In our Human Resources consulting practice, one of the problems clients often share with us is the difficulty they have with finding the right people. Many times, we find only a haphazard process [or no process] behind their recruitment efforts. Here are some of the things we uncover:
- Talent acquisition, or recruitment, only happens when a position is open. That is, there is no real engagement with the labor market other than the times they need to fill a position.
- Candidate sourcing approaches are inconsistent, or the sourcing methods are not the best for the candidate pool they are trying to engage.
- There is no clear and compelling messaging to candidates about why they should want to work there.
- No work has been put into defining what is needed and then seeking that out in the candidate pool.
- There’s no process. There isn’t a defined process for determining headcount needs, much less a recruitment strategy. This can lead to results no better than random…here you would save a lot of time simply flipping a coin when making hiring decisions.
- Looking for the purple squirrel. The ‘purple squirrel’ or ‘unicorn’ is what recruiters refer to as the mythical candidate that not only has all the characteristics being sought by the hiring manager, but also possesses others that can be contradictory or well beyond the needs of the job. Think: CNC machinist with a PhD or the executive-level finance leader who will also be the payroll processor.
- Not being clear on ‘need to have’ versus ‘nice to have’. People may not distinguish between what is mission-critical [required] in a candidate versus what is preferred [nice to have]. Wasting time on the nice-to-haves can divert you from moving on good candidates sooner.