“When did Noah build the ark Gladys? – Before the rain, before the rain. ”
A successful recruitment strategy requires proactivity. Don’t wait until you’re in desperate need of key people before you start the process of trying to hire them. Plan ahead and give your recruiter enough time to do his/her thing.
Recruitment, like any process, takes time. It needs to take time. There’s information to process, job ads to write, applications to manage, candidates to interview, skills to assess, and salary and benefits to negotiate. And when all that’s said and done there’s that notice period to endure. All-in-all it takes months from that first e-mail to the HR-department until new employees start showing up in the reception. This means that when you start to feel the pain of being short-handed you’re already way behind on your recruitment schedule. Months behind.
Sure, you can bring in consultants to solve the immediate problem. This works, but it’s extremely expensive in the long run. Using this as a standard strategy for solving hiring needs quickly spirals into consultant-dependency and costs running wild.
HOW DO YOU AVOID THIS PITFALL?
Plan ahead! You should give your recruitment/HR-department a six-month head-start for them to effectively be able to help you. For short-term needs – anything more immediate than six months from now – you’ll most likely have to find another solution.
Sounds harsh? Well, too bad, that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. The good news is that it’s never too late to start. Give some thought to what people you’d like to onboard six months from now and get the word out. You’ll find that the collaboration with your recruiter works way better when you give him/her the means to do a proper job.
Erik CEDERGREN
CEO & Consultant
erik.cedergren@recpro.se
