One of the greatest mistakes that so many employers make in the course of their hiring practices is that so many have a tendency to rely on lax executive search and candidate sourcing strategies and then fail to follow through with any kind of active or aggressive strategies to help them find the absolute highest quality individuals they can for the job. Such slack efforts in these important process can only really lead to one conclusion, the hiring of so-so or bad employees who will only ultimately cost the company precious time and resources in their ineffectualness, and rack up yet further losses when they have to be let go and the entire executive search and hiring process has to begin again from scratch. With so much on the line as companies struggle to recuperate from financial crisis, now is not the time for such blatant shortcomings to be allowed to continue. 
It is a sad fact that as many employers seem to see it, their role amounts to drawing up a job description, sending it out into the world through whatever means is available to them, reviewing resumes, interviewing a few choice individuals, and making a final hiring decision. This however is simply the absolute minimum required of such a position and is exceedingly inadequate if the employer is to have any hope whatsoever of recruiting talented employees. To begin with the executive search and candidate sourcing process is one that requires a certain degree of strategy and finesse if it is to be successful. Rather than just spreading word about an open position through all of the old internet job sites, job fairs, and job boards – a useful enough strategy if you are trying to gather a wide swath of applicants and have a good deal of time for reviewing resumes – more employers should try to take a more focused strategy to this process, seeking out individuals who they can see show great promise and then trying to draw them in rather than simply hoping that good candidates turn up. Furthermore, employers should attempt to make the interview process flow more smoothly. This can be achieved in one simple enough step; calling the candidates. By calling up candidates and conducting brief phone interviews before scheduling a full interview, employers can begin quickly and efficiently weeding out the less than desirable applicants by asking those most basic, straightforward interview questions ahead of time. This also gives the employer the opportunity to provide the candidate with some background information about the company and its culture, the position in question and the duties and responsibilities it entails, as well as touching briefly on the issue of compensation and benefits. Another strategy that more employers should be taking advantage of at this time is to leverage information from their candidates about their professional contacts who might be good potential candidates. In the end the point remains that employers need to learn to become more aggressive and tactful in their hiring measures if they truly hope to find solid candidates, assess them efficiently, and bring great new employees into the company.
