Today’s job market is more competitive than ever. More and more recruiters are voicing concerns over their difficulty in filling open positions, the time and cost it takes to recruit, and the overall lack of skilled or qualified candidates their job offers seem to attract. If you or your company are experiencing similar difficulties, know that you are not alone – far from it.
In this short article, we’ll be taking a closer look at some of the key challenges facing recruiters today, the factors that are contributing to making recruitment especially difficult, and what can be done to overcome them.
1. Attracting Top Talent
Highly qualified workers are in high demand. And they know it. In consequence, they are more selective about who they are willing to work for and under what conditions. This is another strong argument for why you need brand research. The specific conditions, perks, and benefits the talent is looking for will depend on the individual, but in most cases, there are commonalities – many of which will differ depending on the specialization and the sector of activity.
The similarities in demands can be accounted for, in large part, thanks to social media. Humans – especially skilled professionals – tend to measure themselves in comparison to their peers. they feel entitled to getting what their peer got, if not more.
The priorities of employees and job seekers have changed considerably in recent years. Whereas it used to be that money and status ranked tops on their list of priorities, nowadays we are seeing the inclusion on this list of:
- A healthy work-life balance
- Company culture
- Remote work opportunities
- Continuous training and opportunities for advancement
- Travel (either none, some, or a lot)
What to do about attracting top talent
Go right to the source. Job seekers and professionals are not shy about expressing what they are looking for out of a job or career. Social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram, as well as industry-specific blogs, should provide you with ample information about what exactly makes one job more appealing than another.
Don’t be afraid to ask. Find who you consider to be top talent and ask them directly what you could do to make an existing, upcoming, or hypothetical job offer more appealing. Generally speaking, people are usually more than happy to give their opinions – especially when it concerns what they want.
2. Targetting
Recruiters should have more or less a specific idea of the type of candidate they would like to hire. Based on data collected from the performance of current employees and the profiles of their competitors, they should have a list of skills – both technical and transferable – credentials, and prior experiences they would like the candidate to have. That is not the hard part.
The hard part comes into play when the recruiter needs to target their job offers to reach only those candidates who match their predefined criteria. Casting a wide net simply isn’t going to cut it anymore. That tactic is too costly and too time-consuming – reading through all those resumes, not to mention many job seekers don’t understand how long a cover letter should be.
The good news is that more and more job portals are becoming specialized, and more and more job portals are taking advantage of advancements in AI technology to help recruiters and job seekers find the right match.
What to do about targeting
Post your job offer only on job portals that are either specific to your niche or that use AI technology to help match job seekers with appropriate job offers. There are enough specified options nowadays to make the cast-a-wide-net tactic obsolete.
3. A Shortage of Top Talent
May recruiters cite a shortage of top talent as being one of the main difficulties they are facing in filling the open positions they have to fill. A comprehensive analysis of the job market suggests that this is not exactly the case. The truth is that today’s workers are more qualified than ever before. There must be something else at play.
In the vast majority of cases, when a recruiter claims there is a shortage of top talent and this is why their recruits don’t pan out – or, possibly, they simply aren’t able to fill the position – chances are that the real cause of their problem lies in either the attractiveness of their offer or the effectiveness of their targetting – or a combination of the two.
The truth is that top talent are being hired every day. In Manchester, for example, BGN continues to build on its recent growth with new hires.
However, in order to address this specific concern, one solution could be to redefine what is considered top talent. Instead of looking for a collection of technical skills and prior work experience, consider looking for the profile of someone likely to become a top talent.
Depending on the specifics of the position and the sector of activity, common characteristics of top talent include:
- Intellectual curiosity
- High aptitude for learning
- Self-motivating
- Able to receive feedback
- Works well with others
What to do about a shortage of top talent
Begin by taking a closer look at the quality of your job offer and with whom it is being shared. Chances are that the problem lies there rather than in a perceived shortage of talent. Additionally, consider looking for characteristics of top talent rather than credentials, and invest in training those you believe have the make-up to become the talent you are looking for.
4. Timing
It seems like it is never the right time to be looking for top talent. That’s because it never is. It takes a considerable amount of time to go through the hiring process. And when a position needs to be filled – or will need to be filled shortly – recruiters will invariably feel stressed and under the proverbial gun.
The best time to recruit top talent was yesterday. And this should be the pillar of your recruitment strategy.
What to do about timing
Don’t wait until a position needs to be filled. Instead, take your time, and treat the recruitment of top talent as an ongoing process.
