Top Challenges in Recruitment

India is the 2nd largest and youngest workforce in the world but does that mean all are skilled and qualified to be employed? NO. The demand is huge against the right supply of manpower. Hence there is a never ending battle between the recruiter and the organization’s need for right employee.

Challenges make sure it haunts us in all ways and it is no different with the recruitment process. Business opportunities will not at any juncture wait for us. Hence, being pro active is the only way out to deal with any stress. There is challenge at every step of recruitment process starting from screening till the offer stage until the candidate joins.

Organizations today go beyond their routine ways to keep their staff happy and satisfied, as retaining would not strain an HR as much as hiring would.

With the experience, could list down few challenges that clock in as The Most awful ones.

Lack of proper hiring strategy in place

We all want best results in short time. This happens well in most of the cases of recruiters when hiring. Do you prepare yourself before getting into hiring? Do you gather enough data that will ease your hiring? Our preparation is usually limited to studying the JD and making ourselves thorough with the company profile. Is that enough?

A little study and preparation can help avoid a bad hire and making the same a habit will work wonderful. Following things we can definitely do in addition to the routine tasks:

• Understanding the requirement directly from the hiring manager and using the JD just as a reference.
• You should know in and out of the hiring company and its competitors
• A small research on the candidate’s current company can also help the recruiter to market themselves appropriately before the prospective candidate.

Ensuring Quality and Speed in hiring goes hand in hand

Finding a right candidate at the right time is always a pain in the neck for the recruiters. And even if it is found, holding them through the interview processes and making them join is altogether a challenging task.

Having fundamental knowledge on the subject/requirement is a pre requisite. One who does not have that sufficient knowledge on the requirement that he is looking for then they might end up losing time in getting the so called “right candidate”. Recruiters should always do a small background research on the requirement. They should be thorough enough to ask legitimate questions to the candidates (more required for technical roles). With this you can rate a candidate whether he is suitable enough to be spent time on.

Ineffective recruiters at service

When recruiters prefer the classical way of hiring through portals, the result achieved is also quite expected. May be because they work under strict TATs, efforts in applying new thoughts take a back seat. But then, who doesn't?

Hiring is a continuous effort that needs to be put in by the recruiter even during the times when they are not hiring. We can randomly name it as passive hiring. As a recruiter, one should always be in the process of networking. More and more you strategically connect with people on daily note, it will be easier for you to source it from your database itself rather than going the conventional way of sourcing. Keep yourself updated on the latest trends in recruitment.

Lack of proper training on interviews

It is very important to understand that just as recruiters carry an impression of candidates, they too follow the same. Have we checked on our interview processes, whether it is quite lengthy or a short one? Do we tend to reschedule interviews many a times? Do we keep them waiting for too long at our premises? Is the interviewer sufficiently trained enough to be an interviewer?

Recruiters should never miss on this part of their role as a good interview experience will always stay with the candidates and will eventually make them join. Ensure the interview process is effective and not lengthy to judge a right candidate. Make sure you take time and schedule interviews after having checked everyone’s calendar including the candidate’s. This will avoid many hassles at everyone’s end. Interviewer should be to the point and smart enough to judge the candidate in the given time limit.

Increased competition

It usually happens when we look for candidates we hardly get one and when there are no plans of recruiting; plentiful CVs flow into your inbox.

Recruiters should constantly be up with networking through workshops, seminars or social media. They can keep themselves active on all hiring platforms so that they are visible and are approached directly by the candidates. The more you brand yourself, more are the chances of getting quality candidates.

Great mismatch between Organizational urgency vs. Available talent pool

Recruiters are always going to get crushed between the expectations from candidates and the management. To balance both, recruiter should be active and equally patient to handle the position.

Understanding the requirement directly from the hiring manager will help the recruiters a lot. Getting their first hand view on the kind of person they want under them will ease out the work of recruiters. Also it is equally important to show the real picture of market to the hiring managers because at times the expectations are too high and unrealistic from their end. Recruiters should perfectly balance between the two situations.

Interview turn up ratio is highly depressing especially in mid and growing organizations

Recruiters have really got sick of this when candidates don’t turn up as agreed. And the reasons cited are even more annoying. How to avoid such candidates and situations always becomes a priority for the recruiters.

The solution definitely starts when you first communicate with the candidate. Could you check if he is in dire need of this job? What has actually made him say YES to this offer? Is this the job he is actually looking forward to? Check on his future plans, whether he is clear of his career goals, what kind of company he wishes to work with? What are his aspirations from the future company/manager? These points can somehow help the recruiter to get to know his real agenda of saying yes.

Offer to joining ratio is equally an area of concern

It’s always a celebration time for recruiters when a candidate has been offered to join the company. They start feeling relieved of the fact that they now can focus on something else. They do stay in touch with the offered candidates to ensure they join on time but most of the time this task is done merely to get a tick on the to-do list.

You have to be constantly in touch with the joining candidates and try to know more about his routine like checking his personal and family well being. On how they are doing and where do they originally belong to? How does he manage his work in his current company? Does he need more help from your end and so on? Getting into these minute details can help gain the trust of the candidate. The more he opens up, less are the chances of getting ditched at the last moment.

These are my share of experiences and few ways to deal with it. However I would be keen to know more about your view or experiences on the same.