Things are changing for companies trying to attract talent, or swiftly hire your candidate. Search firms see this because they have great exposure to the change, daily.

The best companies look at hiring as a “tug of war” where the first over the line, wins.

What are you doing to ensure your side wins the tug of war over your candidate?

More importantly, what are you doing to help your unknown opponent win the tug of war to steal (so you lose your candidate)?

Make A Decision: Hire Your Candidate

I don’t know for sure if it is just the shift from an employer’s market to an employee’s market (or better stated: your candidate’s market). Dragging out the hiring process is a sure path to an outcome where another employer will hire your candidate.

Or, it might be an evolution in management (and hiring) style. Legacy management style is command and control. Modern management style is servant leadership. Typical legacy industries older than 50 years like: manufacturing, industrial services, heavy logistics, and so on, have not learned what newer industries like high-tech, social marketing services, and others, have learned and instituted.

Or, it might be the inevitable collapse of an unfortunate and wrong-headed hiring approach to find every reason NOT to hire a candidate. When you find the purple squirrel with no reasons NOT to hire they also have no real reason they should be hired. Many misguided companies have let super performing candidates slip away to work somewhere else.

Urgent Change, Stop This Now

1. Interview call-backs (2nd, 3rd, …) significantly increase the likelihood of losing a candidate of interest.
2. Assume a candidate’s schedule is less important than a hiring manager’s says a lot about the employer.

Un-intent

The intent of posting, searching, hiring, and putting the right person on your team is clear – it supports company goals for business. Un-intention seems to be a good way to describe what happens when we don’t make a decision, and accelerate the intent of hiring.

Don’t do multiple interview call-backs – collect the panel of decision makers, and get it done – now. Here’s why:

• Panel interviewing is standard today. It gives all decision makers and stakeholders to a common observation point and minimizes emotive or interpretive disagreement about a candidate’s potential.
• The time between 2nd and 3rd interviews allows that candidate time to receive another offer – perhaps from a decisive competitor who will ask: “are you interviewing with other companies?”
• You reviewed your recruiter’s candidate brief and (should) have a strong intent to hire this candidate if the interview goes well. If your intent is to “think about it”, it’s a waste of everyone’s time.
• Don’t forget – you want to fill the job, and get the work done – that is why the position is opened and approved by finance in the first place!

Make time to fit your candidate’s schedule – not the other way around. Here’s why:

• Candidates are going to make you and your company, successful. You need them to know that you value them, from the very first minute.
• Asking a candidate to reschedule their time to fit yours says a lot about your management style. Will you enable them as an employee, or make work an unpredictable hell of micromanagement and indecision?
• Candidates talk. Job seekers have found dozens of social web-based anonymous outlets to share hiring experiences at an employer. Do you know what they are saying about you on Glass Door?
• You want to hire a person – do what it takes to hire them. Everything you and your firm does during the hiring process is the candidate’s interview of you as an employer.

The best candidates will not, nor should they, do anything for a job. The ones that will, are likely not the candidates you want to hire.

Partner With Your Search Professional

Good recruiters that you partner with, will help you and guide you through this process. Good recruiters are in it for you – they want you to be successful with their candidates to earn the next search.

Exceptional recruiters want you to win the tug of war for talent. They have every incentive to give you insight as to how far you can push before you risk your brand, or risk losing your candidate to a competitor. Take advantage of this value Barton Professional Placement provides clients.

Whether you are struggling with the shift to your candidate’s market, or you need an outside observer to help your management team make the shift from industrial age hiring to servant leadership organizational development – we can help. Want to learn more? See our website for Barton Professional Placement Group, or call Andrew (630-549-6301 and or Chris 630-549-6302 today and engage us as your partner.