When talent acquisition isn't firing at all cylinders, it can be hard to pinpoint the problem. And with so many moving parts, once you've found the issue, diagnosing the right solution is yet another battle.
Sometimes even the best plan can fail without the proper framework. When it comes to developing or improving your talent acquisition strategy, it all starts with assessing what is currently working and what isn't. Whether attributed to internal or external factors, it's important to identify the weakest link. This small piece of information is a big piece in determining which staffing solution would best be suited to improve your recruiting efforts.
Choosing the Right Staffing Solution For Your Talent Acquisition Need
Before getting stuck with a staffing solution that isn't contributing to your bottom-line, let’s walk through the costs associated with some of today's most common solutions to improve talent acquisition. For a full breakdown of these services, including best practices to apply them, download the complete eBook here.
Some Sudden Hires - Go Staffing Agencies
Typically when recruiting hits a breaking point, the knee jerk reaction is to call on a combination of search firms and contract recruiters to fill open positions. While effective for immediate and sudden hiring needs, this strategy is best suited for minimal or difficult-to-fill positions. Consider that if you have a clear line to your cost-to-hire, you’ll likely find almost universally that this approach significantly increases your recruiting costs.
Planned Hiring Needs - Bring In More Recruiters
The next logical thought might be to look inward, and either promote from within or hire additional recruiters to supplement the hiring demand. However, depending on your workforce plan, this could be a costly short-term fix to a long-term problem. If you have access to historical hiring trends, then you’d be able to clearly and definitively identify peak hiring seasons. From there, depending on the length of the season, you can properly allocate your budget to accommodate for these ebbs and flows.
Long-term Hiring Strategy - Go Recruitment Process Outsourcing
Depending your experience level, you may or may not have heard of Recruitment Process Outsourcing. Companies will typically implement an RPO program when recruiting levels reach a sudden and staggering threshold or difficulty, like recruiting in a new geography or for a new skill set outside of the department’s expertise. This approach is most cost and process effective when hiring for high volumes or specialized niche talent. While many organizations fear losing control of their recruiting teams and/or processes, RPO provides deep analytics that can be used to benchmark future recruiting initiatives; in essence, providing more transparency than before the start of the program.
In any of the above scenarios, you’ll want to monitor your recruiting costs, key metrics (and relate them to business objectives) and employee performance levels to determine whether this is the right solution for your organization.
At the end of the day, you want to avoid the disconnect between hiring managers who are hiring out of necessity (not quality) and clueless recruiters who are uninformed and unable to improve their performance. Be diligent about accounting for everyone’s role in this process, and you can confidently determine which solution is right for you to ensure smooth sailing ahead.
