
What does your company value more? The potential employee or the recruiting process? All organizations should ask themselves that question? Is there a talent shortage in Canada and the USA? Well, based on the following North America headlines one would definitely think so.
- Jan 2018, CNN Money, “America businesses can’t find workers”
- Dec 2017, Washington Post, “2018’s challenge: Too many jobs, not enough workers”
- Jun 2018 CFIB “More than 400,000 unfilled jobs: Canada’s job vacancies rate remains steadily high in Q1 2018”
If these headlines are accurate, employers should be raising the alarms and screaming at governments, educational institutions, and HR departments to do something — anything!
However, according to Liz Ryan, CEO/founder of Human Workplace, and author of Reinvention Roadmap, the headlines are all wrong. Her opinion is that there is no talent shortage. Rather, it’s organizations that lack effective recruitment skills.
Click here to watch a short video on the five mistakes organizations make when recruiting.
Could the recruiting process itself be the problem, rather than a lack of suitable employees? Most HR departments pride themselves on their sophisticated recruiting systems. They have often created complex processes, which may include online applications, impersonal advertising, tedious screening tests, and uninspired interviews. HR carries out these screening activities for two reasons: to be duly diligent, and because they believe good systems will hire the best candidates. But, could these HR processes in fact be barriers to finding and hiring the best candidate? Perhaps in some cases the reason the best candidate wasn’t found is because he or she chose not to apply.
HR needs to start treating potential employees like customers, marketing to them, and treating them with respect. Companies need to be convey to prospective employees the message that, “we value you, not our recruiting processes.”
Discussion Questions:
- Think about the last time you applied for a job and you went for an interview. How was the process? What did you like about the process? What did you dislike about it?
- If you were an HR consultant called in to assess the company’s recruitment process, what recommendations would you make?