There is a trend happening in the job market. A number of companies have been saying they are having a difficult time finding the people they want to hire. There are now more candidates, who are currently employed, putting out feelers and even their resumes on company job boards where they would like to be hired.
If these statements are both taking place how is it that companies are having a difficult time finding the people they want to hire? Let’s begin the discussion.
It is a fact, plus or minus a year or two, that since 2009 and until very recently the amount of resumes for any sought after position was similar to the applications vs. acceptances to be an undergrad at Harvard University each year – maybe even higher. Due in large part to the sheer numbers more and more companies put into place some systems – think hardware and software and set up some rules in the hiring process. Let’s begin with the purpose of the software and hardware.
No longer was a company looking for the perfect fit in a pile of resumes.
The main purpose was to solve ‘how do we get rid of most of these resumes’. For companies which dealt with paper resumes these were scanned into the system. For the majority of companies job boards and links to positions became the main method to apply. During the online process numerous questions are asked to confirm the candidate does fit the criteria for the role. If the answers to the designed questions reflect a mismatch the candidate is not considered at all.
Further is the resume itself which was scanned for keywords and percentages of keyword matches. If the resume does not meet the standard set up – no dice – not considered. The job requirements were all constructed to be very exact and lengthy not so much to find the perfect candidate, but, more to get rid of a good number of resumes.
In fact, the process to fill most positions became designed to slow down the hiring process.
Even when a Senior person within the company wanted to fast track a candidate the process was designed to force a slowdown in order to get the person ‘into the system’ – tell me you never heard those words!
Why go through all of this you might be asking me? “Mitch why are you telling us all of this stuff?” First of all you may or may not agree with it all and others may have much more to tell on this subject (feel free in the comments section). Okay, enough information for now – let’s agree this was the set up.
Here is the bad news – in many companies it is still the way the hiring process is set up!
Think logically now about the new problem. If there is a need to find good candidates…maybe there is a need to reverse the methods and techniques which were put into place when there were too many applicants for positions?
Yes a quality job description is important. However, it does not need to be exacting in every single detail. A few sentences which include wording such as ‘various activities as necessary to support marketing and sales’ as an example should be good enough to cover extra paragraphs of duties off of the main roles and responsibilities.
The main point is streamline the process. Speed up the process. If your company is having difficulty finding quality candidates maybe you need to revisit your hiring and recruiting methods.
Every company has their own methods of operation – if you would like to have Mitch meet to review and streamline your hiring process click here.
Mitch Tublin runs a boutique consulting firm with a main focus on leadership development, business advisory consulting and executive coaching. Based in Stamford, CT. they have clients all over the world.
