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Don't Let The Grinch Steal Your Recruiting Season

By Lou Adler, December 12, 2007

Last week Lou gave you our prelude to the holidays using the "12 Days of Christmas" theme. Today we'll take a look at the realities of recruiting in today's tough market through the eyes of none other than The Grinch himself. So let me begin by quoting rather liberally from the beginning of one of the greatest holiday stories of all time. My apologies in advance to Dr. Seuss and to my eight children.

Read more articles by this author.

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"All the Whos down in Whoville liked RECRUITING a lot, but the Grinch, who lived just north of Whoville, did not. He hated the ads and whole interview season. With our ongoing survey we now know the reason. The thing that the Grinch hated most of recruiting was working with managers who didn't know reason. They'd struggle to interview even the best, and settle for worst if the best didn't test. He concluded recruiting wouldn't be so bad if only the process wasn't all so sad. So the Grinch created a holiday list of things to fix up to turn recruiting to bliss. In a jiffy he'll have all those recruiters in shape and ready to hire the best Whos in the place. So whether you like the Grinch's shrewd observations, without them you'll be standing on shaky foundations."

So today we give you a sneak peak at some of the preliminary results from our 2007-2008 Recruiting Top Talent Survey. We promise to only reveal the truth of what the Grinch sees as the biggest challenges facing the recruiting industry today. It's still not too late to participate in the survey. Simply follow this link to the survey and you too can participate in our New Years resolution calls early next year where we'll reveal more about the results to all participants. Below you will find the Grinch's list of things that need to be fixed:

Thing 1: Sourcing Top Candidates is Getting Harder (If you don't read Dr. Seuss, "Thing 1" comes from The Cat in the Hat, not The Grinch)

89% of our over 500 participants said they weren't seeing enough strong candidates for important positions. That's even higher than last year. Part of that Grinchy realization is driven simply by the demographics (some cities are reporting unemployment rates as low as 1.5%). High-volume recruiting operations are reporting that tried and true methodologies for attracting talent are starting to disappoint, including the use of traditional job boards.

63% of our participants reported that the quality and quantity of responses from the major job boards is either a huge problem (20%) or a growing problem (43%). It's not surprising that the most identified need and focus for 2008 recruiting departments is improving sourcing techniques and strategies (125 responses).

Thing 2: Hiring Managers Aren't Helping

Hiring managers also come under scrutiny in our survey. Note the following responses:

Hiring managers are not willing to devote the time necessary to recruit top people - 60% identified this as a growing problem (38%) or a major problem (22%).

Hiring managers are not strong at assessing candidate competency - 60% identified this as either a growing problem (39%) or a major problem (21%).

Managers overvalue skills, experience, and academics before seeing candidates - 59% identified this as either a growing problem (40%) or a major problem (19%).

Managers are not strong at recruiting top people - 63% identified this as either a growing problem (41%) or a major problem (22%).

These results are among the most consistent in our survey. This is a growing problem that senior management and recruiting departments are going to have to address to improve recruiting performance in 2008. Hiring Managers continue to be the weakest link in the recruiting process based on observations by recruiters and recruiting managers. Many recruiting departments report that hiring manager training is another big item on their fix-it list for next year. Now in fairness to our manager friends, most of the survey responses came from recruiters and recruiting managers. As we travel the country we receive an equal number of complaints from hiring managers about the quality of the recruiters. Their number one complaint is that recruiters don't really seem to know the jobs well enough to recruit top talent.

Thing 3: Metrics Matter

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
-- George Santayana, The Life of Reason [1905-1906]

With all the talk within the recruiting industry of ROI, metrics, and process improvement, it appears we're not making major progress in this area. When asked if all aspects of the hiring process are measured and reported upon regularly, 67% reported that it was rarely measured, infrequently measured, or only measured about half of the time. 71% also reported that less than half the time there was consistent feedback provided at each step in the recruiting process to ensure consistency. When you really take a deep dive into the data about measurement, you begin to realize that many companies are gathering data, but most are not using it to actively change the process. See how your recruiters stack up by asking them to take our 10-Factor Recruiter capabilities survey. You might want to send it to you whole team to see how they measure up, "Are You a Great Recruiter?".

Thing 4: Retention

As the market tightens retention becomes an even more challenging and critical focus for most companies. Continuous rehiring is an imperative, and companies report that retaining great employees is a very important focus for 2008. When asked if retention was an issue, 65% of survey participants reported it to be critically important (17%), one of their most important issues (22%), or an important issue (26%). Hiring is definitely getting harder (89% of respondents reported this as an important issue) and companies can't afford to let their top talent walk out the door through neglect or lack of advancement opportunity.

But don't be too discouraged. Those familiar with the Grinch story already know that it ends well.

"And what happened then? Well, in Whoville they say that the Grinch's Thing List turned night into day. The recruiters were happily closing their REQs and candidates merrily accepted their checks."

So, in spite of the recruiting challenges facing us in 2008, there's a great deal of hope, and the solutions are not all that illusive. Over the next few weeks and months we'll not only continue to share some of the survey results, but also share our take on how to avoid the holiday recruiting blues.

Happy recruiting.