It’s Time to Talk About Recruiting for the New Year
Too soon? It might feel as wrong as back-to-school shopping in June, or Halloween decorating in August, but if your organization starts budget planning season in the fall (or yikes, has an October 1st new fiscal year!) you may already be late to the game.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 88% of occupational fields are expected to grow between 2010 and 2020, with a total employment increase from 143.1 million to 163.5 million (14.3%) in that period. As of July 2017, that number stood at over 153 million. That’s a 7% increase, so not quite halfway there.
What this means is that the difference between the relative ease of recruiting coming out of the Great Recession and the painfully tight labor market of today (4.3% unemployment) is only expected to get more agonizing in the next 3 years.
Put another way - you think it’s bad now, just wait.
On a second thought, don’t wait. If your company isn’t aggressively recruiting and filling the talent pipeline now, you will be stuck playing catch up for a while. Failing to plan for future hiring needs leaves you stuck with pursuing a right-time, right-place strategy. Or in other words, a lucky timing strategy.
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The best pre-demand recruitment strategy involves employer brand-building and constant, multi-platform messaging to talent communities. In this way, when they are ready to make a change, you will be ready... they will already be familiar with your company and be able to determine whether their values align with yours. On-demand hiring can be costly and time consuming. If you can plan ahead by implementing a pre-demand strategy, you can save time and money in the long run.
Executive recruiters will often claim to have access to a secret and exclusive network of candidates whom they have developed-- which is true to a point-- but they still have to catch the person on the exact day they are receptive to the new opportunity.
An executive recruiter I know, relayed a typical exchange with candidates when he contacts them about an opportunity. It generally starts with the recruiter telling the candidate that he’s helping a client to hire for a role in the candidate’s field of expertise. The candidate will then often respond by noting the serendipity, and how ironic it was that the recruiter happened to catch him/her on the right day... by chance!
But in actuality, the recruiter has been there the whole time.
Don’t leave your talent management to chance. Implement a recruitment program that is ready whenever candidates are.
Written by: Allison Small, Co-founder and VP of Program Development and Execution, TalentCMO
Links and other interesting stuff:
Is Your Recruiting Social? Are you “marketing” your company and jobs to talent using social? By 2020, 2.95 billion users globally are expected to be on social media. Reach out if you need help engaging talent on social.
Looking for interns? Join our Teaming for Talent program and connect with students in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia.
Check out this sweet Career Showcase (a standalone microsite built for candidates to show company's authenticity) that we built for one of our clients.