Navigating the ever-evolving staffing and recruitment landscape can be difficult, even for the most experienced business and human resource leaders.
According to a recent study published by The Society of Human Resource Management, nearly 70 percent of HR professionals are experiencing issues with recruitment in today's market. Between the rise of the gig economy, a mobilized workforce and a shift in generational preferences, there are a lot of transitions taking place, leaving companies struggling to figure out how to best adjust their talent acquisition strategy. The SHRM research revealed a handful of common recruitment-related problems plaguing organizations. Fortunately, there are simple steps HR managers can take to overcome these challenges.
Problem #1: They're not getting enough applicants
Lack of applicants is an issue more than half of businesses face. When companies don't have a great turnout of potential candidates, many times the reason can be attributed to a lackluster job posting process. The listing should make the organization stand out and be customized in a way that appeals to the ideal hire. It also needs to reach the right audience, on the appropriate platform. Social media, for example, is becoming an increasingly popular and useful channel for recruitment and staffing initiatives, a tool that 70 percent of companies now use, SHRM reported.
If your organization is suffering from a sparse amount of applicants, consider rewriting the job ad to demonstrate the personality of the brand. Get creative with the format and language and make sure you are highlighting the unique benefits and opportunities the position and business offers employees.
Problem #2: Candidates don't have enough experience
According to SHRM, 50 percent of companies aren't finding professionals who possess the needed experience for the available roles and a whopping 84 percent of HR leaders have seen a gap in applied skills within the past year. It's no secret that there is currently a skills shortage, particularly when it comes to IT. But there are ways to skirt around the issue. Ideally, all applicants that come through your door would be a perfect fit. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case. One strategy to compensate for a lack of experience and skills in a candidate that would otherwise be a great hire is to provide education and training programs.
Furthermore, if HR has a minimum set of mandatory qualifications the person must have, it might be more efficient to build out the talent pipeline through a staffing agency. This way, each applicant will go through screening and skills assessments, so the employer only gets the top-qualified candidates.
"The current talent shortage has made recruitment extremely competitive."
Problem #3: The job market is intensely competitive
Because there are more job positions opening up than there are candidates to fill them, recruitment has become extremely competitive among businesses. This is why organizations need to prioritize the development of their talent acquisition strategy to ensure they are leveraging the best solutions and tactics available to find, recruit and keep top performers.
To gain the needed skills and talent for particular roles and functions without the organization, HR professionals can enlist the help of staffing agencies who specialize in temporary and contract workers. As Business 2 Community Contributor Catherine Hess recently pointed out, the contingent workforce allows companies to "switch to skills-based models for hiring" – a strategy 60 percent of employers currently implement and one 57 percent plan to use in the future.
There are many challenges and responsibilities HR professionals are forced to deal with on a daily basis, such as compliance and compensation-related tasks. Outsourcing recruitment and staffing processes can not only help free up in-house employees to focus on more critical areas of business, but it can also significantly enhance the overall success of a company's talent acquisition efforts.