Blog

04/11/2021

By Chris Andrews – Director

As a recruiter I should be over the moon.

18 months of pent-up candidate activity being released on the market like a salmon run and still there is not enough supply.

History being made in real time. Candidates being chased by recruiters like golden snitches, while clients egg them on from the stands with promises of triple their current salary, huge signing on bonuses and a 2-hour work week. Plus, you can work from anywhere in the universe.

Ok, I get there needs to be a correction – but how long can this last?  I can almost feel the hangover coming, as the market wakes up in 6 months. They say there is no such thing as a free lunch and this is a feeding frenzy about to happen. A large part of the hiring market is targeting functional-skills at all costs, pushing up salaries while ignoring many sections of the candidate pool.      

The companies that come out the other side of this stronger than they went in will have the following traits:

A STRONG EMPLOYER BRAND

To hire the right people consistently you need an employer brand that speaks to someone’s sense of purpose and their key drivers. A crazy salary offer can override that in the short term, but not the long or even medium term. Your employer brand needs to resonate at a fundamental level, so don’t be tempted to head down the path of throwing cash and other shiny baubles at the market – you will just destabilise your current teams. If you need to buy in skills urgently, hire contractors – don’t dilute your culture.

A WORKFORCE PLAN

If you don’t have a shared sense of values and purpose, you will struggle to identify those people with the skills, traits, drivers and experience you are looking for. If you know their drivers, you can then find, engage and attract them based on long term shared purpose, in turn strengthening your company culture and hence performance. None of this connection between your strategic goals and your hiring will happen without a clear workforce plan that relies on real data and has the buy-in of the leadership team. The weaker your plan, the more reactive you become, the more pressure your managers will be under and the more they will rely on functional skills to cover the gaps. If every hiring manager always needs people from the competition, starting yesterday, who can ‘hit the ground running’, you may have a problem.  

HIGH LEVELS OF HIRING EXECUTION

A strong brand and a great plan only work if you execute well and consistently. This means your hiring managers need to be well trained, synchronised and consistent. Candidates need to feel valued, challenged, comfortable and excited about joining your business against all the others, even some that are offering more money. Small mistakes in the process matter, as does wasted time, so hiring managers have to be ambassadors for your employer brand and tough, decisive judges of people with a very clear idea of what they are looking for. Not an easy ask at the best of times.

If all the above sounds like a lot of hard work – that’s because it is. At Stone we are experts in the bringing the above strengths to your business and acting as your in-house team, so you don’t have to. We can coach your hiring managers and be your champions in these unprecedented times. Our in-house model, multidisciplinary capability, and no-lock in contracts make us a unique proposition in the recruitment world. In addition, our expertise in Workforce Planning, Employer Branding and Process Optimisation mean you only ever need one account manager for all your hiring needs.

Our vision – to help our clients hire great people, consistently. Contact us today.