and effort to find them now, and often the best hires are people hard at work and not looking for a new job. That’s tough when most company recruitment is still based on the 2009 model where you post jobs and wait for resumes to be submitted.
If your hiring team is still waiting for the job seeker phone to ring, it might be time for a better hiring solution. Here are five signs your recruitment efforts might need improvement.
5 Reasons Your Recruiting Sucks
First, it depends on people seeking you out. Secondly, when they do go online to fill out your form, most companies’ job application systems are tedious. If you think your company is doing better, consider this: according to a survey of more than a 1,200 job seekers and HR folks done by Career Arc, 60% of the candidates said they had a poor experience trying to apply for a job.
It gets worse; 72% of people said that if they had a bad experience with your company in a hiring situation, they would share their experience with others. Often, they share it online, on sites like Glassdoor, which hurts you when potential hires search for info on your company.
Maybe the best candidate you can find isn't looking for a job right now. That means all the time running job ads or attending job fairs isn’t going to attract the very best candidates. How are you going to reach those elusive passive candidates? Most companies don’t spend the time or money to go out and market themselves to find people already employed. A solution? Go to networking events, spend time marketing your internal teams and promoting them on social.
Once you have identified a candidate, your company’s in-house Recruiter or HR Professional will typically start the process. Every moment from that starting point until someone gets a job offer is an opportunity for someone else to offer them a job. In the U.S., the typical length of the interview process is 23.8 days; stray longer than that and you're in danger of losing out on the highly sought after talent.
Time kills all deals as they say.
Once your in-house Recruiter identifies potential candidates, someone’s got to screen the pool. Being too picky may limit the number of qualified candidates, while not being picky enough means your Hiring Manager may have to do the screening themselves.
There’s often a disconnect between what you really need and what you tell the Recruiter you want. Job descriptions can cover basic job duties, but intangibles also play a significant role in hiring decisions. You may find that what appears a strong pool of applicants provided by your in-house recruiting doesn’t yield the traits you value.
Your in-house folks usually have other job duties as well. Whether it’s human resources responsibilities, tracking compliance, reporting and accounting duties, or any number of other tasks, recruiting is rarely a full-time job. That means your position might get put on the back burner when something bigger needs attention.
The recruiting force rarely expands as multiple openings occur, so that means the same number of people are looking to fill your job, no matter how many jobs your company has open. This can be a big problem if you have several important roles open at once.
It might be time to bring in some help.
Tough Questions to Answer
Ask yourself these questions about the person doing your in-house recruiting:
If the answer to all of these question is a resounding YES, congratulations! You’re in a very small minority and probably fill all your positions quickly with qualified candidates.
If that’s not the case, you may want to consider getting some outside help. Our Account Managers are happy to give you some tips on how to improve your hiring process, starting with potentially hiring a staffing partner. Not sure if you need one? Check out our Hiring FAQs for more information, or contact us for a one-on-one chat.