Talent Acquisition Fail: 6 Mistakes Your Company is Making and How to Fix Them Now Every small, medium and large business entity understands the importance of hiring good people. Recruitment stands as one of the greatest expenses and operational challenges for most organizations. Companies spend thousands of dollars per year to have the latest Applicant Tracking System, access the best job boards, and tap in to all of the niche resume databases. They operate multiple career pages, manage social media platforms, and use staffing agencies—all to fill their jobs faster than their competitors. What tools can companies’ leverage to gain access to top talent, while effectively managing the bottom line? How can Human Resources and corporate recruiters expand their talent pool, without financial risk while focusing on retention—after the hire?
Let’s examine the top 6 mistakes most companies are making today, and discuss how to turn your recruitment process in to a well-oiled machine!
TA Fail #1: Lack of a cohesive talent acquisition strategy. When was the last time your TA team sat down to review the tools and systems currently in place? Of those systems, which ones are providing the greatest return? How often are you evaluating these methods, and getting rid of the ones that aren’t driving results? In order to make a positive change that will impact the success of a company’s hiring process, you have to take a strategic approach. Organizations’ who don’t adopt this way of thinking are sure to struggle in attracting, recruiting and retaining the right candidates.
TA Fail #2: Under-utilization of staffing and search firms. Recruiting agencies fill a lot of important jobs with top talent. When you want to hire the CEO of your competitor, you’re not just going to give them a call and offer them a job. (Imagine the talent war that action would start!) There are many examples of circumstances where agencies save the day and deliver quality hires—but the cost is directly related to the service they deliver. When the Accounting Department is losing 15K per day in revenue because the CFO resigned, paying a 40K placement fee to fill the role seems like a bargain. When your Emergency Department is down 11 nurses, and the 6 others on the team are ready to walk out because they’re being asked to work double-shifts without any days off, hiring Travel Nurses through an agency seems like a sound business decision. There are tons of examples in the case to utilize staffing agencies. You don’t pay unless you hire (unless it’s a retained search), and they offer guarantees that ensure you receive a reasonable ROI. Forward-thinking companies today incorporate agencies in their overall recruitment strategy.
TA Fail #3: No game plan for the internal recruiting team. Let’s face it; recruiters today are inundated with apps, websites, tools, and more (usually with a cost) to source candidates. Knowing what items work and what overlaps solutions you already have in place can be a daunting discovery process. TA Directors and leaders should designate a point-person to review and demo new technologies, and share with the team before allowing individual recruiters to become distracted. Always have the recruiting team focus on those areas that ensure results: Direct communication with candidates, recruiter interviews and scheduled hiring manager interviews.
TA Fail #4: Relying on an Applicant Tracking System to be the “Holy Grail” of recruiting. Applicant tracking systems help employers save time and paper and help them stay organized. Without them, recruiters would have to spend much more time filing and shredding papers or moving and deleting emails. With applicant tracking systems, there is no risk of an employer accidentally deleting the email containing the resume of the applicant the company wants to hire. An ATS also makes it easy for employers to keep tabs on the hiring process and to communicate with applicants directly. Those simple uses aside, ATS providers sell add-on modules that do everything from cross posting jobs to major job boards, email blasting the database, and even manage staffing vendors from within. Has your team evaluated the ROI of your ATS? Are you able to easily configure the system to do what you need it to, without spending thousands more on implementation, training, and roll-outs? Applicant Tracking Systems are crucial in today’s business climate, but purchasing systems with too many add-ons may not be worthwhile in the end.
TA Fail #5: Not using a Vendor Management Solution to manage third-party recruitment agencies. We just talked about what an ATS should reasonably do. A vendor management system (VMS) is an Internet-enabled, Web-based application that acts as a mechanism for business to manage and procure staffing services – temporary, and, in some cases, permanent placement services – as well as outside contract or contingent labor. Imagine working with 20 staffing agencies to fill a set of jobs. You have to have initial meetings with each agency, engage in regular phone conversations with the recruiters, go through negotiating the contract (fees, guarantee and terms), get everything approved through the legal department, and then wait to receive candidates. Since time is money, this is a time-consuming and expensive way to manage these important Vendors. When you leverage a VMS like RecruitAlliance, you have one contract, one fee and one platform to streamline the entire process—at no cost and with no implementation fees. Vendor Management solutions like RecruitAlliance allow employers to manage their recruiting vendors and their agency talent pool more efficiently and effectively. They even offer managed billing service, so you only have one payee versus sending checks out to multiple agencies.
TA Fail #6: Avoiding evaluating the Customer experience in the recruiting process. Corporate recruiters and HR have two sets of customers; internal and external. There is a lot of discussion around providing a quality candidate experience—but isn’t the hiring manager’s experience just as important? Talent Acquisition departments everywhere have lost their way when the spotlight is placed exclusively on how the candidate perceives the hiring process. To ensure all parties have the best engagement possible, recruiters must openly communicate and stop hiding behind email. Introductions can be made via email, but deals are closed either on the phone, through video conferencing, or in person. The personal touch will never go out of style!
Technology has changed the way human resources and talent acquisition teams recruit top talent. It’s imperative that we stop allowing tools and resources to distract us from recruiting the most qualified candidates, and focus on implementing a quality strategy that produces results. TA fails are really just examples of recruiting challenges left to be won. Organizations who take their fails and upgrade them to wins will experience an expanded talent pool, higher quality hires and an increased bottom line.