Are You Ready for the Next Hiring Frenzy?

Whether you believe the recession is over or not, now is the time for companies to get ready to find talent for the increase in business that is coming.  For the past 12 to 18 months, companies have had the luxury to be picky about when and who they will hire.  Most hiring managers have increased the job requirements and the interview process to ensure they got the best talent as they perceived it.

Companies now have to start preparing themselves for the hiring process to speed up.  We will not see the ridiculous hiring frenzy from the dot.com era, but hiring managers can no longer take months to hire a person and expect them to wait patiently to get hired. Highly qualified candidates are getting more recruiting calls and are beginning to have multiple job offers.  They are quickly entering the job market and just as quickly they are accepting good offers and are no longer available.  A case in point, we had a large technology client take over 3 months to determine a short list of finalists for a VP job.  They lost their number one candidate who was recruited by another technology firm, interviewed, offered and accepted a VP role in three weeks.  We are now seeing multiple clients lose candidates due to the length of the hiring process.  In addition, candidates no longer have just one opportunity to pick from, they are getting multiple offers.

Five Tips to Help You Win the War for Talent

1.    Make sure you know the profile of the type of person you want.  Make sure all stakeholders agree to this profile.

2.    Partner with your recruiter to develop a qualified slate of candidates.

3.    Speed up the interview process.  This does not mean eliminate decision makers from the

process, but it does mean consolidate interviews and do phone interviews whenever possible to shorten the interview cycle.

4.    Be prepared to hire someone from a slate of 2-3 qualified candidates.

5.    Be prepared to sell the candidate on why the company and the position is the place they want to work.  I can guarantee you your competition is selling the pros of their company.