Today’s hiring landscape is really challenging. There are over 10 million open jobs out there right now, if you can believe it. Almost a third of companies with open jobs have at least one that they just can’t fill (source: CNBC). Businesses are telling me they’re frustrated with the lack of candidates they get, and when they do interview someone, they’re not as much of a fit for the role as they’d like them to be.
It’s a vicious cycle. If a business has roles they can’t fill, they make riskier hiring decisions on people who maybe aren’t a good fit. Then those folks turn over because they’re not a good fit and the company now has a role it can’t fill. So not only is that business suffering because it is unable to get someone capable into the role, they’re also wasting money (an average of about $15,000) on the process.
Businesses can’t rely on the way they’ve always hired in this market. They may need to make changes to their hiring process, mainly just because of supply and demand. Regardless of why the dynamic has changed out there in the world, businesses can benefit from changing how they operate. Here are four things they can consider to make it easier to attract and retain higher quality team members.
1. Make it easy on candidates to apply
2. Invest in your online attractiveness to applicants (not just customers)
3. Get a tool to predict fit
4. Evaluate orientation and assimilation to reduce future hiring
Make it easier for candidates to apply
OK, let’s pretend we’re applying to a job. You find something you think you’re a good fit for on a job board, and click on “apply”. It asks you to create an account, and upload your resume. Good so far.
Then, it tries to populate a completely separate work history document by importing each item from your resume. Inevitably, the formatting is not compatible. Your third-most-recent job is now a job responsibility bullet in your second-most-recent job, and the dates you worked there are now populating the job title box. You then notice that your job summaries didn’t format right, and so you have to go in and delete them and copy/paste them all back in. You do this for every box.
This has now taken you 45 minutes. But you persevere because the job looks attractive. Maybe your hard work will pay off. You’re taken to the next page where you answer some demographic information. No problem. The page after that asks whether you’d like to upload a cover letter. You go back to the job description, write a thoughtful cover letter explaining how your experience matches each of the key points, and upload it. You’ve taken an hour and a half now.
On the next page there are more questions, and they ask about how your experience matches some key points on the job description. At this point, you’ve lost over 90 minutes of your life you won’t get back. Frustrated, you give up.
You gave up, and became one of a surprising majority of applicants who didn’t finish their application because it was too long. According to CareerBuilder, that number can be as high as 60%. That is a sobering statistic, and it explains why some applicant tracking systems may actually be working against you.
Make it easy on candidates to apply, or you’ll lose them. I’d even recommend you take a swing through your own application system and validate it as if you were a candidate. If it takes more than a few minutes to apply to an open job, make a change. You’ll see the benefits right away.
It’s also important to remember, managers, that when you move an applicant along through the process you should move quickly. If you’ve decided to make an offer, do it immediately. It’s amazing the number of perfect fits that get away because the manager waits for a day or two to put an offer together. Remember how I mentioned earlier that in this challenging environment, a business may have to do things a little differently? Well, this is one. It’s a good idea to wrap up your candidates quickly or someone else very well might.
Invest in your online attractiveness to applicants (not just to customers).
Most companies appreciate the value of an attractive online presence. Customers are drawn to a good-looking website, for example. Yelp reviews and other peer recommendation sites help a customer decide which company will best provide what they’re looking for. But when it comes to candidates, many companies have a blind spot.
The equivalent of Yelp for a potential applicant is Glassdoor. If a company has a low recommendation score- or if there are comments about poor or disengaged leadership, a toxic culture, low pay, a lack of career progression, etc.- you can expect to see a lower number of applicants. These days, candidates have a little more discretion in the places they apply. And especially if they came from a toxic workplace, or are in a current situation with no career development, they will avoid what seems like a similar situation because they now have options.
So, how to address this. Firstly, make sure your career page is as attractive as your customer-facing pages. It should sell the company’s values, culture, and organizational strategy. It should show happy employees doing fun things at work. It should be forward-looking, and illustrate the company’s commitment to the communities it serves.
Next, address the online brand. Glassdoor and Indeed both have rating systems for whether an employee would recommend an employer to candidates coming in. Senior leaders should know where their businesses stand on these ratings, and should value it as much as any other leading indicator. And HR folks, it’s a good idea to stay up to date on the comments that are being posted- it will give you a place to start if you need to address a systemic concern, or make sure something that people like is being maintained.
Either way, addressing an organization’s online brand can improve the likelihood of attracting top candidates.
Get a good tool to predict fit
As an Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, I know there are a variety of tools out there that can give you a leg up as it relates to hiring the right person for the role. For example, a structured interview guide can measure the critical knowledge, skills and abilities of a highly performing incumbent. Developing this with the partnership of high performers in the given role, as well as using a couple interviewing managers to work together to make a final decision, will provide you with a better chance of hiring a great fit.
Even easier, you can implement a quick and easy talent optimization software that can improve incumbent retention and performance. Predictive data helps you hire for a better fit- which allows you to improve overall performance in role and reduce the chances of turnover down the road.
Hiring for fit can reduce the incidence of the vicious cycle we touched on earlier. There are a variety of tools a business can use, which can be tailored to their own unique organizational culture. When people are a genuine fit for their job, they can perform at a higher level and feel a sense of accomplishment. When someone is in their element and really feeling it, they’re unstoppable. And they’re so much less likely to jump ship- how could any other job compare to what they’re doing now?
Evaluate orientation and assimilation to reduce future hiring needs
Ok, today we’re starting our new job. It’s our first day, and we are so excited to finally make a start. We take an extra minute getting ready, we eat a good breakfast, we get to work a little early- we’re ready to rock. Deep breath. We walk in, and things are hopping. Not in a good way. It feels like chaos. We find our boss, who is already stressed out but tries to make a minute to touch base. The phone rings, the boss has to take it. They toss us our keys. Backing out of the office, suddenly all that new-job excitement begins to feel more like anxiety.
That was the orientation.
Businesses frequently fall into this trap, especially when they’re already understaffed (that vicious cycle again). The secret here is to invest, at any cost, in making sure your new people have a smooth entry into the company. Why? Well, companies with strong onboarding retain 82% more of their new hires. That’s a good way to break the cycle. And remember, turnover can cost a company up to 200% of that position’s salary. It adds up.
Think about it this way. It’s kind of like a spaceship trying to land on a distant planet. If there’s a plan, the right trajectory is calculated, and all the steps are taken at the right time, the ship can be guided through the atmosphere and land safely. If not, we know what happens. The same applies to a new employee. If we guide that person through the first day, the first week, the first 90 days, they’ll almost always land safely. They’ll perform at a higher level earlier. They’ll have absorbed the wonderful corporate culture, and be able to articulate why their company is great. They’ll put in their highest discretionary effort because they’re committed. In other words, they’ll be highly engaged when they land.
If we don’t, there’s a good chance they’ll burn out before they can even get started.
A good orientation takes away all that chaos on the first day. Your new employees are shielded from it. They meet business partners they can use as resources, ask questions, make friends. They learn about the company, it’s successes, and why it was great decision to join it. Maybe senior leaders stop by and talk about their vision and priorities. Importantly, the new employee doesn’t start at their actual job yet. They don’t even get their keys. Why jump in the rover before you’ve even landed the ship?
This takes organizational maturity. It takes patience and investment, especially when the chaos outside the four walls of the orientation room is reaching a fever pitch. But it’s important to absorb some of that chaos short term. By doing so, you’re allowing that new employee to later add value and reduce the chaos, rather than turning over and adding to it.
Later, when the new employee begins their real job, they meet their assigned mentor. This can be someone who trains them if their job is technical, or it could just be someone who is a good representative of the organization’s culture. They’ve been around for a while, and they can serve as a guide when the new employee needs help. Who to call for a question about their benefits, maybe, or how to complete an expense report. They don’t judge their new mentees, they help them because that’s who they are. It’s the company’s culture to help each other, right?
Now we’ve made it so this new employee isn’t going anywhere. Instead of burning up on re-entry, they’ve safely landed, built a base, done some exploring, started mining resources on that distant planet. They’re in a good place. They start to reduce the chaos. They break the cycle.
Hiring is tough these days, but these four tips will help
Business leaders are experiencing challenges with hiring. It’s one of their most critical people-related pain points, and it’s not because of anything they’ve done wrong. Really, it’s just that the market has changed and businesses have to adapt to those conditions. And although there are many more tips and tricks a company can use, starting with these four- making it easier for candidates to apply, ensuring an attractive image of their organization, using good tools to hire based on fit, and beginning the assimilation process with a good orientation and mentorship- businesses can overcome their obstacles with hiring, and deliver better results.
Patrick Ingham has been helping business leaders deliver better results through the lens of their people for almost 20 years. He is the founder of John Patrick Consulting Group, an HR, people ops and talent optimization consulting agency. For more tips and tricks on how to optimize your business performance through people operations, check out his other blogs or reach out for a free 1:1 consultation today.