The greatest challenge faced by most recruiters and hiring authorities has been the counter-offer. In this candidate driven market, offer turndowns will become an even greater challenge. The following are solutions which will drastically reduce these gut wrenching issues.
You probably wouldn’t ask someone to marry you after the first date because it is risky to jump into a long-term relationship without spending time learning all you can about a potential partner. Yet, that’s exactly what employers do when recruiting candidates for a position within their organization. After an initial round of interviews, a job seeker is either welcomed into the organization – or not. So, what are we really trying to learn about a candidate before hiring them into an organization?
Change is never easy. Change is a bumpy process. But why is change so hard? Change is hard because it is an emotional experience for most. An emotional experience, particularly an experience one often has little choice in being part of, creates resistance. Resistance is a natural emotion, though an emotion that can make change even harder.
In one of his classes, Deepak Chopra, the founder of the Chopra Foundation, talks about what he calls “the soul of leadership” and says “that leaders appear when awareness meets need.” He goes on to suggest that there is a hierarchy of needs that contributes to what roles a leader has to address once that person steps into this void. Even though this premise feels reasonable and pragmatically comforting I am not at all convinced in the practicality of this theory in real terms. Are leaders really made not born? In the midst of chaos and stress can someone who knows what a group needs really prioritize and fill the Leadership Vacuum?
Whoever came up with the term “tough love” clearly met my father.
I never had any doubt that my dad loved me. He would always plan family vacations and would give my sister and me anything we ever wanted. There was a saying in my house that the Davis children weren’t spoiled, just well taken care of.
And sometimes being well taken care of meant going to live theater. I was completely taken with the magic of theater and the arts but, as my father found out as I got older and started to think of a career, cultivating my love of the arts had some undesired consequences.
When trusted employees are promoted into management, generally what is their first task? Replace themselves. How do they interview candidates for their replacement? Go to HR and ask for a list of acceptable questions to ask. If they are lucky, HR has a list of “approved questions.” Are the questions targeting the skills required to be successful in the position? Generally not, they are simply acceptable interview questions.
2.8 million Americans now consider their home offices to be their primary workplace and 27 million Americans have flexible schedules. Between 2005 and 2009, telecommuting grew 61 percent and is expected to grow another 69 percent by 2016. Despite the rapid growth of remote work and flexible jobs, they continue to be discussed by many employers as though they are a scarce, and perhaps even scary, way of working.
The competition for top talent will continue to increase as the job market improves. Most hiring authorities have been in the driver’s seat for the past two years and have not had to sell their opportunity or company. This is not reflective of today’s reality. It is important for you to attract, interview and present the best talent available. Part of your job is to excite the job seeker about your company and opportunity. It is also important that you begin to prep your hiring authorities.
It’s normal to be nervous before any interview, but some job seekers are especially affected, and so are many of the recruiters who interview them. In fact, at many small companies where hiring exactly the right person is so important, interviewers fret for days before each meeting with a top candidate. Some people are so fearful and apprehensive before any interview that they become tongue-tied, talk too much or say the wrong things.
It is interesting to listen when companies complain they have difficulty attracting candidates from out of state. With a little research, a consultant may easily determine why they are experiencing those problems.
Relocation of candidates requires an understanding of psychology, an understanding that recruitment is a sales process, and a recruitment process that does not interfere with those understandings.