High-Level Observations
The rise of talent management. This seems to be the age of “talent management” when it comes to the use of technology in HR. I saw a ton of companies offering “talent management systems.” These platforms use technology to cover a broad footprint of key HR areas/functions such as branding, recruiting, onboarding, learning, development, and communication. Talent management products are starting to provide HR practitioners with a technology based backbone that will allow them to integrate major HR functions. The integration of more functions into one platform is a trend that can have significant value given the traditional walls that tend to exist between the major areas of HR in larger organizations. There seems to be variation in the functions offered by the various talent management platforms as well as some gray area around what defines a talent management product. These gray areas are nothing new, and are indicative of the nature of an industry-wide trend that is causing vendors to jump on the bandwagon. While my overall thoughts about talent management products are definitely positive, one wonders how many vendors have just dubbed themselves as “talent management” providers to be trendy, and have not significantly changed their products.
ATS Not Hip Anymore. Is it just me, or does there seem to be a significant decrease in companies selling products referred to by the term “ATS”? I could not help but think that much of the momentum in the use of hiring and technology seems to be in the idea of the broader, strategic, idea of talent management and less in the more tactical area of applicant tracking. The concept behind applicant tracking and its related functionalities are still of great importance; it just seems that the term itself is losing favor as traditional ATS functionalities are being baked into other products such as advanced screening/assessment management platforms and talent management systems.
Goodbye paper resume. It seems that there is continued movement toward removing the resume from the hiring process. This is definitely true of the paper resume, but there is a broader movement afoot to deconstruct the resume and extract the types of data it usually provides (i.e., skills and experience). Key information about candidates is being collected via other opportunities in the search and application process such as the creation of detailed profiles that have fields that guide the entry of important candidate information in a standardized format. Parsing, another method of deconstructing resumes, seems to be continuing to evolve as a means of extracting important data from resumes. Resume deconstruction methods allow for much more efficient searching, and matching between candidate data and important job requirements. These methods are part of an overall trend that will see the integration of a variety of candidate information into a digital platform that will allow it to be standardized, categorized, and compared to key requirements for a job or career. While we have a long way to go toward the complete death of the resume, technology is helping us to continue the slow march towards the inevitable.
Web 2.0 is hot. It almost goes without saying that the latest in HR technology is leveraging the benefits of easy access to information, communities, and data that are at the core of Web 2.0. Web 2.0 was everywhere at this show. It seemed to me that the applications of web 2.0 seemed to be concentrated more in the space of performance management products, but there is no doubt that it is having a large impact on the thinking of those creating recruitment-oriented products as well. I saw a heavy focus on the use of social networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook and on products that provide companies with platforms on which to build communities. The data-driven nature of web 2.0 provides a good deal of promise for the area of recruiting and hiring.
We’ve come a long way. The products I saw at this show provide a sign of continued progress and evolution that seems significantly more advanced than the products available five years ago in many ways. While the core function of many products may remain the same, we are continuing to develop new ways to connect people and information. The products I looked at seem slicker, cleaner, and more usable than ever before. While it is often hard to cut through the smokescreens when one is looking at products on the tradeshow floor, the overall level of tech-savvy seems higher than ever. I was able to see firsthand the positive impact of technology on a variety of recruiting- and hiring-related products. Of course keeping up and separating faddish technologies from those that truly are game-changers will continue to be a challenge in years to come.
Assessment-related Trends
Assessment is still an outsider. While there were a decent number of assessment vendors at the show, as an overall area of HR technology, assessment is still a very small piece real estate. This makes sense to me given the problems that organizations seem to have in understanding the value assessment can provide.
Two directions of evolution for assessment. Technology is helping assessment to slowly evolve in two directions. The first of these involves assessment being integrated into the functions provided by bigger, broader systems and products such as job boards, ATS, and talent management. Embedding assessment into other products makes sense when one understands that the core value of assessment is to provide information that can be used in conjunction with other information to support informed decision-making. Pre-employment assessment actually may have the most value when it is an integrated part of a process-based approach into which its results are integrated. This trend has been very slow to develop, but we will continue to see a trend toward embedded assessments. The second direction in the evolution of assessment is toward the productization of assessments to be sold transactionally. While assessment has been sold transactionally for decades, the present state of evolution leverages millions of data points to help provide a new level of clarity about what content predicts certain traits, behaviors, and outcomes. This evolution allows for off-the-shelf products that are more accurate than ever before, while providing documentation to support the relevance of these products for specific jobs.
Hello, talent management providers? Assessment seemed to be conspicuously absent from the slate of services provided by most talent management systems. While assessment is part of the deal for some of the big players in talent management, it does not seem to be a core part of the concept at this point. This is upsetting given the value assessment can have, not only during the hiring process, but throughout the entire employee life cycle. Anyone who considers themselves to be a player in the realm of talent management should strongly consider embedding quality assessment tools.
Platforms evolve nicely. The software platforms that accompany pre-employment assessment products are evolving nicely. I refer to these as “candidate management systems.” Today’s candidate management systems offer many of the functionalities once seen only in ATS products. This evolution should help support the value proposition of assessment as products become easier to use and provide additional decision-making support.
Simulations still lacking. While there has been some definite positive movement toward the creation of more advanced simulations, we still need to be pushing ahead in this area. While there are some nice simulation products currently available, the future of hiring will continue to move toward the increased use of simulations. Not enough steps are being taken toward the development of truly innovative and unique simulations. This is an artifact of a lack of buyer interest and the absence of “killer apps” that are needed to allow simulations technology to advance.
When it comes to HR technologies that support the recruiting and hiring process, we are moving in the right direction and have come a long way over the past five years. The technology level available for assessment both as a core process and as a supporting cast member is more advanced than ever. However, there is a lot more that we can be doing to integrate assessment into the products that seem to be marking the trends in HR and technology. Assessment still seems to remain the misunderstood stepchild of HR, which is a shame since there is so much evidence for the value it can have. I remain optimistic that assessment will continue to be brought more tightly into the fold in years ahead.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Recruitments under economical recession
Managing Recruiting During an Economic Downturn: The Top 10 Action Steps to Take
A key question in every recruiting manager’s mind these days is “how will recruiting and talent management be impacted by the economic downturn?”
These downturns quite often negatively impact the recruiting function through hiring freezes and dramatic budget cuts in recruiting as organizations seek to “contain costs.”
However, this economic downturn is different. Traditionally, when the economic cycle peaks and starts its cycle downwards, everything related to business and recruiting declines; events are consistent and relatively predictable.
Instead of recruiting heading straight down, it will be volatile. The demand for talent management services will go radically down, then back up again in short spurts, and then down again. This volatility will require more planning than ever before from the recruiting function.
Instead of planning for one consistent, long, downward spiral with associated layoffs and hiring freezes, organizations will need to prepare for spurts of growth and continuous hiring in some areas while layoffs occur in others. Some might call these actions “right-sizing” the workforce, but that would imply that organizations are much better at forecasting and workforce planning than most actually are.
There are several reasons why hiring will continue:
The volatility in credit markets
Globalization
The need by organizations to continually innovate
The first and perhaps most important cause of volatility will be the chaotic availability of credit and capital. The continued uncertainty related to financial markets will cause oscillations or “spurts” during which capital will be easier and then harder to get. This volatility will cause firms to grow and to hire in spurts.
A second cause of volatility is globalization. In a truly global business world, there will almost always be some degree of economic growth in emerging economies scattered around the world. Because many major US companies now book a majority of their revenues abroad, pressure to keep corporate functions fully staffed will continue despite possible layoffs in production and client service groups.
A third reason volatility will plague the recruiting function is relentless consumer demand for new innovative products. Despite the downturn, consumer demand remains high. When negative news erupts, those in Western societies go shopping!
Because the rate of innovation among competitive firms is unlikely to slow down, firms will still need to rapidly innovate in their products and business processes.
The demand for relentless innovation will continuously alter the skills needed by a firm at any particular point in time. Firms will need to learn how to continuously hire workers with new skills, while simultaneously releasing workers with obsolete skills with surgical precision. Truly strategic firms see economic downturns as an opportunity, in part because it’s now faster and cheaper to “buy” talent rather than to “develop” existing talent.
The Top 10 Advantages of Recruiting During Tough Times
It’s quite common during periods of economic turmoil for CFOs to assume and declare that robust recruiting functions will not be necessary due to a surplus of talent becoming available as more and more firms engage in layoffs, consolidations, and the ceasing of operations.
Well-known and respected firms like Deloitte have already partially downsized recruiting using this failed logic. Despite this negative perspective, there are some positive things that routinely happen during bad economic times:
Less competition from other firms. If your firm isn’t well known or doesn’t have a strong employment brand, you will face less head-to-head competition for talent during this time. As other firms reduce recruiting budgets, the recruiting effectiveness of your competitors will decrease dramatically also, giving your firm a competitive advantage. Candidates will be easier to sell because they will have fewer options and counter offers to choose from.
More high quality candidates will be available. Not only are more candidates available during times of high unemployment, but higher-quality candidates are also available. Not only will laid off individuals be on the market but you should also target individuals that “survived” the layoffs and mergers because they will have reduced company loyalty as a result of all of the trauma. Taken together this means that innovators and top-performing individuals that could never be “drawn away” from their current jobs are now available and interested in lesser known firms. This surplus along with little competition makes “counter cycle” recruiting a great strategy for “loading up” with great talent, especially in the college market.
Weakened employment brands. As competitor firms make the mistake of conducting large-scale “public” layoffs, their employment brand and external image will be dramatically weakened. Thus providing increased opportunities for firms that have maintained or intelligently strengthened their employment brand during this period.
Turnover and retirement rates will decrease. As the downturn increases your employees desire for job security, fewer will even consider leaving their current jobs for firms where their lack of tenure will mean little security. This means that it’ll be easier to retain your top talent (and recruiting won’t have to work so hard to find replacements). Conversely, it will be more difficult to draw away top talent working at other firms. The downturn in the stock market and the dramatic reduction in the value of their 401(k)’s will also mean that fewer of your employees will opt to retire as soon as they are eligible, easing any baby boom retirement concerns.
Higher quality recruiters will be available. Tough times means that some excellent recruiters will be available for those firms planning for the long-term.
The dollar is stronger. The newly strengthened U.S. dollar makes recruiting international candidates much easier.
New recruiting technology is available. The availability of social networking and other web-based technologies now makes effective recruiting possible with little or no budget.
Capability to explode out of the box. If you successfully defend your recruiting budget, your firm will have the capability of “exploding out of the box” immediately after the downturn is over. This capability will put you far ahead of other firms that have decimated their recruiting capabilities during this time. In order to have that advantage, you will need to calculate and then report the negative impacts of “disassembling the recruiting function” to your executives. That includes costs related to the delays in being able to resume hiring, the increased risk of losing top applicants, the lower quality of hires and the increased startup costs related to reassembling the recruiting function.
Tight times make you stronger. A tight budget forces you to focus more on metrics and a strong business case. Both of these should allow you to better identify the most effective recruiting tools and approaches. By eliminating the deadwood, streamlining processes and focusing on the best approaches, you will eventually strengthen the function over-all.
Workforce planning will be encouraged. While it’s often a “fight” to convince executives to invest in workforce planning, economic volatility and the pain of laying off talent they fought so hard to acquire almost always convinces senior managers of the need for a strong workforce planning function. Use this “lull” to develop an effective forecasting capability and a “flexible” recruiting strategy that “shifts” during the different economic cycles. Both can help you prepare your firm for the next imminent up or down cycle.
Even if you successfully defend your recruiting budget during these volatile times, it’s critical that you focus your resources on talent-management approaches that are both low-cost and effective:
Using Other People’s Resources
Employee referrals. The key practice for recruiting during economic volatility should be “recruit using other people’s money.” As a result, employee referrals need to be your number-one focus, because they shift a great deal of the recruiting “work” away from recruiters and on to your firm’s employees. Referrals produce high volume and high quality but during tight budget times, the cost of referral bonuses needs to be reduced. Shift to a drawing approach; instead of giving individual cash bonuses, employees get an opportunity to win trips, vacation time, lunch with the CEO, or other non-cash yet compelling prizes. Some firms like Edward Jones have produced over 50% of their hires from referrals without offering any cash incentives; granted, they have a great brand. You can also make customers, employees’ families, suppliers, and consultants who work with your firm eligible for the referral program. Finally, proactively approaching your firm’s top performers individually and asking them for “names” is another effective referral approach to re-emphasize.
Recruiting at professional events. Recruiting at local and national professional events again “utilizes other people’s money” because the travel and expenses of the attending employee are covered by their business unit. Develop the expectation that each employee attending these events will bring back “three names” of individuals that would be outstanding recruits. Encourage your executives and superstars to speak at these events, because that exposure might result in some immediate candidates, as well as improving your overall employment brand.
Social networks. There is a high probability that your employees currently utilize one or more social networks (i.e., Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace) both on and off the job. So why not take advantage of that fact and use it to supplement your recruiting. Start by encouraging your employees to include in their profiles compelling facts and stories about the firm. Next, encourage them to proactively make group connections and to provide you with names of potential recruits.
Blogs. Many of your top employees probably already write blogs in their technical field. If so, encourage them to talk about the positive aspects of your firm and to actively recruit on their blogs. Encourage other employees that read blogs to use them to also identify top talent.
Videos. Videos are powerful recruiting tools because they allow you to more effectively “show the passion” at your firm. Consider holding a video contest where employees compete to put together short compelling videos about why your firm is a great place to work. Post the best ones on your own corporate website or on YouTube.
10 Recruiting Problems You Might Face During Tough Economic Times
During volatile economic times, some things that used to be easy in recruiting and Talent Management become much more difficult. As a result, it’s important to identify and then focus on these new problem areas:
Hiring freezes. One of the first knee-jerk reactions during tough times are company-wide freezes. Although salary, promotion, and budget freezes negatively impact retention, hiring freezes can decimate a recruiting function.
Stock options are no longer a major motivator. With the stock market constantly going up and down, stock options become less valuable as a motivator both for current employees and for candidates. As a result, you need to shift your sales approach to candidates to emphasize exciting work, flexible work, better benefits, more security, or to focus on cash performance bonuses.
Job security is king. Economic volatility makes both employees and candidates nervous about their future. This fear among potential candidates causes them to increase their emphasis on security, which will definitely make “drawing away” the currently employed top performer from their current firm much harder. Recruiting needs to re-examine the information that it provides on job security on its website, in position descriptions and in its offers in order to make it more compelling.
An increased volume of traffic. Normally, all great recruiters focus on the employed candidate (the so-called passive candidates). However, layoffs and high unemployment may mean that some high-quality people are now available among the ranks of the unemployed. Unfortunately, if you actively recruit during tough times, the volume of mediocre but enthusiastic unemployed people who will apply for your jobs will also increase dramatically. This high-volume, low-quality flow means that your screeners will be strained and that your selection process has to be more precise to ensure that you don’t mistakenly hire highly enthusiastic people who turn out to be low performers.
Relocation issues. Moving people between regions becomes nearly impossible when individuals can’t get new mortgages or sell their existing homes. This problem affects both internal transfers and new hires. Alternatives to consider include focusing on recent college grads who generally rent or consider “narrowing” your recruiting area to a reasonable commuting distance.
A loss of trust and confidence. Although your firm might not have been involved, the general mistrust of business that has resulted from the economic turmoil means that both your employees and your candidates will likely now have less trust and confidence in anything that you say. In recruiting, this means that your website must be more objective and believable, your interviews need to be more credible and your offers will need to be stronger, if you expect to convince the cynical.
Managers will focus less on recruiting. Few managers have ever really enjoyed recruiting. But their interest in it will likely even decrease further during tough times as the stress from their business workload increases, while their available staff decreases. Their interest in recruiting will decrease because they certainly won’t be doing it as often but also because of the increased frustration that invariably occurs when many of their “active searches” are never be completed because of frequent “surprise” hiring or budget freezes. Their lack of interest in reading resumes and interviews will invariably mean a dramatically slower average “time to fill” at your firm.
Layoffs. Although you probably can’t stop layoffs from happening, you should certainly fight to minimize their impact on your employment brand image. Work with PR to ensure that layoffs by your firm don’t become front-page news for potential applicants to see and worry over.
Technology budgets. Almost invariably during tight economic times, any budget resources available for buying new technology (ATS systems or new software) are likely to disappear. So either make your purchases immediately or be prepared to live with what you have for a while.
Recruiting budget cuts. Almost everyone gets their budget cut during business downturns but there’s no reason for recruiting’s budget to be cut any deeper than others. The key to maintaining your budget is to build a strong business case demonstrating that cutting recruiting has more negative business impacts than the limited cost savings that these cuts generate. Also utilize split samples to demonstrate your impact. When possible, work with powerful executives in growth businesses to get them to “champion” your cause or to directly fund recruiting initiatives that impact their business unit. Also, work with the CFO’s office to quantify the dollar impact of low quality and bad hires, as well as the revenues lost as a result of position vacancies in revenue-generating and revenue impact positions. In finally, focus on winning external recruiting and “Best Place To Work” awards to increase your visibility and credibility among executives.
Final Thoughts
Rather than letting “fear” rule the day, now is the time to anticipate problems and to prioritize your activities in order to maximize your impact.
Volatility in the business also means that recruiting must be flexible and expand its capabilities into areas that increase in importance during tough times. This might mean that recruiters now need to aid in the internal redeployment of employees, in retention, in employment branding, or even helping with layoffs and outplacements. Now is the time to plan ahead and to begin turning “lemons into lemonade.”
A key question in every recruiting manager’s mind these days is “how will recruiting and talent management be impacted by the economic downturn?”
These downturns quite often negatively impact the recruiting function through hiring freezes and dramatic budget cuts in recruiting as organizations seek to “contain costs.”
However, this economic downturn is different. Traditionally, when the economic cycle peaks and starts its cycle downwards, everything related to business and recruiting declines; events are consistent and relatively predictable.
Instead of recruiting heading straight down, it will be volatile. The demand for talent management services will go radically down, then back up again in short spurts, and then down again. This volatility will require more planning than ever before from the recruiting function.
Instead of planning for one consistent, long, downward spiral with associated layoffs and hiring freezes, organizations will need to prepare for spurts of growth and continuous hiring in some areas while layoffs occur in others. Some might call these actions “right-sizing” the workforce, but that would imply that organizations are much better at forecasting and workforce planning than most actually are.
There are several reasons why hiring will continue:
The volatility in credit markets
Globalization
The need by organizations to continually innovate
The first and perhaps most important cause of volatility will be the chaotic availability of credit and capital. The continued uncertainty related to financial markets will cause oscillations or “spurts” during which capital will be easier and then harder to get. This volatility will cause firms to grow and to hire in spurts.
A second cause of volatility is globalization. In a truly global business world, there will almost always be some degree of economic growth in emerging economies scattered around the world. Because many major US companies now book a majority of their revenues abroad, pressure to keep corporate functions fully staffed will continue despite possible layoffs in production and client service groups.
A third reason volatility will plague the recruiting function is relentless consumer demand for new innovative products. Despite the downturn, consumer demand remains high. When negative news erupts, those in Western societies go shopping!
Because the rate of innovation among competitive firms is unlikely to slow down, firms will still need to rapidly innovate in their products and business processes.
The demand for relentless innovation will continuously alter the skills needed by a firm at any particular point in time. Firms will need to learn how to continuously hire workers with new skills, while simultaneously releasing workers with obsolete skills with surgical precision. Truly strategic firms see economic downturns as an opportunity, in part because it’s now faster and cheaper to “buy” talent rather than to “develop” existing talent.
The Top 10 Advantages of Recruiting During Tough Times
It’s quite common during periods of economic turmoil for CFOs to assume and declare that robust recruiting functions will not be necessary due to a surplus of talent becoming available as more and more firms engage in layoffs, consolidations, and the ceasing of operations.
Well-known and respected firms like Deloitte have already partially downsized recruiting using this failed logic. Despite this negative perspective, there are some positive things that routinely happen during bad economic times:
Less competition from other firms. If your firm isn’t well known or doesn’t have a strong employment brand, you will face less head-to-head competition for talent during this time. As other firms reduce recruiting budgets, the recruiting effectiveness of your competitors will decrease dramatically also, giving your firm a competitive advantage. Candidates will be easier to sell because they will have fewer options and counter offers to choose from.
More high quality candidates will be available. Not only are more candidates available during times of high unemployment, but higher-quality candidates are also available. Not only will laid off individuals be on the market but you should also target individuals that “survived” the layoffs and mergers because they will have reduced company loyalty as a result of all of the trauma. Taken together this means that innovators and top-performing individuals that could never be “drawn away” from their current jobs are now available and interested in lesser known firms. This surplus along with little competition makes “counter cycle” recruiting a great strategy for “loading up” with great talent, especially in the college market.
Weakened employment brands. As competitor firms make the mistake of conducting large-scale “public” layoffs, their employment brand and external image will be dramatically weakened. Thus providing increased opportunities for firms that have maintained or intelligently strengthened their employment brand during this period.
Turnover and retirement rates will decrease. As the downturn increases your employees desire for job security, fewer will even consider leaving their current jobs for firms where their lack of tenure will mean little security. This means that it’ll be easier to retain your top talent (and recruiting won’t have to work so hard to find replacements). Conversely, it will be more difficult to draw away top talent working at other firms. The downturn in the stock market and the dramatic reduction in the value of their 401(k)’s will also mean that fewer of your employees will opt to retire as soon as they are eligible, easing any baby boom retirement concerns.
Higher quality recruiters will be available. Tough times means that some excellent recruiters will be available for those firms planning for the long-term.
The dollar is stronger. The newly strengthened U.S. dollar makes recruiting international candidates much easier.
New recruiting technology is available. The availability of social networking and other web-based technologies now makes effective recruiting possible with little or no budget.
Capability to explode out of the box. If you successfully defend your recruiting budget, your firm will have the capability of “exploding out of the box” immediately after the downturn is over. This capability will put you far ahead of other firms that have decimated their recruiting capabilities during this time. In order to have that advantage, you will need to calculate and then report the negative impacts of “disassembling the recruiting function” to your executives. That includes costs related to the delays in being able to resume hiring, the increased risk of losing top applicants, the lower quality of hires and the increased startup costs related to reassembling the recruiting function.
Tight times make you stronger. A tight budget forces you to focus more on metrics and a strong business case. Both of these should allow you to better identify the most effective recruiting tools and approaches. By eliminating the deadwood, streamlining processes and focusing on the best approaches, you will eventually strengthen the function over-all.
Workforce planning will be encouraged. While it’s often a “fight” to convince executives to invest in workforce planning, economic volatility and the pain of laying off talent they fought so hard to acquire almost always convinces senior managers of the need for a strong workforce planning function. Use this “lull” to develop an effective forecasting capability and a “flexible” recruiting strategy that “shifts” during the different economic cycles. Both can help you prepare your firm for the next imminent up or down cycle.
Even if you successfully defend your recruiting budget during these volatile times, it’s critical that you focus your resources on talent-management approaches that are both low-cost and effective:
Using Other People’s Resources
Employee referrals. The key practice for recruiting during economic volatility should be “recruit using other people’s money.” As a result, employee referrals need to be your number-one focus, because they shift a great deal of the recruiting “work” away from recruiters and on to your firm’s employees. Referrals produce high volume and high quality but during tight budget times, the cost of referral bonuses needs to be reduced. Shift to a drawing approach; instead of giving individual cash bonuses, employees get an opportunity to win trips, vacation time, lunch with the CEO, or other non-cash yet compelling prizes. Some firms like Edward Jones have produced over 50% of their hires from referrals without offering any cash incentives; granted, they have a great brand. You can also make customers, employees’ families, suppliers, and consultants who work with your firm eligible for the referral program. Finally, proactively approaching your firm’s top performers individually and asking them for “names” is another effective referral approach to re-emphasize.
Recruiting at professional events. Recruiting at local and national professional events again “utilizes other people’s money” because the travel and expenses of the attending employee are covered by their business unit. Develop the expectation that each employee attending these events will bring back “three names” of individuals that would be outstanding recruits. Encourage your executives and superstars to speak at these events, because that exposure might result in some immediate candidates, as well as improving your overall employment brand.
Social networks. There is a high probability that your employees currently utilize one or more social networks (i.e., Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace) both on and off the job. So why not take advantage of that fact and use it to supplement your recruiting. Start by encouraging your employees to include in their profiles compelling facts and stories about the firm. Next, encourage them to proactively make group connections and to provide you with names of potential recruits.
Blogs. Many of your top employees probably already write blogs in their technical field. If so, encourage them to talk about the positive aspects of your firm and to actively recruit on their blogs. Encourage other employees that read blogs to use them to also identify top talent.
Videos. Videos are powerful recruiting tools because they allow you to more effectively “show the passion” at your firm. Consider holding a video contest where employees compete to put together short compelling videos about why your firm is a great place to work. Post the best ones on your own corporate website or on YouTube.
10 Recruiting Problems You Might Face During Tough Economic Times
During volatile economic times, some things that used to be easy in recruiting and Talent Management become much more difficult. As a result, it’s important to identify and then focus on these new problem areas:
Hiring freezes. One of the first knee-jerk reactions during tough times are company-wide freezes. Although salary, promotion, and budget freezes negatively impact retention, hiring freezes can decimate a recruiting function.
Stock options are no longer a major motivator. With the stock market constantly going up and down, stock options become less valuable as a motivator both for current employees and for candidates. As a result, you need to shift your sales approach to candidates to emphasize exciting work, flexible work, better benefits, more security, or to focus on cash performance bonuses.
Job security is king. Economic volatility makes both employees and candidates nervous about their future. This fear among potential candidates causes them to increase their emphasis on security, which will definitely make “drawing away” the currently employed top performer from their current firm much harder. Recruiting needs to re-examine the information that it provides on job security on its website, in position descriptions and in its offers in order to make it more compelling.
An increased volume of traffic. Normally, all great recruiters focus on the employed candidate (the so-called passive candidates). However, layoffs and high unemployment may mean that some high-quality people are now available among the ranks of the unemployed. Unfortunately, if you actively recruit during tough times, the volume of mediocre but enthusiastic unemployed people who will apply for your jobs will also increase dramatically. This high-volume, low-quality flow means that your screeners will be strained and that your selection process has to be more precise to ensure that you don’t mistakenly hire highly enthusiastic people who turn out to be low performers.
Relocation issues. Moving people between regions becomes nearly impossible when individuals can’t get new mortgages or sell their existing homes. This problem affects both internal transfers and new hires. Alternatives to consider include focusing on recent college grads who generally rent or consider “narrowing” your recruiting area to a reasonable commuting distance.
A loss of trust and confidence. Although your firm might not have been involved, the general mistrust of business that has resulted from the economic turmoil means that both your employees and your candidates will likely now have less trust and confidence in anything that you say. In recruiting, this means that your website must be more objective and believable, your interviews need to be more credible and your offers will need to be stronger, if you expect to convince the cynical.
Managers will focus less on recruiting. Few managers have ever really enjoyed recruiting. But their interest in it will likely even decrease further during tough times as the stress from their business workload increases, while their available staff decreases. Their interest in recruiting will decrease because they certainly won’t be doing it as often but also because of the increased frustration that invariably occurs when many of their “active searches” are never be completed because of frequent “surprise” hiring or budget freezes. Their lack of interest in reading resumes and interviews will invariably mean a dramatically slower average “time to fill” at your firm.
Layoffs. Although you probably can’t stop layoffs from happening, you should certainly fight to minimize their impact on your employment brand image. Work with PR to ensure that layoffs by your firm don’t become front-page news for potential applicants to see and worry over.
Technology budgets. Almost invariably during tight economic times, any budget resources available for buying new technology (ATS systems or new software) are likely to disappear. So either make your purchases immediately or be prepared to live with what you have for a while.
Recruiting budget cuts. Almost everyone gets their budget cut during business downturns but there’s no reason for recruiting’s budget to be cut any deeper than others. The key to maintaining your budget is to build a strong business case demonstrating that cutting recruiting has more negative business impacts than the limited cost savings that these cuts generate. Also utilize split samples to demonstrate your impact. When possible, work with powerful executives in growth businesses to get them to “champion” your cause or to directly fund recruiting initiatives that impact their business unit. Also, work with the CFO’s office to quantify the dollar impact of low quality and bad hires, as well as the revenues lost as a result of position vacancies in revenue-generating and revenue impact positions. In finally, focus on winning external recruiting and “Best Place To Work” awards to increase your visibility and credibility among executives.
Final Thoughts
Rather than letting “fear” rule the day, now is the time to anticipate problems and to prioritize your activities in order to maximize your impact.
Volatility in the business also means that recruiting must be flexible and expand its capabilities into areas that increase in importance during tough times. This might mean that recruiters now need to aid in the internal redeployment of employees, in retention, in employment branding, or even helping with layoffs and outplacements. Now is the time to plan ahead and to begin turning “lemons into lemonade.”
Urgent Job vacancy for SAP-Masterdata consultant for Belgium
Hi,I would like to share a Job opening for Master data –SAP consultant in Belgium. Please find the job description below.
Req1: SAP-Master data consultant (Junior)Modules: FI,MMLocation: BrusselsLanguages: Dutch/French and English
Req2: Master data coordinatorModules: MM,FILocation: BrusselsLanguages: Dutch/French and English
Is this opportunity interests you, I recommend you to contact me at amruth.p@satvikinc.com
Regards,Amruth
Req1: SAP-Master data consultant (Junior)Modules: FI,MMLocation: BrusselsLanguages: Dutch/French and English
Req2: Master data coordinatorModules: MM,FILocation: BrusselsLanguages: Dutch/French and English
Is this opportunity interests you, I recommend you to contact me at amruth.p@satvikinc.com
Regards,Amruth
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
