Sifting through applications is harder than ever! Leave it to our team of experts to assist in your hiring process. Leave the guessing game of, is this a legitimate resume and qualified candidate to our team of experts.
You are hiring and decide the first thing to do is post the job on all the job boards. Great idea! You look at the ad later and have 20 applicants to look through and it’s only been a day. That must be a good sign, right? Maybe not.
A large number of applicants does not guarantee the best candidates. In my almost 14 years as a Preference Professional Search Consultant, recently we’ve seen a shift in the candidate pool. We’ve talked with companies in our area that say they are seeing an influx of candidates on their own from the various job boards. Which is great! Until you look through them all and decide who may be a good candidate.
One recent example was a local company that said she reviewed over 125 applicants for the role. Seems like the tide has changed compared to 3-4 years ago when good candidates were non-existent and hiring is easy now, right? Wrong! What she told me was that it was a nightmare going through all those applications for various reasons and here the main ones:
- Candidate ghosting: Our client told me many of the “best” candidates either never got back to her or she scheduled a time to meet, and they didn’t show. Time waster.
- Misleading resumes:
- She would talk with candidates whose resume looked great only to be disappointed when meeting them. Chat GPT has been great for many things…it has also helped documents look good!
- We talk about this daily at Preference. Figuring out someone based on a resume is getting harder and harder. This is what we do, and it is hard for us! I can’t imagine how it would be if you only need to hire a handful of times per year.
- Distracted from daily role: She was busy with her “regular” job duties and candidate screening was a huge inconvenience to her. She told me she wasted a lot of time with the recruiting, screening, and interviewing process.
- Company reputation:
- This HR manager was worried about her company reputation and company image when she didn’t have time to get back to the 115 candidates, timely if at all. I know not everyone thinks this way – but you should!
- Think about it, these candidates could someday be your customer or know someone that could be a customer. When they think they don’t have a good experience with you this is the impression they carry with them moving forward.
This is just one example I’ve heard, and at Preference we have heard numerous examples similar to this. The bottom line is hiring is hard. It is not like it once was when you meet someone and think, I could have a beer with this person…I should hire them. They’ll be great! We now have to take a different approach to hiring.
Look, screening 100 + candidates can be incredibly time-consuming…screening 50 candidates can be incredibly time consuming. Preference can handle the initial screening and interviews saving your internal team valuable time. We also have experience and expertise in evaluating candidates beyond their resumes. We are able to get to the core of people to figure out who they truly are.
I always say I interview with using my gut, head, and my heart. It is a science and an art.
One last important note: the best candidates might not be actively looking for a job and may not apply to your posting on job board. We have networks and resources to reach passive and selectively active candidates who are not job hunting but might be open to new opportunities.
By leveraging the expertise and resources of a staffing and search company, you can ensure a more efficient, effective, and successful hiring process, even when you have a high volume of applicants from job postings.
