The Recruitment Dilemma
17 May 2016
You are the talent lead at your company and you've decided to manage the recruitment function on your own.
What with the advances in technology, social media and professional networks surely finding the right candidates should be like shooting fish in a barrel? Right?
Well… Maybe not!
Managing the recruitment function on your own could have its pitfalls… it is like project managing your own construction project.
You may end up saving on the overall budget but consider the opportunity costs that is:
- Project delays,
- Frustration of managing individual contractors,
- Time - time to choose and purchase every product, time to consider every detail of the build, time lost at work, loss of own/family time.
Consider the following challenges when deciding to manage your own recruitment function:
Resource Overload :
- If you are thinking of managing the candidate responses internally you might want to prepare yourself for:
- The many responses you will have to wade through. The worsening economy and general skill shortage means that not all candidates who apply meet the job requirement criteria,
- Possibly increasing the size of your department to handle the added responses, scheduling of interviews, candidate referencing and necessary checks. These added resources/functions often add to the cost of recruitment.
- The mountain of paperwork! Even if you are dealing with a few recruitment agencies, printing CVs for all of the candidates multiplied by the number on the interview panel could lead to the paper costs piling up quickly. Imagine if you are screening the CV's all on your own… Ouch!
Social Networks :
- So you have heard that in this modern age of recruitment candidates are standing in line to meet prospective employers? All you have to do is advertise on social media? You might want to rethink this premise:
- What happens after you advertise on social media and you do not get the right number or quality of the candidates that you are prospecting? Do you know how to target candidates or boost your ad to reach a specific audience?
- Have you considered the cost of advertising and/or boosting on social media?
- Who manages the responses, scheduling of interviews, candidate referencing and necessary checks that you are going to receive via social media?
- Do you understand how to manage your campaign so that it promotes your brand and enhances candidate participation via your social media pages and website?
Agencies :
- Many talent leaders make use of traditional agencies, ask yourself:
- The value you receive for the placement fee that you have to eke out?
- Does the agency:
- Responsibly manage your brand image?
- Provide you with a database of candidates that you can later place at no additional cost?
- Save you time, paperwork and costs?
- Take you through a shortlisted candidate matrix and discuss each shortlisted candidate before setting up interviews?
Advertising
- Advertising is extremely important for brand presence and attracting the right candidate. The 2016 LinkedIn survey indicates that branding is an important trend in attracting the right quality of candidate!
- Do you know which advertising medium to use to attract the type and seniority of candidate you are in search off?
- When you are quoted for a specific size of ad, are you sure that it is the size that is appearing on the advertised platform?
- Who designs your ad and creates the content? A well designed ad and creative content goes a long way in attracting the correct candidate.
- Are you attracting passive candidates via your advertising campaign? A recent survey postulates that 61% of quality candidates are passive candidates.
Internal Databases :
- You've found the ideal candidate but do not have a vacancy at this point in time. Where do you store the CV? On a Word file or Excel spreadsheet? How do you access the CV when you need it again? Will you remember where you stored/filed that elusive CV? What happens when you find the CV and it is now out of date? Do you have an intuitive database that interacts with the candidate to update their details?
Job Boards :
- Job boards are quickly losing their position as a platform to finding quality candidates. Trends within the recruitment landscape indicate that social networking platforms and branding are better ways to source passive candidates and are leading options to sourcing quality candidates. When using job boards are you assured that you:
- Are working with candidates with updated CV's?
- Have access to passive candidates?
- Retain the database at the end of your contract?
- Are not tied in to a long term advertising contract?
- Are not limited to users?
In this tough economic environment it is understandable that you might want to personally manage the recruitment function. As you can observe from the above there are a multitude of factors that you have to consider when proceeding down the "DIY" route. As an often used adage goes "what you gain on the straights you lose on the bends"… Sometimes it might be prudent to partner with a professionals like The Working Earth who will guide you through the bumps in the recruitment road.
Start your journey to hassle free recruitment by giving us a call on 011 475 9668 or fill in our contact form and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
Article by Suraj Maharaj, Managing Director
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