The state of hiring in the US is challenging to say the least. The SHRM 2024 Talent Trends Survey found that three-quarters of respondents had trouble filling full-time roles over the previous 12 months, with 60 percent reporting that they don’t receive enough applicants.
While many external factors affect your ability to attract the right talent, your internal recruiting function plays a critical role in your success—especially when it comes to improving the all-important metric of time to fill.
How do you know when it’s time to step back and assess your approach? The following five indicators are clear signals that it’s worth evaluating your internal recruiting function and identifying ways to enhance it for better outcomes.
1. You’re finding it difficult to connect with and attract the right talent.
The SHRM study found that 4 out of 10 applicants don’t have the necessary work experience for the posted role. Often, this problem stems from a lack of internal alignment about the expectations for the position and the skills and experience required to succeed. Or it could be that the outreach approach isn’t targeted, as some recruiters mine the universe in the hopes that a larger volume of applicants increases the odds of netting the ideal candidate.
If you’re consistently attracting candidates that don’t align with your needs, it’s time to evaluate your recruitment approach, identify the root cause of the problem, and create an action plan to solve it.
2. You’re losing strong candidates to a prolonged process.
After many weeks and multiple rounds of interviews, a top candidate drops out of the running. Their (unspoken) rationale: If you can’t run an efficient and organized job search, what kind of culture can I expect if I sign on?
This scenario is common in a competitive job market, as the length of the process directly impacts the candidate’s willingness to see it through. It happens up and down the ladder, and it’s often due to a lack of structure and accountability around the recruitment process and timeline.
A process designed to gather as much information about the candidate as possible before the first interview reduces the candidate’s time commitment and avoids prolonging the timeline. Forward-thinking companies are using a variety of techniques to eliminate unnecessary steps and reach a well-informed decision within a timeframe that meets everyone’s needs.
3. You’re evaluating candidates inconsistently.
While there are nuances associated with different roles, your approach to evaluating candidates should be consistent across positions, functions, and departments. Otherwise you risk hiring employees who don’t fit the culture or don’t meet the job requirements because the hiring decision was skewed by inherent but unintentional biases.
There is no single “right” approach to evaluating candidates; the key is to standardize the process to ensure consistency. For example, will you use a rubric to score candidates quantitatively on certain skills and attributes? Will you conduct a psychometric assessment to assess their capabilities and personality traits? Do all candidates need to provide references, and is it standard procedure to check them? Questions like these can help you analyze your recruitment process objectively and identify opportunities for improvement.
4. You’re identifying strong-fit candidates, but you can’t close the deal.
There’s almost nothing worse than finding a candidate who is the perfect fit, then losing them once you extend an offer. The reasons a candidate fails to accept an offer are varied, but inevitably they stem from a disconnect on expectations.
It’s common for recruiters to say, “Let’s find the right person first. We’ll work out the details later.” Yet, when the organization doesn’t set internal expectations upfront around compensation, PTO, and other perks, the odds of losing a good candidate increase dramatically. After all, you can’t be on the same page with the candidate if you haven’t firmed up your own expectations first. If you’re having trouble closing the deal, it’s worth assessing your internal recruitment process and determining how you can avoid this costly pitfall.
5. Your recruiting team lacks the capacity to handle their workload.
Internal recruiters can be stretched thin for a variety of reasons: The company is growing rapidly, either organically or by acquisition/merger. The business experiences seasonal or cyclical peaks in hiring. A new facility is coming online and it requires hundreds or thousands of new hires. Or the company is having trouble filling an open internal recruiter role.
Whatever the reason, if the internal team’s capacity falls short, your time to fill will increase and critical roles will remain vacant. While hiring more recruiters might seem like an easy solution, it creates legacy costs that you can only justify if you expect the increased volume to continue long term. Even if the hiring surge isn’t tied to a temporary boom, it’s difficult to predict whether the need will persist, especially under volatile macroeconomic conditions. Rather than simply post an internal recruiter opening, take time to evaluate your needs, identify opportunities to reduce workload by improving efficiencies, and assess whether a short-term outsourced recruiter can help you push through a peak period.
John McFarland is the founder of Wesley James, a firm dedicated to helping organizations find leadership to navigate a changing world through executive search services, organizational recruiting support, and recruiting and leadership advisory services. Visit www.wesleyjamesgrp.com or contact John at j.mcfarland@wesleyjamesgrp.com.
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