Written by Finite Group

Are recruitment processes killing your ability to hire?

In short, yes.

You don’t have to trawl through several hundred words for us to tell you that. It’s well known, especially in larger enterprise firms, that long and slow recruitment processes can hinder bringing on the right talent.

All we can give you is our perspective through the lens of a Recruitment firm and how we’ve seen things change over the past 12 months. We’re not here to cause offence to the great clients that we currently work with, but it’s worth highlighting some issues, as change does need to happen.

Current state of play

We’re seeing the biggest talent shortage in over a decade, so it’s getting a bit ugly out there. As the economy scrambles to recover, we are seeing more jobs coming on than ever before, but they vastly outweigh the available candidates (or the ones willing to move). It’s like an army of seagulls fighting over a bag of chips.  Most candidates have at least two, often more like four or five, live opportunities they are looking at.

In this current environment, can businesses stick to outdated, lengthy and opaque processes if they want to attract talent? Gone are the days when brand name alone will be enough to make people want to work for you. Candidates are far more discerning now and the smallest things can make the biggest difference.

In the banking world, we’ve seen the flow down from the aftermath of the Royal Commission into every facet of their respective organisations. Processes upon processes are in place to ensure that nothing falls through the cracks because – understandably – no one wants to get sued for millions of dollars again.

Now, we understand that these measures are in place as a means to help rebuild the loss of trust with a disgruntled consumer base, but what effect is this having on potential employees? Having a reputation for having an incredibly laborious hiring process is not exactly going to have the best talent flocking to you.

This is not a job-short market, this is a candidate-short market. If your processes are too slow, candidates will not wait around, especially when they have multiple other offers out there. Then you have to reset and then it could be another four weeks of processes with a new candidate, all the while slowing down your own hiring, and delaying the key projects that you want to get underway.

How can we improve?

Sadly, there is no magical quick-fix. With the international borders still shut for the foreseeable future, we will suffer a talent shortage for some time still, especially in IT and Technology skills.

We’ve been having conversations with people recently who believe that we don’t need these internationals and we’re fine with what we’ve got, but that’s not true. We do have some amazing IT and Tech talent on our shores, but we just don’t have enough of it to cater for the current requirements of rebuilding our economy.

Our major role as Recruiters is to ensure we maintain a solid line of communication and that we’re managing expectations for both parties involved in the hiring process. We are finding that some of our bigger clients are being more forthcoming with us and candidates about the length of their processes, especially when it comes to background and criminal checks.

This level of transparency is a must if you want candidates to trust you through the process. If you keep them in the dark, then spring upon them that these checks will take weeks, they will likely get frustrated and end up looking for a role elsewhere.

Our two cents

As is often mentioned, the pandemic has taught us how to pause and re-evaluate how we look at the world. In the world of Recruitment, it’s never been a better time to look at your recruitment processes and see where you can affect change.

We appreciate that large, wholesale changes in big enterprises aren’t necessarily achievable right now, so maybe take a look at parts of the journey where you can optimise. Candidates are looking for a smooth ride as part of the appeal of moving to a new role. This can be on both a personal and technological level, so we would suggest it’s a good time to review both aspects of your recruitment process.

A simple change could make all the difference in achieving that next great hire.

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