10 Ideas for 2022 to Capture Talent that Don't Involve Adding More Recruiters

By: Josh Healan / Managing Partner

Companies, both employers and employment agencies, are hiring up recruiters at the fastest rate we've seen probably ever. Rumor has it there was 6,500 new recruiter openings posted on LinkedIn in a single day at the beginning of January. It's no wonder candidates are feeling overwhelmed and annoyed by all of the recruiter outreach in the last year. There's simply too many recruiters all pursuing what is not enough candidates to go around.

More recruiters is not the answer, well not the only answer. We're just throwing bodies at the talent problem.

Companies need to start thinking outside of the box, like way outside of the box. The problem is not necessarily open jobs. Like sneezing to a cold, open jobs are a symptom of the problem. The problem is all of the opportunity out there for companies right now that they cannot deliver on because of a lack of talent. This equates to projects on hold, pent up revenue and of course profitability. From my perspective that is the ultimate diagnosis, unrealized profits.

As it relates to talent that means different things to different companies. Restaurants are reducing hours because of a lack of servers. Manufacturing plants are limiting production because of a lack of assemblers, or packers. And as we all know major airlines are cancelling flights because a huge percentage of their workforces are out sick.

For the sake of this article though, I am going to focus on what we normally refer to as professional or technical talent. Engineers, developers, data scientists, and the like are the resources we are going to discuss here. I am going to refer to this bucket of resources as the Human Capital Core to Growth & Survival, or HCCGS for short. (I will attempt to come up with a way cooler sounding acronym over time.)

After all that is what we're talking about here. The resources that are responsible for creating the products and services that businesses ultimately produce and sell. Companies need these resources to constantly innovate, designing new technologies and products they can then build, market and sell to consumers or other businesses. That's the Core Growth part. We're also knee deep in a cycle right now that ties these resources to a company's long-term ability to compete and deliver for customers. That's the Survival part.

Does the word 'Survival' sound overly critical or dramatic or extreme? That's the point. And we're there. The Chief Engineer or an 80 year old multinational manufacturing company said to us in December "if we do not figure out how to fill our positions and to retain our people this company will not exist in 10 years". The head of Talent at a Fortune 20 company, one of the largest and oldest businesses in the world, also said to us in December "for the past decade people have begged us to work here and now we literally have to beg people to work here, we have no idea what to do".

So how then do companies ensure they maximize their HCCGS? And do it without adding more recruiters which is not the solution.

Below are 10 ideas, or strategies, that we have seen prove themselves over time. Some might feel easy and are strategies you can consider today. Some might sound ridiculous and feel like ideas that would never fly at your company. All we can say is that maybe no idea is too ridiculous at the moment. Remember, it's time to think outside of the box, and push your company out of their comfort zone.

1. HCCGS Workforce Assessment & Roadmap. Before you add resources, don't add resources. In my experience your HCCGS makes up 20 to 30% of your total workforce. For the smallest companies I've seen that equates to five to 10 engineers or developers. For larger companies I have seen R&D teams that consist 500 engineers or more. For the biggest companies I have seen IT departments that consist of 10,000 plus people. No matter your company size, before you do anything to add new resources, I'd encourage you to at least semi-annually, perform an HCCGS Assessment to compare your workforce against your long-term business plan and objectives. The goal here is to answer the question, are the right people working on the right work? In talking with leaders there is often a massive opportunity here. Companies are moving fast and, just as we mentioned throwing recruiters at a problem, companies continuously throw technical resources at problems without ever taking a step back to assess their workforce. You will discover opportunities to realign resources to your most important projects. You may even discover that you do not need additional HCCGS and can in fact reduce staff.
2. HCCGS Hiring Assessment & Roadmap. When is the last time you went out to your company's careers page and looked at the openings? For many business leaders I talk to the answer is never. When they finally do, they are shocked at what they see. The bigger the company, the greater the opportunity here. One company and leader I work with found out that just recently that they were hiring for the exact same position, in five different places across five different divisions. The hiring managers weren't aware, they weren't sharing any strategy or candidates, in fact they didn't even know each other. Even worse they had no idea that they were duplicating efforts across divisions or roles. Take a pause to assess your hiring and what you're hiring for. Similar to Idea 1, you're trying to answer the question are we hiring the right people for the right work?
3. Leverage Other Sites. I have a client in Ohio, they shall remain nameless. Their R&D department is based here. They insist that all engineers hired must sit in Ohio and yet they constantly ask themselves why they struggle to fill positions. Meanwhile, they have sizable offices in California, Colorado, Tennessee and the Carolinas. Those are all states that have a plethora of engineers this company is constantly looking for. Of course there is a benefit to having the entire R&D team sitting under one roof. But, is there a far greater benefit to opening up HCCGS hiring to all of their other facilities and locations?
4. Start an Immigration Program Now. Roughly 10% of my clients have robust immigration programs in place that allow them to easily sponsor foreign nationals. Other companies continue to resist immigration and sponsorship because of complexity and costs. Yes it is hard but once you have an immigration program in place, or work with an outside firm to build one, it becomes streamlined moving forward. We advertised a position for an advanced automation engineer just last week. In looking at the responses we received, our team was surprised that 8 out of ten required sponsorship. We had about 30 in total. Now not all applicants fit the requirements but I would say 30% did. Do the math and that's approximately nine solid candidates and 21 that were quickly rejected. Seven or eight of those nine required sponsorship of some sort. So out of thirty, we're down to one or two good candidates that do not require sponsorship versus nine good candidates regardless. The reality is companies that have an immigration program hire faster often with stronger candidates and have a much more diverse workforce. AND a huge bonus is that they have much lower turnover rates. Sponsorship is often followed by a higher level of loyalty as the employee understands you are making an investment that allows them to live and work in the United States.
5. Buy a Team. Do you need 30 Java Developers in the next year? Buy a small consulting firm that has the resources you need. There are thousands of small consulting firms across the country and while many perform very well, it can be hard for them to consistently manage their workloads and the ebbs and flows of new project pipelines. Find a small company that fits your HCCGS needs, is a solid cultural match and buy them. But here's they key. Let that company continue to run independently with your company becoming their biggest client. Allow them to continue to serve other clients and to grow as their own entity. I see these transactions happen regularly and they can be a win win for all parties involved.
6. Sell Your Company. "Wait what? Sell our company because of HCCGS? But we're the leader at this or that. The only company big enough to buy us is our main competitor. That's crazy talk!" Well call me crazy but I believe we're going to start to see strategic acquisitions take place that are less about adding products or services, and more about adding talent. Good or bad, I am going to use a real-world example here. Stanley Black & Decker has acquired nearly every tool manufacturer in Cleveland, probably in the state, probably in the country. Names include MTD Products (owner of Cub-Cadet and Troy-Built mowers), Nelson Stud Welding, MAC Tools, among others. From Stanley's standpoint strategic acquisitions are part of their growth strategy. But MTD for example, yes they get an influx of cash and tons of strategic benefits the public probably isn't aware of. What else would be in it for MTD? From where I sit these companies are now part of a global HCCGS behemoth. What may have never been possible for MTD or MAC on their own because of HCCGS limitations is now virtually limitless. The potential is almost overwhelming from a talent stand point.
7. Buy a Company. Different Than Buying a Team. Literally the flip side to Selling Your Company, start buying. As mentioned above we are going to start to see more M&A activity driven by HCCGS. No further explanation necessary.
8. Think Globally. The biggest competitive advantage out there is those companies that build HCCGS globally versus domestically. I'm not talking about offshoring for the purpose of reducing costs. I am talking about globalizing your workforce, truly thinking of the world as your talent pool. Imagine just for a moment what would be possible. There are brilliant minds sitting on every continent around the globe, many looking for the next steps in their careers. Your Immigration Program that you are starting from Idea 4, take that a step further and invest in a global talent program, one part immigration, and one part global talent. (Worth noting we know some amazing people that have done this and can do it for you.)
9. HCCGS Alliances. When I was a youngster you wouldn't dare drive a Honda to a GM plant. If you did you might come out to find your vehicle had been vandalized. It had nothing to do with vandals or thugs, it was driven by a fierce competitiveness that employees of auto manufacturers felt between themselves and other brands. Actually it was bigger than that. It was competitiveness between countries. Buy American! Fast forward 20 years and General Motors and Honda are strategic partners. They have worked under an alliance for years in the development of hydrogen powered and electric vehicles. We couldn't think of a better example of a strategic shift in thinking, even in culture, that took two companies from one extreme to another. They truly realized that together, they are far more effective than they are separately.
10. Always Hire. What came first the chicken or the egg? What came first, the approved job opening or the perfect candidate? The reality is the way companies hire is flawed. Real life example, a great company with a fantastic technology culture had an opening for an engineer. They needed to get the position filled so they hired the best candidate they could find at that time. The individual they hired was a good fit but not perfect. Again, it was the best option at that time. Literally within a matter of weeks 'the perfect' candidate came available. Someone who checked all the boxes and brought a couple of other highly valuable skills to the table. We presented that candidate to the same company and the response was "our President approved that one opening and we filled it. We'll have to pass." This is the reality most companies operate in. It comes down to this. The perfect candidate is almost never looking and available when you have a job open. The perfect job is almost never available when a candidate decides to make a move. Now I'm not saying any company should recklessly hire everyone that comes along. What I am suggesting is that you pad your annual hiring plans and budget. Allow you leaders some flexibility to hire great talent even when they don't currently have an approved opening. The timing rarely matches up and great companies miss out on great candidates every day because of it.

These are the conversations that excite our team. Big ideas that solve problems. We're over the insanity. It's time to stop repeating the same patterns and hoping we solve the problems related to talent.