Recruiting Strategy - Planning Ahead

We start every summer here at Capstone thinking things will slow down with summer vacations, kids being out of school, golf outings, backyard BBQs, and general rest and relaxation. Then every June we are reminded of how busy summertime can be in the job market. Then when we look back on the end of the first quarter and beginning of the second quarter, we realize that we have many conversations with clients about hires for the New Year. They just take some time to come to fruition. Most companies make plans sometime mid-first quarter and then begin executing those plans in the weeks after that time period.

This also happens for us again in October of most years. And for the same reasons; everyone is getting over 7/1 renewals, preparing for 10/1 and 1/1 renewals, and beginning to conduct year-end planning for hiring and budget purposes. We do have many clients that wait until it is too late. They call in October, and can’t understand why there isn’t an abundant pipeline of candidates for them to choose from. The time to start planning a pipeline is today, not three months from now.

CareerBuilder recently published a Q2 report for 2015, and it included a poll of employers and one question was, “Do you have job openings at your company that stay open for 12 weeks or longer?” 43% of employers polled said yes. Through Harris Poll they spoke with more than 2,000 hiring managers. That is a pretty good sample size and proves a point that not many want to admit – it takes time to fill a critical position, especially if you want to find the “right” candidate.

So what can you do to prevent yourself from being in a tight spot when needing to hire in the fourth quarter or beyond? Plan now. Begin building that pipeline of candidates. Be honest with them that there might be a position out there in 6-8 weeks, but you want to talk now. Partner with outside firms like Capstone to see where the candidate activity is and if you are in the right target salary range. Sit down with hiring managers and human resources to see what you can do pro-actively to prepare for a new hire.

If you plan ahead, you can prevent predictable headaches and obstacles in the hiring process. We would be happy to share additional strategies with you if you have questions in the coming weeks.