The strategy meeting had gone much better than expected. A cool innovative idea to build a voice over IP (VoIP) infrastructure and operational/business support system solution had come through. Everyone left on a high.
But at the follow-up meeting, everything started going downhill. The team realized that the execution will be marred by delays. The architecture team presented their status and it was observed that the project delay would be caused due to lack of qualified resources. VoIP was a new area of foray and the team urgently needed go-getters.
The recruitment was called in immediately. “Get us some highly motivated self-starters who can execute complex, large-scale system projects and have a track record of turning around troubled projects”, they were told.
This job description was forwarded to the sourcing team after adding technical and project management skills. The sourcing team then handed it to the third party vendors and job portals.
Soon resumes were pouring in – only that they smelled and reeked of IT specialists with network specialization. These profiles were nowhere close to the complex strategic project execution needs. The Interview panel was dismayed at the quality of the candidates. The teams reported back to leadership that now the project will definitely be delayed. Does that sound familiar?
This is a common scenario as the requirements flow between multiple teams, getting lost in translation leading to a significant disadvantage in the hiring process due to inconsistent parameters.
The good news is, Technology can help remove these blind spots in enrollment. For instance, in the above scenario, an integrated platform where all the measures came from a single source would have made the hiring process consistent and efficient.
Below are a few simple but effective measures, gathered from our experience that help transform the recruitment process.
A framework to identify Skills to Capabilities It is integral to avoid situations where recruitment profiles lead to a detrimental impact on the overall performance of the business. It is important that the requisites are clearly laid out and any potential challenges are foreseen well in time. To ensure this has a mechanism that can clearly translate job requirements into skills and capabilities as understood by recruiters and third-party sourcing tools. This will help the requirements from getting lost in translation.
More importantly, keep the framework constantly updated and skills evolve and your business changes.
Clear Parameters During each step of hiring it is important to have clearly defined parameters of accepting a candidate for that step. The parameters need to be flexible enough to select candidates who are worth exploring further at the same time not too stringent to filter out exceptional candidates who can perform beyond the skills mentioned in the resume. Also, keep in mind every hiring step should look for different parameters. Have the parameters documented and communicated to all stakeholders involved in the process. A guide that accurately reflects the organization’s criteria for a position will ensure hiring the right talent.
Feedback mechanism Hiring is a dynamic process that constantly evolves depending on the talent pool in the market, business needs at that point, availability of suitable interview panel and competitor hiring strategies. It is important to have a feedback mechanism among stakeholders involved to constantly review and improve the process. For instance, letting a source know about the quality of the profiles coming through will fine tune the sourcing process. Similarly measuring and reviewing the performance of an interview panel will help identify any training needs or feedback requirements to ensure a fair and effective interview mechanism.
Integrated Platform Finally, but critically important in enabling the above is, Technology. Recruitment, as we saw in the last blog is one of the most innovative spaces with a new tool appearing almost every day. But to have an effective Enterprise hiring process, what an organization needs is an integrated platform that can bring the different hiring steps together to enable measuring performance and feedback. This also eliminates the need to trace back calls and emails to understand commitments made or status of a hire during the process.
Employee Experts is one such platform which gives you a unique integrated solution where the Hiring Managers and Recruiters can access any information they need when they need it. Our solution provides a boundary-less process accessible to all the stakeholders, including Sourcing agencies, Background Verification agencies and Candidates, to enable seamless interaction between all those involved. Combined with a great process, the platform has proven capabilities that have enabled organizations to cut down on the hiring process steps and time and enable an incomparable on-boarding experience.
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