5 of the Biggest Recruitment Challenges (And Cheat Sheet to Resolve Them)

Nobody ever said – “Hiring is a child’s play”. From crafting a well-defined job post to gathering an experienced team to attract and retain the best talent, the recruitment challenge remains the same till date.

If you are the one who has or had experience with recruitment strategy, look no further!

This blog will help you identify the unseen areas you could be paying no mind to.

Besides, it discusses some good solutions you can take to overcome the recruitment challenges arising at every step and simultaneously handhold top talent for your organisation.

5 Solutions to overcome top hiring demurs

William F.Halsey once said “All problems become smaller when you confront them instead of dodging them”.

On that note, here are some  strategies to solve the biggest recruitment and hiring hurdle faced for your organisation. Let’s find out!

#Challenge 1: How to rope in purple squirrels a.k.a the too-good-to-be-true candidate?

Often, “Purple squirrel” is a metaphor used by recruiters or HR to describe an ideal job applicant. And, mind you, purple squirrels are not a character from a fable; they happen.

These too-good-to-be-true candidates hold the exact qualifications, attitude and attribute, skillset, experience, needed for the job role. Though, in today’s recruitment landscape, many top performing candidates slip through the mere cracks because of poor hiring practices, like lost emails, engrossed attachments within threads and even misplaced job applications.

Solution:

An excellent place to start winning candidates is by drawing attention to your job posts through content marketing, multiple job advertisements, job portals, employer branding and much more. Simultaneously, for candidates, it’s equally essential that the organisation they work with has good career growth prospects.

Also, you can address this hurdle through employer branding (a tried-and-true solution), as you’ll be perceived as a good employer intellectually, instinctively and emotionally.

Next, you can engage and nurture purple squirrel interest with job notifications, email marketing, talent pools and much more in the list. Also, Boolean search recruiting methods can be used that contain all the perfect qualifications for the open role you are searching for. This recruiting strategy proves helpful when everything funnels to selecting the best applicant, keeping the remaining professionals in your ideal candidate talent pipeline.

Challenge 2: How to test and weigh if an applicant is the right fit for the job?

Often, companies presume true that conventional formal tests help with the hiring procedures. Whereas, reckoning on these assessments is a tough nut to crack – since an array of elements can jeopardise the test’s integrity.

Like, wrong or irrelevant questionnaire or a rater bias in the candidate’s evaluation process.

In simple terms, effectiveness is also one of the recruitment challenges because it scales the precision of the conclusion drawn from the tests. Or a test that scales what it’s meant to measure.

Solution:

HR must assess which evaluation processes should be given to evaluate a candidate’s skills. Plus, make sure to select a test that precisely gauges the required KSAs (Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities).

Here’s word to the wise pocketed from the industry expert Barry Kozloff (president of SRI) for you:

Catch sight of data that fold over from two to three different sources.

Consider recruiter interviews as the initial stage in the recruitment stage.

Collect all licit information before making a judgement.

Kozloff also pens down advice for employers they should STOP RIGHT AWAY!

• Remove candidates after one interview round.
• Driving interview outcomes before evaluating the data.
• Evaluating a person’s competence or lack of potential based on single consideration.

💡 Want to know more about tried and tested tips to recruit the best talent? Here’s an insight to expert tips that’ll help make your hiring process more efficient and streamlined.

Challenge 3: How to hand out a meaningful candidate experience?

Imagine the scenario where you and the candidate are connected through a talent pipeline. Still, they have miserable experiences interviewing at your organisation and don’t land a job in their hand either. While candidates, on the other hand, may share their experience with the same organisation, which nurtured them into dynamic learners and the most adaptable resources in the hierarchy.

This scenario clearly outlines the friction between job lookers and companies, and is termed as – “Candidate Experience”.  Candidate experience is an unskippable aspect because it defines “what review candidates carries for your company”, and these applicants’ feelings, whether positive or negative, have an impact on whether they’ll apply for the vacancy or not.

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Solution:

A handful of recruitment challenges faced in creating a good candidate experience can be better overcome by aforementioned tips and tricks:

• Keep it easy for applicants to apply
• Write clear job descriptions (avoid putting meaningless jargon)
• Have regular follow-up with the applicants
• Answer candidate doubts sooner
• Give a brief to applicants regarding what to look ahead during the hiring process
• Manage applicants throughout the process
• Collect candidate feedback

Challenge 4: How to separate wheat from the chaff – manage behemoth resumes?

I  understand “too few” candidates can typically bring recruitment challenges in the present job landscape. But, on the contrary, “too many” applications might act as the biggest recruiting challenge.

The decision-makers responsible for hiring know that they minimally need 1-3 hours in a productive day to sift through voluminous applicants to find that one right-fit candidate. This consumes time in weeding out the utterly unqualified ones. Next is screening the candidates who may be interested and scheduling primary telephonic screening. Lastly, conducting basic background checks on potential candidates.

Solution:

So, to ease managing a heap of resumes, it’s important to invest in an applicant tracking system (ATS) that quickly parses hundreds of resumes in the blink of an eye. Also, it lets your team collaborate and keep track of the hiring process at an instance.

Furthermore, your team have access to feedback and can easily vet all other remarks with the help of ATS. Plus, it sheds the onus of administrative work with calendar integrations, social media integrations and many more.

Challenge 5: How to minimise time-to-hire?

There is no denying that among myriad recruitment metrics worth weighing, the “time-to-hire” metric is vital.

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After all, exhausting a big amount of time to fill a job role mirrors greater probability of missing on the top talent. Moreover, a lengthy and time-consuming process causes several candidates to lose interest in the vacancy. Besides, this results in higher probability of candidates applying for other open roles and getting a positive revert by the time you reach on a decision.

This brings back organisations to square of the hiring cycle to find and attract a good replacement. And, not to forget, long-awaited vacancies often result in low productivity and creativity.

Solution:

Time to hire is an unskippable metric, as 69% of respondents presently use it, and 74% believe it will stay beneficial in the future.

So, if you are searching for tips and tactics to streamline your unruly or unpredictable hiring process, the solution is to  “use the talent pipeline”. A talent pipeline is a candidate’s pool you’ve pre-scanned and analysed for earlier job postings.

Opting this tactic, you don’t have to post your job ads again, wait for applications to flow in, or invest time analysing and evaluating applicants. With a talent pipeline you already have access to a pool of competent professionals on an arm’s stretch.

In lieu, all you have to do is contact the candidates about recent job openings.

Long and short of it…

Despite the economic uncertainty fabricated by the epidemic, hiring professionals have their hands full.

Remember, all recruitment teams have their own share of challenges. However, using these quick fixes, you can address the recruitment boulders and stay ahead of the curve. If still, you find the learning curve backbreaking; it’s time to get help from industry experts to grasp the best talent for your organisation.

Keeping it short and sweet, whether you look to reduce your time-to-hire or improve your quality-of-hire, using an ATS can be your stroke of luck.