😤 “Can’t hire anyone, but we won’t change anything”

Situation: an employer wants to hire a specialist, but there are no candidates, or they are not good enough.

— What’s going on? Where are my candidates? — asks the employer 🤴 to their recruiter or recruiting agency.
— How can I put this… — says the recruiter👩‍💻.

And explains it as it is:

1. You want all candidates to complete a test before the first call or introduction. Candidates of this level are not willing to spend time on this, so only lower-grade candidates get to the initial call. You need to cancel the test at the entry stage.

2. You want to hire someone for the office, but your office is on the outskirts, and you want to hire a senior DevOps. The only chance is to try to attract such candidates to remote work.

3. Your salary range is below the market, yet you need experienced professionals. Analyze the current salary analytics and evaluate who you can attract under the current conditions and employer brand you have.

👩‍💻: Let’s change the processes and prerequisites.
🤴: I’m not ready to change anything!
👩‍💻: Then let’s lower the expectations from candidates and consider «growth potential» candidates. Even better, let’s evaluate the pool of candidates willing to consider the position under the existing parameters.
🤴: That won’t work! You’re the professional, so find me the right unicorns that meet my criteria.

Welcome to the #blind_spots_in_recruiting!

The employer here puts hiring success at risk. Here are the risks:
1. The search time for the right candidate tends towards infinity.
2. The business underperforms due to the absence of the necessary person in the team.
3. The cost of not hiring increases.

And here’s what could be done to mitigate those risks:
⭐ Analyze market feedback brought by the recruiter or recruiting agency.
⭐ Adapt your hiring processes to the expectations of in-demand candidates.
⭐ If you’re interested in hiring experienced professionals, be more flexible and adjust to their expectations: remote work, salary, tasks, position, etc.
⭐ If attracting professionals doesn’t work, lower your requirements and look for lower-level candidates. You can get the needed expertise from professionals you attract part-time or as mentors.
⭐ Learn to sell the vacancy and the company yourself! Find the right tone of voice. Teach this to your recruiters/recruiting partners.

If you want to be the one choosing, not being chosen, you need to play by market rules — says Oksana Prutyanova, analysts and data scientists recruitment lead at NEWHR.

Example:
You want to hire a rare, in-demand, top-tier candidate. Then, perhaps, you should build an individualised hunting process. You might need one or several preliminary informal meetings. They aim to motivate the candidate through acquaintance, discussion of the project, prospects, and team. Only then should you move on to candidate evaluation.

What challenging hiring cases have you experienced? Share them in the comments!

💙 For team and leadership hiring, come to us at NEWHR Recruiting. Submit your request on our website or email us at contact@new.hr