Top Recruiting Challenges and What You Can Do to Fix Them
According to one survey , 72% of candidates have difficulty finding skilled candidates for open positions.
Thanks to the Great Resignation, this problem is one of the most common recruiting challenges, but it’s not the only one, especially in a competitive candidate market. Thankfully, so many tools and technology can help these HR professionals overcome these obstacles.
Keep reading, and we’ll fill you in on the top challenges of recruiters and what you can do to overcome them.
Not Having a Good Talent Pool
Some recruiters don’t have a good talent pool filled with qualified applicants, and this could stem from not knowing where or how to source candidates. Or, some recruiters will find an extensive pool of candidates, but they’ll be unqualified for the position.
Figuring out where to advertise your open positions can help you find the right candidates. Many recruiters can’t find good candidates because they didn’t cast a net wide enough or figure out what they need from a candidate.
You should post on different job boards, social media, and even attend job fairs or networking events. Your job postings should also have all the requirements, like training, education, and certifications.
Not Having an Efficient Recruiting Process
The average time to hire is around 23.8 days , but if you’re taking longer than that, you could be losing top talent to other competitors. The longer these positions stay open, your company will lose productivity and money.
However, the hiring process could take several months for some industries, especially if you’re hiring for a specialized position. Sometimes having a long recruiting process can cause not having enough qualified candidates as well.
Take a step back and look at your recruitment process. Is every stage required? Do you have five rounds of interviews when you could decide on an applicant in three? Do you communicate with your candidates?
Do you have an applicant tracking system or another type of software to help you source candidates and track metrics?
If the problem is that the position is specialized and needs a unicorn candidate, communicate that to the hiring team. Set their expectations so they know you’re taking your time to vet candidates and make sure that they don’t make a bad hire.
Not Having a Strong Employer Brand
Many job seekers look up the reviews on a company on Glassdoor or other social media sites to see what it’s like to work for that company. That’s part of employer branding.
If they don’t like all the negative reviews, they may not take a position with that company, even if they are desperate.
To build your employer brand, you’ll need to develop good recruiting strategies. The entire company will need to have a hand in it and ensure that they’re putting their best foot forward.
You’ll also need to showcase the company culture and highlight candidates who love working for the company. You also need to have a good mission statement and a good cause for why people feel like they should join your company.
You can do this by creating a good career site and blog. Show candidates why your place is such an excellent place to work. You might include pictures of employees, testimonials, or even videos of different events. You may even want to highlight technologies or projects the employees are working on.
Not Thinking Ahead
While talent acquisition focuses on long-term hiring, recruiting usually is reactive. When you get an open position, you have to start scrambling to fill the position.
Or you’ll learn that the company is going to start growing, but you don’t get enough time to plan a good hiring strategy. Because of this, you could miss your goals.
To fix this, you should start planning as much as possible with as much information. You may even want to take the initiative and set up meetings with the executive teams and hiring managers to figure out what they expect for that year.
Bring in your knowledge of the talent landscape and communicate any concerns you have. Tell the hiring teams you’ll need to hire more recruiters if you don’t have the resources. If you don’t think there is enough talent out there, explain that you’ll need time and incentives to attract the candidates.
When you put together a plan that thinks ahead rather than reactively, you’re more likely to meet your goals and save the company money.
Not Providing a Good Candidate Experience
According to a Jobvite report , only 16% of recruiters said that one of their priorities was ensuring that candidates had a good candidate experience. But as a recruiter, this is one of the essential parts of the job because you are the candidate’s first impression of the company.
When suitable candidates come to you during an interview, make sure you offer an excellent experience to reflect well on the company. While you’re interviewing the candidate, they’re also interviewing you and assessing the tone and culture of the interview.
You can help them by showing off the company’s beneficial and unique parts. The relationship will be mutual. You want to know that the candidate will be able to work in this environment, and they’ll want to know that this is a place where they would like to work.
Even if you don’t hire a candidate, ensure that you reach out to them and offer feedback. Even if the client isn’t the right fit now, having a relationship with them can help you later on down the road with a new job posting.
Not Focusing on Passive Candidates
One LinkedIn report states that 70% of workers are passive talent. That means that they’re not actively searching for a job. However, 90% of that passive talent is open to hearing about new opportunities. So if you’re only focusing on active job seekers, then you’re losing out on a large chunk of qualified candidates.
You’ll need to actively seek out these candidates. Reach out to them on social media, for example. You probably won’t find them looking on a job board or career site.
Try connecting with these candidates and send them personalized messages. To make sure that they’re interested and know it’s not spam, promote your company on your profile page. Make yourself an industry leader, and you may even find job candidates who want to follow you to learn more. Having someone follow you, though, could end up being a great candidate after you foster a relationship with them.
You may even want to organize different meetups or events to meet some of these people in person and talk to them about the great opportunities at your company.
While social media is a great way to source passive candidates, machine learning software will also source only the most ideal candidates. Once this software finds a list of candidates, it will deliver them to your inbox.
From there, the tool can start sending emails out to the interested candidates to try and convince them to apply and interview with your company.
Overcome These Recruiting Challenges Today
These are only a few of the biggest recruitment challenges that many companies face today, but there are ways to overcome them.
For example, Recruiter.com has a vast network of experienced recruiters who can work for you whenever you need a little bit of extra help.
We also have a powerful software tool to help you source passive candidates and have a predictable talent pipeline to fill all of your open positions.
If you’re interested in learning more, contact us today !
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