Hiring decisions aren’t easy.
Who else but you, as a recruiter, would know of it?
You would agree that your challenges are two-fold:
One, get more applicants to apply to your organization.
Two, get the best of these applicants in the shortest possible time.
This is best summed up with the following statement by Sten Tamkivi, Co-founder of Teleport and an early executive at Skype who says:
“The No.1 factor is attracting a group of smart, well-motivated people who have the space and trust to operate at their peak capacity towards the vision you have for the company”
Agreeing to his statement is easy, but getting the work done is not.
While we all want a company that will run like a well-oiled machine, finding the best talent to take the wheels and man the “machine” is difficult.
When was the process of recruitment ever easy, anyway?
However, here is how you can face up to the 5 biggest recruitment challenges you will face
Hiring Challenge 1: Acquiring the best talent in the shortest possible time
The growing number of jobs is predicted to make recruiting conditions even tougher in 2016.
This entails more accurate talent acquisition, while avoiding slow hiring at the same time.
As if hiring for cultural fit isn’t tough enough, now recruiters have to sift through a huge number of job prospects to fit an even higher number of vacancies.
If only you can just slot one person in like you would put a missing piece on a jigsaw puzzle.
Here is what you could try doing instead:
Use Online assessments to find the best fit for your organization.
With an online recruitment test, you can evaluate your applicants for their behavioral traits as well as key cognitive abilities.
This could help you streamline your hiring process and zero in on the best available talent.
Add to this the pat on your back for increasing the speed of selection and also reducing unnecessary costs involved in the recruitment process.
Hiring Challenge 2: Hiring top talent that then goes job hopping
It is a fact that the best candidates have it easy where job acquisition is concerned. Most of them, that is. They receive multiple offers, and they can afford to go job hopping instead of job hunting.
During the hiring process, you could find yourself second-guessing about using best practices in employee testing and selection, because it might drive a candidate away.
But you just can’t do away with evaluating a candidate’s skills and knowledge. Also, skipping behavioral assessment in favor of a candidate’s skill assessment might prove to be a bad idea.
Solution?
Ensure a great interview experience. Involve a right mix of assessments and personal interaction in the recruitment process.
If needed, have a senior leader talk with candidates to create that sense of importance and appreciation.
Hiring Challenge 3: Shortage of the right talent applying for your job
When the job-to-candidate ratio is high, finding the best fit is downright difficult.
Because you can’t afford to pass up every opportunity to assess and interview a prospective candidate, you end up wasting a huge amount of time, money and effort.
Worse, you could end up with no one to fill a job vacancy.
And when the position vacancy days are excessive, it will be considered a failure metric in recruitment.
Solution?
Use tools to help you find where great talents are in excess than the job demand.
You may also consider having a flexible mindset in not just hiring for a position, but for getting someone really great irrespective of the position.
Also evaluate the job description and consider changing it, if it isn’t properly depicting the position.
Hiring Challenge 4: Hiring blindness – Getting rid of preconceived notions
Say you are intent in hiring for cultural fit.
Because you set your mind as to the kind of candidate you are looking for, you would end up missing other factors that matter. Your mind is so primed at searching for specific things that you miss the big picture.
Solution?
Erase any pre-conceived ideas before an interview, and follow the best practices in recruitment process.
Hiring Challenge 5: Making use of Social Media in your Recruitment
Yes, social recruiting is in today.
Combined with traditional recruitment methods, you can find and attract talent to your company using social media as an effective tool.
In fact, even candidates use social media to search for the right job and workplace.
However, as a recruiter, the challenge is to stay ahead and adopt the best social recruiting practices in your hiring strategy.
Solution?
Get to know how social recruiting works and incorporate it into your overall recruitment plan.
Build a social recruiting strategy – get your existing employees involved and encourage them to share how it is like to work for your organization.
Improve the way your company portrays itself on social media and come up with tactics to connect with the most qualified job seekers on various social channels.
These are some of the greatest challenges that you as a recruiter would face while hiring.
What can you do then to help yourself?
Cut the process of recruitment short where possible.
Take advantage of an online assessment software to weed out unsuitable candidates from the lot.
The initial result may not be enough to pass judgment, but it will tell you which job applicant has little to no chance at all.
Is there any recruitment challenge that you face?
Share with us in the comments.
