Common Hiring Problems

Hiring, like any other departmental function, is intended to maximize business as efficiently as possible. In most cases, recruiters have a key role to play in the success of various talent acquisition strategies. However, hiring is rarely a smooth process; recruiters have to face a range of obstacles in their day-to-day roles.

Some of these, however, can have an impact on how motivated a recruiting team feels and how well they perform. Read on to discover four very common problems that could have this effect on your recruiters, and how you can address them for better hiring success.

Recruiters are key players when it comes to sourcing and hiring business talent. At the same time, recruitment is a high-pressure environment. Hiring professionals have to contend with shrinking hiring budgets and tighter timelines each year. Every open role represents an urgent business need to be filled as quickly as possible.

It is safe to say recruiting is not an easy job in today’s world. Talent gaps cause critical issues that threaten business continuity. Accordingly, it makes sense to remove identify and address certain common hiring problems. If present, these can impair hiring efficiency and success in spite of a decentralized recruitment model or a centralized one.

If such problems are addressed, the chances of onboarding the right talent go up along with the efficiency with which it is done. Here are four such problems along with useful information on addressing them:

Understaffed Recruitment Teams

There are many responsibilities and performance indicators associated with a hiring role. Modern-day recruiters often feel overwhelmed keeping up with hiring deadlines, hiring budgets, candidate pools, and filling ad-hoc openings as quickly as possible. Most hiring teams would agree a more efficient use of their budget would be to add more members to the team.

This can help them manage the workload better. Of course, this may not always be practical, especially for businesses seeking to reduce payroll costs. On the other hand, software or recruitment-focused programs might be leveraged in conjunction, to offer insight into resource maximization.

Gaps in Communication with Recruiters

Recruiters are focused on presenting the benefits of each client, matching potential candidates to the company best suited to each. A significant amount of effort goes into crafting employer value propositions and employer branding material. However, for this to be effective, recruiters need access to the “full picture”.

In other words, they need key information like costs per hire, pay ranges, and annual hiring budgets. Without transparency, the accuracy of the EVP and branding those recruiters share with candidates also diminishes. In most cases, this lack of information could impact recruiting effectiveness. In worst-case scenarios, it could also lead to employers losing valuable talent almost as soon as they onboard new workers.

The situation likewise breeds mistrust between recruiting professionals and hiring managers.

Hiring Managers with Unrealistic Expectations

Another problem that consumes unnecessary energy is the unrealistic expectation of a hiring manager, particularly one prone to hiring bias. Hiring managers could demand too much from the candidates sent their way. They may demand recruiters fill a sudden gap in talent by an unrealistic date, or their outdated workforce approach could discourage candidates from pursuing employment.

In many ways, a bad hiring manager can undo all the hard work of a recruiting team. This does not just signal a waste of time, effort, and already-limited budgets. It can and does decrease the chances of onboarding valuable new hires. Even the employer brand could take a hit, making it harder for hiring teams to locate the kind of talent they need in the future.

No Additional Support for Hiring Teams

Hiring professionals are deeply invested in their roles. Sadly, many business leaders fail to recognize the true importance of this role. Good recruitment can help businesses make better hires, supplement their workforce skills, and even position themselves better for transitions. A bad hire, on the other hand, can damage business productivity, workforce morale, and even the large employer brand. Yet, most recruiting teams have to function without the support they need.

This support needs to be more concrete than a leadership buy-in on the hiring process. It is still essential, but it may not always deliver measurable results. Instead, leaders should supplement their in-house hiring teams with third-party specialized recruiters.

These recruitment services have extensive experience across general and specialized roles, as well as permanent and contract-to-hire roles. The best staffing agencies can scale up or down based on your organization’s needs. This makes it much easier to execute tighter deadlines, manage high-volume hiring, and source specialized or niche talent.