Spotlight on Recruiting: Five Things to Focus on Now August 04, 2008
By John Hancock
Many would argue that the best time to bolster your organization's talent ranks is now. For one thing, economic uncertainty means that the exceptionally skilled and talented salespeople working for your competitors may be more open to changing jobs today than even six months ago. Secondly, given that the average duration of an economic contraction is only 10 months, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, now is the perfect time to add to your pipeline of potential candidates who will help grow your company in the future.
But those companies wanting to seize this opportunity will need to focus on five recruiting-related initiatives:
• Have the ability to approach "passive" candidates from your competitors. Know who's top-notch at other companies in your industry and how to open a dialog with them. While these star performers may still be "safe" in their jobs, a more uncertain economy may mean they are more willing to speak with your recruiters about a plan "B" in case things do get worse.
• Tighten up your selection/assessment process to make sure you hire the right people. While it is never a good time to select the wrong people, now is definitely the worst time to make expensive hiring mistakes—especially in sales where customer relationships are at stake. Plus, in a downturn, you can afford to be more selective.
• Get your (recruiting) house in order by focusing more effective processes, including automation. As we all know, the job market has been hot for skilled sales professionals during the last couple of years. But, unfortunately, many in-house recruiting departments have had little time to fix inefficient or outdated processes. For example, examine your applicant tracking systems. New software developed in the last couple of years has helped many companies become much more proficient. Is it time to update yours?
• Revisit compensation for new hires. You don't need to overhaul the sales compensation for your entire sales team (a complex undertaking at any time, not to mention the flight risks it may precipitate), but it's a good time to make sure you are not over-paying new hires. Remember that salary data is always "old" by definition, so it makes good sense to use other measures to ensure that your rewards packages are in line with the current market for comparable jobs.
• Consider whether your business would benefit from working with a partner to help you identify and manage recruitment risk. Sourcing—finding and screening good candidates that match your requirements—is probably one of the most time-consuming and specialized areas of the recruitment process. Ask yourself whether this needs to continue in-house or whether you can buy such services on an as-needed basis from an outside company. If you anticipate that your hiring will fluctuate greatly over the next few months, outsourcing sourcing may make more sense than doing the work internally.
John Hancock is the head of Capital H Group's Recruiting Practice.
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