Everyone Is After the Same Fish

We hear it all the time. "Our budget is based on local talent. We need to find locals for the tax credits, we need them with the following years of experience, the following list of technical skills, the following budget and we need them right away. Do you follow me?.."

It's a standard story in recruiting. The project got greenlit last week and all of a sudden we need a team immediately to produce it.

The big issue right now is everyone is fishing from the same pond at the same time and the "fish" have tons of food. If we can continue the analogy for a moment, the fish, so to speak, have multiple options, some are very well fed and most have caught on that there might be tastier bait on other hooks if they look around. Some fish are looking at 3 hooks at the same time. Some fish are being looked after very well, eating well, and they have no need to bite on any new hooks. Others have learned to nibble on many hooks at the same time until the bait gets better. But overall, there are too many people fishing the same pond at the exact same time. Some are using old hooks/bait and the fish have better options nowadays. And the client ordering the fish dinner doesn't care about your issues, the dinner has a deadline and there are guests coming that have paid in advance for the meal. You better get enough fish on time and on budget to make sure everyone gets what they paid for.

Sound familiar?

How does someone catch fish accurately in this kind of scenario?

Or dropping the analogy, how does a company find, attract and retain specialized talented workers in a hyper competitive market? What are some of the tools and strategies any company can put into action to help win the ultimate battle for talent right now?

1. Take stock of your existing workforce. Polls or surveys might break through the perceptions/paradigms held in various layers of the company. Collect some data, don't work from traditional assumptions. Much has changed in the past 3 years and your workforce's attitudes may have changed dramatically. What do they want?
2. Audit your hiring workflow or have a 3rd party do it. How long does the full process take form building the job description, posting, screening/filtering applicants, working with recruiters or not, short-listing and then offer stage? Is there latency built into the workflow that can be shortened or eliminated? Is there a roadblock or two in the process that can be modified to speed things up? Don't have a large enough recruiting team or HR team in-house to manage the process? Outsource it! We continually talk to leaders and hiring managers whose job has become 40-60% recruitment focused because they don't have a team in place to help with the process. Tha managers are bogged down.
3. Concise job descriptions will net a wider group of applicants. Too many times job descriptions read like an exhaustive shopping list where you're shopping to feed a hundred hungry kids. Keep them short and to the point. There are dozens of articles that show some people don't even apply because they feel they don't have all the necessary criteria. Here is one from the Harvard Business Review. A quick Google search turns up many more: https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless-theyre-100-qualified . We recommend some basic "need to have" followed by a few "nice to have" - Rather than fill up the job description with too much to read, direct them to the website to read about the company. Don't put all this employer branding and marketing on the actual job description.
4. Get some basic metrics tracked. Example: "...The last 3 employees we had to hire took between 4-6 weeks to hire from the time the ads were posted..." OR, "...it took 2.5 weeks from first interview to the final interview before we presented an offer..." - If you and the executive team are aware of the timelines and the workflow you can start building proper, realistic, work-back scenarios to increase your odds of filling the roles closer to the higher dates. And if the hiring date is up in the air, start pipeline candidates now. Or hire a recruitment specialist who knows your marketplace and have them start pipelining talent for your eventual launch date. Failing on this means you will always be starting late and under-resourced. Even when you get it right the market may be so hot that you've got to change your criteria. (can't find salmon, trout might have to get the job done)
5. What is your brand or company's competitive attractant in the current marketplace? And don't take it from 1 or 2 people. Get a scan, get a wider sample of sources. Don't be the emperor with no clothes here. Make sure you're being getting real reviews. Look at exit interviews. Why did people leave? Look at Glassdoor or other online reviews if they are posted. Survey your existing team or have managers ask their reports during meetings if need be to collect data. Listen to candidate interviews and ask the question "I know you want to work in this industry but what specifically about our company do you find attractive?"
6. GET ANOTHER POND TO FISH IN! Continually relying on the same old pond to deliver good fish might be an outdated model. It's a global economy with a global workforce. We've been able to find a few very talented people in several time zones to do the work because everyone local was hired and not going to make a move. Figure out the time flex and make it work. Many companies that haven't done this historically have found this is now necessary to get projects staffed adequately.
7. WORK-FROM-HOME IS NOT GOING AWAY. Covid-19 opened the doors to work-from-home scenarios and study after study has shown the majority of people don't want to return to work they way it used to be. Many don't want to return at all, not even a few days per week. Push against that reality if you dare but going with the flow and finding a way to embrace the new normal puts your company into a more competitive group of employers. Your brand's flexibility is attractive to many prospective candidates. This may also give you added retention as employees enjoy the benefits involved of not being stuck in a commute for 30-90 minutes each day and the costs associated.
8. Hire a professional guide who knows the best fishing holes to fish in! Like getting on a charter fishing trip with a local guide or hiking up Mount Everest with the right Sherpas, hiring a recruitment consultant that knows your industry well may be exactly the fix to the situation. Just like fishing or mountain climbing, the good recruiters have multiple strategies and knowledge that should save you time or help modify your talent search to net more attainable results. Even a consultation, to bounce ideas off of them and check your perceptions of the marketplace, can be very valuable.
9. Change your compensation and benefits plans. We've seen clients increasing vacation time, sick days, RRSP matching programs, better benefit plans, more perks, etc. Those who look at the problem for too long are falling behind. Competing on salary is often a hollow fight. Someone always shows up eventually with more money rarely retains people over the long haul. Work/life balance and a range of perks often round out any opportunity. Culture needs to always be nurtured. We've even seen a few companies testing out the concept of a 4 day work week! Imagine getting 52 Fridays off this year. My dear old dad was a union man decades ago and his employer offered him 4 10-hour shifts and all his Fridays off until he retired. He jumped at it when it came up. Here is a list of several others: https://buildremote.co/four-day-week/4-day-work-week-companies/ And some studies on the same: https://buildremote.co/four-day-week/studies/
10. Shameless plug: Give us a call. We've been in the business almost 25 years now assisting clients work through employee attraction, retention, recruitment, coaching, succession planning and related programs. We're happy to have a chat to see if we can add benefit to what you're working on. We've been known to land some great fish!