Jobs vacant but managers seem in no rush to hire

Jobs vacant but managers seem in no rush to hire

Question

You’ve no doubt seen all the news items about how difficult it is to fill jobs these days because so many people aren’t interested in working. I’ve been trying to get a key job filled in my department. I’m in a rush to hire. I can tell you the competition is very stiff. Human Resources keeps losing hires to other employers, even though we’re making competitive job offers.

Today I’m really upset because, after 3 weeks of interviews (everyone was very positive about her) we lost a candidate I thought was a definite hire. When I spoke to her about 10 days ago I made it clear that an offer was being processed and I could tell how pleased she was! We just needed to get a final signature. (The finance manager that signs off was on a trip long put off because of the virus.) Finally HR told me they called her with the offer. She went to another company. What’s going on with people now?

Nick’s Reply

rush to hireI’m going to take a stab and read between the lines. You’ve lost lots of candidates you wanted to hire. You interviewed the most recent candidate over a period of three weeks — way too long. Then it seems you took over two weeks to get an offer out to her. My guess is that, in this highly competitive hiring market, you’re way too s-l-o-w… taking way too long to complete a hire.

Probably the single best way for a company to solve problems, boost productivity and be successful is to get the right people on board as quickly as possible. So, why does the hiring process seem to take longer than a presidential election campaign? Is it because we’re hiring presidents every day? Nope.

It’s because responsibility for hiring is broadly distributed. No one is really in charge of being in a rush to hire.

Who’s in a rush to hire?

It’s easy for a manager to think, “I’ve got the right candidate. I’m ready to hire! Now it’s HR’s job to put the offer together and make this happen.”

Or, “My V.P. has to sign off on this. It’s in his court.”

And, “I’m a busy manager. I don’t have time to baby-sit the job offer process.”

In today’s world, managers seem to have more important things to do than hiring the best people to do the work. For too many managers, hiring is not job #1. That’s why companies rely on HR departments and clerks to process employment paperwork — right? If managers like you spent their time just getting new hires on board, there would be no time left to run the business!

That’s the wrong attitude. Hiring is every manager’s #1 priority — or the business doesn’t run at all.

How long does it take to hire?

A search for statistics about how long it takes employers to make a hire turns up scarce recent data, which is revealing by itself. What’s the HR industry hiding? It appears to be such a tender nerve that reports from 2016 and 2017 are heavily cross-referenced even today. The most widely cited is from 2016.

The Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) has reported that the average time to fill a position is 42 days. But, according to an OfficeVibe report, “The best candidates are off the market in 10 days.

Of course, time to hire varies by industry and position. We can only wonder how long it’s taking today, in the early post-COVID period when employers complain they can’t find enough good candidates. But common sense tells us that the faster you can hire, the better your chances of your offer being accepted.

My evidence is only anecdotal, but the best job seekers and candidates I’ve worked with say the employer that makes a good offer decisively and quickly scores big points. We don’t really have good, current data about how long it should take to fill a job. But we know that less is better. “We decided we want you now!” seems to count a lot to job applicants.

Managers: Make hiring job #1

Another thing candidates tell me is that they are impressed by can-do managers who take personal responsibility for getting them on board. “That’s the kind of boss I want!”

If you’re in a rush to hire, but you wait for HR to handle your hiring, consider this: You probably can’t fill vacant jobs because another manager in another company (One of your competitors?) is stealing your best candidates. She’s hand-walking a job offer through the system, pushing aside the obstacles, riding herd on her boss until the documents are signed, riding herd on the HR department to do its job, and getting everything processed the same day. The return on this manager’s time investment is huge. She’s got a new employee on the job, getting the work done.

Meanwhile, you’ve got vacant jobs. Your investment in this last candidate just got lost on the way through “the approval process.” Your top candidate went to work for your competitor. Impressed with the other manager’s can-do attitude, “your” candidate took the other offer. (See Why HR should get out of the hiring business.)

If you’re a manager, next time don’t be so busy. Replace the wait-for-HR-to-do-it attitude with your own initiative and expedited process. Make sure you’re interviewing only the best candidates. Interview faster. Eliminate delays. Make faster decisions. Hand-walk the job offer through the approval process the same day. Or, prepare to spend your valuable time interviewing more candidates while your competitor is busy hiring them.

Are job offers flying out fast? Are managers showing any rush to fill jobs? Whether you’re a job seeker or a hiring manager, what do you think hampers efficient hiring? What obstacles have you encountered? What could employers do to speed up the process?

: :

Pay equity for women by 2059! Er… 2093?

Pay equity for women by 2059! Er… 2093?

Report: Wage Gap Narrows for Women Ages 25 to 30

Source: SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management)
By Kathy Gurchief

pay equityThe gender pay gap narrowed overall by 6 cents in three years, with women ages 25 to 30 seeing the most improvement in that time, according to a new report released in conjunction with U.S. Equal Pay Day on March 24. In 2017, women in that age group made about 79 cents for every $1 men made; that increased to 86 cents in 2020, a 7-cent gain.

Women earn less, on average, than men, and so must work longer for the same amount of pay. Based on its findings, Visier [an HR consulting firm] forecasts that women could achieve pay equity in about nine years at the rate the wage gap is closing.

Other projections are not as rosy. The Institute for Women’s Policy Research, for example, estimates pay equity won’t be reached until 2059. The American Association of University Women (AAUW) projects that women won’t achieve pay equity until 2093.

 

Continue reading

Nick’s take

The Society for Human Resources Managers (SHRM) says its members can’t fix a national compensation problem. But HR is in charge of compensation. If SHRM can’t lead HR managers to a solution, how will HR managers lead their companies to pay equity? How much are companies paying those HR people, anyway?

What’s your take? Who’s going to fix the pay equity problem? Why do professional women’s associations say it’s going to take longer than HR says it will? Why do HR departments own compensation policy if they can’t manage compensation? Is this another reason to eliminate HR altogether?

 

 

: :

You mean the recruiter isn’t the hiring manager?

You mean the recruiter isn’t the hiring manager?

A reader wants to hear from the hiring manager, not from a recruiter, in the September 22, 2020 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter.

Question

hiring managerI need to change employers after almost two years of stagnant pay and “nothing new learned.” But I’m fed up with what passes for recruiting. Recruiters almost never know what they’re talking about, and I don’t get to talk with an actual hiring manager until I’ve already wasted a lot of time doing the HR dance. Then the manager tells me I’m not a good candidate! Why don’t companies recruit more accurately from the start? Why aren’t they making better matches before we even get to the interview?

Nick’s Reply

You just identified a profound problem. Most employers start the hiring process all wrong. That’s why they can’t make good matches efficiently. I believe the problem arises before the job interview.

How the hiring manager gets the wrong candidates

I find that most employers and managers demonstrate poor recruiting habits. For example, why do they interview a candidate at all – on the phone, via video or in person — if they don’t already know the person’s level of expertise?

But most managers would object: “That’s why we have interviews!”

I say bunk. A job interview is not the place to vet a candidate on the most basic qualification criteria. That should be done before anyone even contacts the candidate. Leaving this crucial question for the candidate to answer in an interview is a waste of everyone’s time.

You’ve become frustrated because you should not have been recruited to begin with. The rate of hires made to job candidates considered is so poor because employers and their HR departments haphazardly recruit and encourage anyone to apply. These wrong candidates flood employers with so many resumes and applications that HR must turn to software and algorithms to “analyze and sort” the wheat from the chaff. But when an employer turns on a fire hose of job applicants like this, it is creating its own problem!

How many candidates do you need?

Hiring-software maker Workable reports that before filling a job, the average company considers 19 “qualified” candidates. Qualified means the candidate has moved to “promising” or “call” stage of the process.

That’s actually one of the low estimates. Lever, a recruiting software firm, reports that it takes 189 candidates to fill data-related jobs like data scientist, analyst or security specialist. Sales jobs require the fewest candidates: 43.

Lever also finds that hiring involves nine or 10 “runaway processes” from initial candidate contact to job offer. Google, for example, has required 15-25 separate interviews to judge one job candidate.

Multiply that kind of hiring overhead by the cost of HR, management and interviewer time and employers are more frustrated than you are, even if they act like they don’t know it.

How many candidates does an employer really need?

Hiring managers are the best recruiters

What I’m about to say will not help you unless you can find companies that recruit and hire smart by turning this important process over to people that can do it right.

I believe recruiting can be more efficient — and hiring more accurate — if managers did their own recruiting. Who else is better qualified to recognize and identify the talent necessary to do a job? (Anyone in HR that scoffs and says managers are terrible at recruiting isn’t managing its management resources properly!)

There is evidence that when managers recruit via their trusted professional contacts, and verify candidates’ skills and reputations by polling their professional communities, hiring is not just more efficient – the quality of hires is better and new-employee turnover is lower.

The “HR dance” hurts employers and job seekers

Recruiting and hiring are a big job that HR should stop trying to do. Everyone loses when hiring managers don’t do this job themselves. That “HR dance” has lots of bad ramifications.

SHRM reports that, under the prevalent recruiting and hiring processes, up to 38% of hires quit before their first year is up. The employer must again incur the overhead cost of “nine or 10 runaway processes” and “15-25 separate interviews” to refill the same jobs!

This hurts you, the job hunter, because you have to change jobs again.

Why hiring managers can do it better

Jobvite reports that the “most effective” source of hires – that is, the source that drives the most actual hires – is hiring managers. When they actually do it, hiring managers recruit and hire almost three times more candidates than a company’s own HR department does (19.35% vs 6.61%).

I’ll stick my neck out and suggest why hiring managers are more successful at bringing the right people on board. My own experience tells me it’s because they turn to their networks of trusted contacts when recruiting. (Surprise! This is also how good headhunters recruit!)

While HR posts a job and pushes over a hundred applicants through nine or 10 processing steps (“the dance”), a hiring manager finds and talks with perhaps three highly qualified candidates.

But, without a job posting, where does the manager find them? In the manager’s professional community, after asking a few respected contacts, for example, “Who are the best PHP programmers you know?”

Those contacts make only good referrals because their professional relationships and reputations hinge on it. They want to keep the respect of their dance partners. There is no fire hose.

Managers talk shop

What do hiring managers do differently than HR recruiters? Jobvite says that 43% of new hires leave a job “because it wasn’t what they were expecting.” But why is that surprising, when the candidate’s first contact with a company is with a personnel clerk or recruiter that doesn’t understand the nuts and bolts of the job? Hiring managers are naturally better at discussing the job and the work with candidates. Candidates like you expect a recruiter or interviewer to actually be able to talk shop  on your own level!

If an employer wants to avoid losing almost half its new hires in their first year, it needs to make sure all candidates get the job they were expecting. The best way to ensure that: let a hiring manager (or a credible member of the manager’s staff) be the first person a candidate hears from.

But you’ve already seen that this is not how it works. SHRM reveals a dirty little secret that surely all its HR management members are aware of. Hiring managers recruit new hires only 16%-18% of the time. Given the implications of letting someone else do this critical job, why does any employer permit someone in HR to do the recruiting 51%-73% of the time – when this results in lower hit rates and massive turnover of new employees?

Start recruiting and interviewing the right candidates

Screening candidates who come in over the transom is a fool’s errand. It takes a lot of time, costs a lot, and imposes ridiculous failure rates. This reductionist approach yields too many – if not all – wrong candidates.

HR posts jobs and solicits applicants in bulk. For the most part HR selects “who comes along.” HR does not go out and find its candidates via trusted sources in the company’s professional community.

Hiring managers pursuing highly recommended candidates through personal recruiting not only gives a company a higher hit rate; it ensures good hires that stick around.

If a manager doesn’t already know a software development candidate is competent in jQuery, for example, then why have the interview at all? Maybe the keyword “jQuery” isn’t even a critical criterion for pursuing the candidate. What if the hiring manager’s trusted source says, “This candidate hasn’t used jQuery, but I recommend them highly anyway because they’re quick learners who have used related tools.”

Who recruited you?

When hiring managers are left out of the initial recruiting effort, recruiting is by definition dumbed down. When HR, which usually lacks subject matter expertise and insight, makes the first cut of candidates, then the likelihood of meeting the wrong candidates increases. That’s also how employers miss out on the very best candidates – and then waste precious time sorting through more candidates.

If you want to avoid wasting your time, look at who is recruiting you.

There is a reason why most jobs are found and filled through personal referrals. It works best. And there is a reason why better matches aren’t made: The recruiter isn’t the hiring manager!

Who recruited you the last time you got hired into your favorite job? If you’re a manager, do you agree you’re the best recruiter for your team? If you work in HR, or you’re a recruiter, do you buy what I’m saying? What other methods of recruiting might make better matches?

: :