Are You a Hiring Manager? 5 Reasons Why You Are Likely NOT Seeing the Best Candidates

1. Lack of Focus on a Deep Search for the Role

Getting the position filled is the indicator we see most incentivized and celebrated in recruitment. It's just easier that way, right?

This, too often, singular focus has led to many problems in the industry, as many know or have personally experienced, where short-cuts are taken, and companies look to fill roles with the 'best' of the easiest / fastest to find candidates.

In recruitment, usually the best result for the hiring manager (HM) is to ensure that they have access to and are able to hire the best performer(s) in their sector / function. However, often, the people supporting the HM, are incentivized to just 'fill the role' quickly and at the lowest cost.

The Talent Pyramid

In any sector, there is a talent pool with various levels of ability and experience. For reference, using the pyramid pictured here;

• 1 = the highest-performing 'elite' talent of the sector.
• 7/8/9/10 as the average / low productivity candidates.

In General the Talent in the 7/8/9/10 Pool Can Often Be:

• easier to find, highly visible
• easier to engage (& may well be more proactive themselves in looking to attain the role)

The Talent at the Top of the Pyramid (1) Can Often Be:

• a lot more difficult to engage
• inaccessible directly and totally non-responsive (likely require other relationships to access......followed by huge efforts to engage).

What Often Happens

So, what often happens is, many companies only end up engaging the 7/8/9/10 talent pool. The HMs' expectations are managed, that these are the only candidates available, and so they end up hiring what they may think is the best, from what they are presented.

Sometimes, as long as some of the hiring bias of the hiring manager (e.g. i) 'this candidate must be good as they have worked at X, or ii) this candidate must be great as they went to Y school or as Z certification or iii) this candidate is no the best but seems easy to manage etc.) is met, then they may even feel quite satisfied.

The Cost to the Business

However, what are the costs to the business of this common scenario??

There has been no interaction or engagement with even the good performers in the market (let alone the 'elite' of the sector) but the position is filled, and everyone moves on .......that position was a success right?....and a few KPI's have been met so all good........

As mentioned in a previous article, we often find ROI is not considered, as the 'investment' is deemed as relatively small OR the internal function providing the talent acquisition is budgeted as a pure cost to the business.

Should the C-suite Be More Involved in Talent Acquisition Strategy?

At Elite Group Asia we have a unique advantage to increase the ROI of the talent acquisition strategy of our clients in the Asia Pacific region.

Learn more at www.elitegroup-asia.com or reach out directly via LinkedIn to discuss further how we can improve the ROI in your TA strategy.