Talent acquisition leaders plan recruiting calendars and methods based on what the business leaders need for their teams. This is fun and excitement; regular day at work. This gets a bit tricky when the plan is to hire in large numbers or there is a demand-supply issue. In such situations, recruiters get out of their familiar territories to explore new possibilities. They source talent from multiple locations, adopt new methods to attract talent, review their assessment methods just in case they are losing out good candidates, focus on candidate experience, challenge existing norms and so on. Though organizations keep doing this during their growth phase, each time such an exercise is undertaken, it becomes unique in many ways because we live in a highly dynamic environment. What are the top considerations for one such multi-location recruiting exercise?

Who is Recruiting for You?

Recruiters deliver the moment of truth to an applicant. They take your Employer Brand out there to the talent market. They need to have a good grip on both sides of the equation: demand side as well as the supply side.

The demand side point towards the Employer brand. So, they must have a good understanding of what you stand for, your future plans and relative positioning with respect to the employer brands competing with you.

On the supply side, they need to have a good understanding of the behaviours of the candidates in the local market. We have technology-enabled databases such as job portals, social networks of professionals and various job search engines. Yet, it is critical to have a good understanding of candidate behaviours, availability of talent, their typical expectations and the dynamics of the local talent market. It is important that the recruiter has a physical presence in the market and has a good connection with the candidates there.

Do you have many recruiters working for you? Are they all well-qualified and competent to work for you? When you have many recruiters tapping the same market, they compete against one another and often work at cross-purposes. Secondly, recruiters tend to give their everything to an assignment which is exclusive to them, especially when the pool of eligible candidates is small. And at the same time, when you put them on a contingency mode alongside many other recruiters, you do not get any of them to deploy their strategic bandwidth on the assignment. So, the value that you receive becomes sub-optimal.

Get Well Qualified People For Your Job

It is important to make the right choice of Recruiters.

Right Methods to Assess

You must have the right methods to screen applicants so that the right candidates do not drop off the process, great candidates feel encouraged to apply and misfits get eliminated early on. This is easier said than done. The context of demand and supply could be unique in each market. Hence, the methods for the attraction of talent and doing prelim screening needs appropriate improvisation. For example, one could introduce a method of group interaction when you have far too many walk-ins and you do not see a challenge in picking up the desired numbers. Another situation could be to screen candidates online right at the stage of expressing interest. On the other hand, one could encounter situation of tight supply of the skill sets being hired. In those cases, you could hold challenges or seminars to engage with potential talent and network with them to build a long-lasting engagement.

Keep track of the Efficiency

It is exciting to go places and attract talent from various pockets. There is always a cost involved and the returns that we get for the organization. The costs include the fees paid to agencies, online databases, logistics and the person-hours invested by the personnel involved in the process. The returns are to be measured in terms of the number of hires, average cost to company of the hires vs the company average, the retention rate of the hires vs the company average and the value of diversity on customer satisfaction.

At times, companies do not keep track of these metrics and hence, have no idea if the system is working well for them. It is not enough to keep a track of the efficiency but also, one has to make course-corrections in the system based on the outcomes.

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