Given the dramatic unemployment rate seen in recent years many companies have been absolutely taken by surprise in their hiring efforts to discover that the labor market seems remarkably absent of the high quality, talented individuals that they are so in need of at this time. In light of this development, the hiring market has become fiercely competitive with more and more employers turning to poaching strategies in hopes of snagging talent from their competitors rather than trying their hand at more traditional executive search and hiring techniques. When positions open up within an organization, employers are now struggling harder than ever to effectively fill these roles, and finding that the delays in doing so can have long impacting consequences for the organization … Many companies have already begun turning to executive search firms and recruiters to help them answer these needs.
However, many hiring managers and HR personnel are now learning that should they like to stay on top, they must effectively reassess and reorganize their hiring strategies to meet with the new challenges presented by such an unfavorable job market. The first thing that many of these individuals are discovering is that, in order to get the job done, hiring practices can no longer fall into the traditional 9-to-5 work day structure, but must be expanded. For one, many employers are now holding their interviews either before or after typical work hours and even on weekends. This scheduling can provide a much more favorable opportunity to those candidates who might not be able to take the time to come in when they are supposed to be at their own jobs. What is more, those who do manage to come to interviews during the work day can have a tendency to be overly stressed because of the inopportune timing, a factor which can play heavily into the quality of their interview.
Also, given the critical need to source and hire someone as quickly as possible many organizations have found that simply do not have the time to conduct the in-depth, extensive interview processes that are typically recommended for effectively finding candidates. However, many companies are now discovering a simple enough technique for cutting down on interview time by having those higher up in the organization conduct the first round of interviews. By getting high ranking individuals within the organization, say the company’s vice-presidents for example, to interview candidates first, they can efficiently weed out a great many under qualified or ill-fitting candidates. These individuals have earned their positions in the company because they know what the organization needs, and this understanding can be effectively transferred to ensuring that those they interview meet with this criteria.
The key to meeting the new challenges in this complicated hiring market is to develop executive search, sourcing, and interview procedures all finely tuned and founded on efficiency. However, as important as it may be to get the job done as quickly as possible it is still equally important that these processes are carried out effectively as well. You should never accept the sacrifice of quality in your hiring practice for speed, or before you know it you will find yourself having to fire a bad hire and start the process all over again, a waste of time and resources that cannot be made.
Published by Conselium Executive Search, the global leader in compliance search.
