5 REASONS YOUR HIRING STRATEGY IS HURTING YOU

Here are the stats:

• One bad hire costs a company up to 30% of the employee’s first-year earnings. (Click here to calculate exactly how much your hiring mistake will cost you!)
• The current average tenure for employees is 4.6 years – less than 3 for sales professionals.
• Where employees were once expected to hold 2-3 different jobs in their professional lifetime, they are now expected to hold as many as 15 or 20.

What do these hiring numbers tell us? Hiring is a messy business for both candidates and companies.  Businesses want the most cost and time-effective hiring process that ensures top quality, committed hires who are satisfied with their jobs.

To accomplish this, many industries have incorporated “One-Size-Fits-All/Straight-Out-of-the-Box Recruiting” practices, hoping to eliminate poor candidates early on in the process, bringing only A-players to the interview table. Strategies such as offshore recruiting, automated resume reviews, 1-question or 6-hour interviews have become the norm over the last decade.

In a handful of instances, these practices may yield the candidates companies are looking for. But in today’s candidate-driven market, they’re more like to cost you the employees you want!

Why Your “One Size Fits All” Hiring Strategy Isn’t Working

It does not reflect the current job market

The number of voluntary separations continues to rise year-over-year. According to the BLS, we’ve had record numbers of online job postings in recent years. In this current candidate-drive market, job seekers are in control and more selective. Over the last 12 months, 65% of our lead candidates have received multiple offers. Many are even considering hefty counteroffers. Your slow-moving hiring process will ruin your hiring efforts because candidates are quick to move on. Forty percent of job seekers said they wait less than two weeks to hear back from the employer before “ghosting” the potential employer -considering the opportunity a lost cause and moving on to another. Your hiring process must align with the job market. Translation: You snooze, you lose.

It doesn’t ‘fit’ your organization

Boxed recruiting is a highly structured process requiring a large investment of resources and manpower. Smaller companies looking to follow in the footsteps of the larger Fortune 500 counterparts, typically lack the infrastructure and the strong employer brand name to support those practices. As a result, you’re not getting the full benefit of the program, leaving holes in your recruiting strategy… Holes through which high-quality candidates are falling. Additionally, your employees are already wearing multiple hats and do not have the bandwidth to learn nor execute the cumbersome “One-Size-Fits-All/Straight-Out-of-the-Box” process.

Click here for tips on how to make your hiring process more attractive to job seekers

Your hiring process may be weeding out great job seekers!

Candidates can be victims of a too-broad process

To weed out embellished or even false resumes, boxed recruiting strategies to incorporate a strict process for acquiring candidates’ work history. If this process is not tailored to your specific organization’s expectations, you will lose candidates who might very well fit the job. At the same time, your net may be cast too wide, reeling in candidates who are not. Failing to include keywords in their account of past employment, courses, or training may pluck a possible strong candidate from the pool. If the hiring process is simply about checking boxes, top job seekers will fall through the cracks. Here’s how to successfully sort the resumes you receive

Every industry and role is different

 The average tenure for a VP of Sales is twenty-four to thirty-two months. The average tenure for a CFO is twelve years. For a CMO, eighteen months. Obviously, there are many factors influencing these numbers- poor hires, shifting industries, changes in supply and demand. One key factor, however, is that a short or long tenure is simply the nature of the beast for many highly innovative and volatile industries. “One-Size-Fits-All Recruiting” attempts to utilize a rigid scientific approach to the hiring process, regardless of industry, geography, or market conditions, failing to take into account the unique nuances of the particular hiring need. 

Candidates are looking for a connection, not a clinical process

Highly qualified, employed candidates have quite a bit of leverage in the hiring process. Employers must understand what applicants are looking for: room for growth, social relevance, flexible work structure, competitive compensation, autonomy, personal investment, and connection. You can guarantee these are not the candidates who are willing to invest hours detailing every job they have had since high school or sit through a four to six-hour interview. Do you want team players who will make an impact on your business? Here’s what you need to do: create a detailed, accurate, all-inclusive job description; include expectations and measurables; outline their role in the chain of command; layout opportunities for growth and collaboration; offer a competitive compensation package; allow them to connect with you and understand your company from the moment they submit their resume.

Download our Ultimate Recruiting Cheat Sheet for more ideas on how to attract, hire, and retain the right people!