
https://blog.antwerpmanagementschool.be/en/sourcing-strategy-in-the-post-covid-19-supply-chain
While organizations are increasingly reaping the benefits of unification strategies, we often encounter companies who are still struggling to find their footing and implement future-oriented processes for human capital management.
With reports indicating that we are heading toward a global recession, you are right to be putting in place a plan of action for the future of your business. One important thing that you might not have considered: have you thought about how your hiring strategy might look in the coming years?
Taking on new talent and speaking to recruitment agencies can be the last things on your mind during times like these, but it shouldn’t be. A recession, as challenging as it is, provides an opportunity to tighten your practices and set new goals. It means a mindset shift that is more than just changing working habits. When forced to look at your entire business in a new light, you will surely realize areas of weakness within your teams; hiring new staff is very often vital for rejuvenating and strengthening them. Sometimes it’s better to cut costs on IT or crunch down on miscellaneous spending to ensure that you hire that person that’s going to lead your business to returned prosperity.
This is why a great recruitment strategy is crucial and, with that said, here is a list of the 5 tips that help you attract and retain the best talent during a recession.
An economic downturn doesn’t have to have devastating consequences for your business. It goes without saying that planning is crucial in order to avoid lost revenue and having an effective recruitment strategy is equally important.
Today’s post may appear at first glance to be an assault on hiring managers, but nothing could be farther from the truth. As eager as they are to fill open positions and keep business running, hiring managers can unintentionally sabotage the hiring process. Because of their importance to the project, a ill-prepared hiring manager can have a huge impact on whether or not you can get someone into that seat quickly. Here are five things hiring managers do (nearly always unintentionally) to derail your recruiting.
Most experienced hiring managers know exactly who they’re looking for, but knowing and articulating are two different things. As difficult as it can be to pin down some of the intangible qualities of a great candidate, hiring managers must do as much as they can to communicate to recruiters and human resources partners the kind of individual they’re looking for. Talk to your recruiter or HR to define compatible personalities, must-have skills, and expectations for the position. Your recruiting partners can administered personality assessments, skill tests, and deep dive interviews to narrow down your list before you waste time interviewing candidates that won’t be a good fit.
And while we’re at it, return your HR partner’s emails! We hear from HR folks all the time about hiring managers who won’t call them back or respond to their emails in a timely fashion. The biggest key to placing a candidate quickly is efficiency of communication. Seriously, it’s why it’s up here at Number One.
Just because you’re a hiring manager, doesn’t mean you are automatically an expert interviewer. Here is some advice I wish I’d had the foresight to give my clients when I first started out in recruiting.
You probably understand pretty well who you want in the position, but sometimes hiring managers neglect to find out who will work best with the team. The most successful projects involve input from multiple stakeholders including hiring managers, HR, and the candidate’s peers and teammates. By taking the time to understand how your new hire will slot into the team, you can help ensure they will be compatible with the norms and processes of your company. Spend some time speaking with the candidate’s potential coworkers and ask them if there are any must-haves or red flags they’d like you to consider. Not only will this help you find a candidate who is a good fit for your team’s dynamic, you’ll win bonus points with your employees for listening to their needs!
Ask a hiring manager about their perfect candidate and their eyes get wild like a kid in a candy store. Unfortunately “perfect” and “achievable” are two entirely different things. One of the most significant mistakes we see hiring managers make is being too greedy and too inflexible about their ideal candidate. Most job descriptions are lists of wants, not lists of realities. Chances are, your perfect candidate doesn’t exist – or if they do, they’re on the other side of the country, making too much already, or one of a hundred possible reasons you’ll never land them.
Hiring managers will benefit greatly from relaxing on some of their must-haves and doubling down on the qualities that will actually ensure a candidate’s success in the role. Talk with your team and your recruiter about your requirements and examine them for unnecessary or unrealistic qualifications. You wouldn’t believe how many hiring managers we speak with that have conflicting job requirements. A candidate with 15 years of experience and a Master’s degree won’t accept an entry-level salary, Bob! If you find someone with 80% of what you need, congratulations, you’re luckier than most. Hire ‘em and move on.
Process? We don’t need no stinking process! That’s the vibe I get from most of the hiring managers I speak with. “We see someone we like, we hire them.” Sounds simple enough. But hold on a second. Head down the hall to talk with HR and you’ll hear a different story. Whether it’s loose or strict, your company has (or needs to have!) some kind of process for hiring a new employee. There are often company policies and even legal requirements that get shoved aside in a hiring manager’s haste to get someone in the seat quickly. All of the stakeholders in a hiring project should meet to discuss the hiring process before starting interviews. Human resources is the most often neglected, with HR partners telling us that hiring managers skip procedure when it’s inconvenient, make salary promises that are incompatible with the budget, or fail to notify candidates of employee policies and application requirements.
Communicate, people!
If your company is stuck in a less-than-desirable location, how can you maximize your chance of attracting the talent you need?
Today, I’ll unpack that a little bit and explore why your employer brand is critical to your ability to hire and retain exceptional employees.
This week’s post will focus not on why your job ads suck, but instead what we can do to turn them from verbose lists of required qualifications into compelling calls to action designed to appeal to your most ideal candidates.