There are many challenges in corporate recruiting, all of which can be difficult to overcome. Fortunately, you can create a strategy that puts you in position to not only put these challenges in the past, but to pinpoint the best candidates.
From writing job descriptions to comparing resumes, you never know what type of detail will throw you for a curve. This is why you need to be prepared for anything (and everything) that could come your way.
Five of the Biggest Challenges
Every corporate recruiter faces a different set of challenges. Even so, the same ones continually bog down the industry as a whole.
Below are five of the biggest challenges in corporate recruiting:
1. Pressed for Time
Let’s face it: finding a qualified candidate is difficult enough. When you add a tight deadline to the process, it is even more challenging to meet your goal.
This is a challenge that many corporate recruiters and HR professionals face on a regular basis.
If you find yourself pressed for time, the best thing you can do is rely on the system that has generated positive results in the past. Furthermore, don’t be afraid to cut out time consuming tasks that could hold you back from meeting your deadline.
2. Lack of Resources
This is a common challenge, as many people soon understand they are the only person working on the task at hand. They don’t have others to rely on. They don’t have people who can assist them with key processes.
If you lack manpower as a corporate recruiter, you can make up for this by relying heavily on technology.
Implement software solutions like a recruiting management system that allow you to more efficiently gather resumes, compare candidates, and conduct interviews (if this is part of your job). By doing this, you will find yourself saving time during every step of the process. Best yet, this can help you save money over the long run as well. You can try a free recruiting management system today by clicking here.
3. Difficulty Finding the Perfect Candidate
You have one goal and one goal only: to find and hire the perfect candidate for every open position. This is a lot of pressure, as there is always the possibility of a thin applicant pool.
If you find yourself behind the eight ball, unable to find the perfect candidate, there are some things you can do to jump-start the process:
- Tweak your job description.
- Reach out to candidates who have applied for other jobs and may be qualified for the current position.
- Actively recruit candidates through social media, such as LinkedIn.
In a perfect world, you will receive interest from a large number of qualified candidates. At that point, the only thing you have to do is compare and interview the cream of the crop, eventually finding yourself in position to pass along quality information to the person in charge of making the final decision.
In the real world, however, things don’t always work out this way. You could soon find yourself facing trouble due to a lack of interest. If this happens, it is time to get creative. It is time to step outside the “recruiting box.”
4. Disagreement with the Hiring Manager
As a corporate recruiter, it is your job to find top notch talent. In many cases, depending on the setup of the company, you may be responsible for making initial contact and finalizing a list of top candidates.
But here is where trouble can set in. You think you have found a variety of well rounded candidates for a position. Soon enough, the hiring manager gets in touch and asks why you have gone down the wrong path. You did your job, based on the description you were given, but the hiring manager sees things differently.
It is hard to completely avoid this situation, as it is sure to come up at some point. The best thing you can do is make sure everybody involved in the process is on the same page from the start.
Even worse, there are times when a hiring manager doesn’t want to be involved at all. This is uncommon, but can come into play every now and again. When this happens, all the weight falls onto the shoulders of the corporate recruiter.
5. The Requirements are too Strict
Your job is to work with the hiring manager to find the best talent for an open position. No matter how good you are at your job, it can be difficult to make progress if the requirements are too strict. This can mean many things:
- Being asked to find an enormously high number of qualified candidates.
- A job description that either asks for too much or not enough.
- Requests to go “above and beyond” what is expected of a typical recruiter.
Setting and agreeing to guidelines upfront allows you to avoid potential complications in the future.
Don’t be Fooled Again
Just the same as any profession, you will face a variety of challenges as a corporate recruiter. Some of them are simple to overcome. Others require more energy.
Here are two points of advice for dealing with challenges:
- Don’t be fooled by the same challenge twice. Facing a challenge one time should be enough for you to alter your approach in the future.
- Find a solution that works for everybody. It may be simple to find a solution that works for you, but you need to take others, including the hiring manager, into consideration.
You can’t expect to perform at a high level if you aren’t able to overcome a variety of challenges. This is all part of your job as a corporate recruiter. Even though it may not be in your official job description, others look you at as somebody who can solve problems “on the go.”
If you are faced with a challenge, such as one of the five detailed above, tackle it head on. From there, you will have a strategy to rely on when faced with similar situations in the future. With experience, there is no challenge too big to overcome.
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