Your Hiring Strategy for 2022: Avoiding Red Flags
8th December 2021
Many of us are strategising for the year ahead and no one factor is more important to consider than your people. Quite often organisations see the process only from their dimension, in a high demand candidate short market its essential to put yourself in the shoes of your ideal superstar candidate – what will keep them engaged, what do they expect and what sends them running for the hills. To maximise your investment in your hiring process avoid these red flags:
Slipping Behind the Curve. Poor communication during the hiring process sets a negative example of you and your business. Ensure interviewees, whether or not they are successful, are aware of what to expect from the process and the timescales you are working towards. Ensure they receive communication throughout and this will avoid any negative fallout for your business reputation. Agree internally on acceptable timelines for all stages of the process and build these into your candidate comms. Sometimes things happen and timelines can slip, should this happen communicate quickly with your candidates, they much rather be updated on a delay than kept in the dark.
Scores on the Doors. It is undoubted that decisions require careful consideration. Sourcing candidates is taking longer at present as effort is focused towards the happily employed, passive candidates as there are just too few active candidates. This can leave you the feeling of little choice and result in losing out on the best candidate for the job whilst you hold out for “comparison” candidates. At present, when trying to secure the best person for the job, time is of the essence and this make sure you have your processes refined and decision makers primed to make decisions in a timely manner – scorecards are a great way of quickly gaining consensus and clarity.
Hit and Miss. None of your applicants hitting the mark? Make sure the job description is clear, straightforward and not overbearing. Don’t confound the job with a whole shopping list of other jobs that don’t technically relate to the position. Development of the role will occur naturally – once you’ve found the right person to hire. Clear, concise definitions are what you need to attract directly qualified people. Devote some time to getting the description up to par and see how it will improve your applicant pool.
Keeping in Tune. Research confirms the biggest expectation from candidates following the Covid crisis is flexibility. Some roles do not lend themselves to flexibility. For those that can practicably contain an element of WfH, to leave it out is definitely a huge red flag for candidates. It won’t rule every candidate out, however it will reduce your candidate pool and increase your time to hire dramatically. In such a fast moving market where expectations are evolving keep your employer proposition in line with and ahead of expectations, this is essential for maintaining an effective talent pipeline.
MD Comment: With demand continuing to outstrip supply for many skills, employers need to continually review their attraction, assessment and decision making processes alongside their expectations and employer offering. Quite often hiring organisations are trying to hire using processes and expectations formed in a different era. The post Covid era requires a radically different approach, some organisations have already changed tak accordingly and are winning the hiring battle, others are quite literally being left behind.
