The end of every Spring Festival is often the busiest period for corporate recruitment units. Following the deepening of “localisation” to be consistent with Chinese traditions, many companies will begin their recruitment plan for the New Year after the official end of Chinese New Year. At the same time, since year-end rewards tend to be issued around the Spring Festival period, a portion of employees would also choose to leave their positions after the festival; thus causing greater recruitment needs. Recruitment difficulties and employment difficulties have become the biggest nightmare for HR professionals. The recruitment process appears to be increasingly inefficient, especially in the internet era whereby advertisers are increasingly unable to cope with the bombardment of CVs in their inboxes.
Online recruitment has already become the preferred way for job seekers and recruiters, the reason being that the process is very simple. Employers simply post a job online and within just 2-3 days there will be over a thousand applicants; create a resume, a few minutes later, one is open to over a hundred positions. It feels as if online recruitment is too efficient compared to any other job search/recruitment channels, for instance, job fairs. According to an online survey in 2009, there is an average daily count of over 10 million people job searching online. Every job seeker will submit at least 100 CVs before finding satisfactory employment. However, what is the direct consequence of this? According to research conducted by ChinaHR in 2012 for recruitment enterprises, 78% of positions require over a month’s time to hire suitable talents, whilst 20% of positions require more than half a year to find suitable talents. For job seekers, 4% of them have to spend over one month to find ideal work, of which, 23% of job seekers actually spend more than half a year looking for employment.
Recruitment was originally the highlight of HR, but its inefficiency has led it to become HR’s nightmare. Whenever a new position is encountered, ultimately recruiters will complain that the number of indiscriminate applicants is too high. Arranged interviews are very likely left unattended; applicants with signed offers may be nowhere to be found, leading to very few candidates successfully recruited in the end. In fact, besides some of the candidates’ own issues, for instance, blind submissions to raise their hit rates, and a lack of integrity, the enterprise and its HR department has more or less also contributed to this situation.
1. Enterprises now pay more attention to attracting talent. The market awareness of modern enterprises is stronger; they will take advantage of every opportunity to shape a positive corporate image in order to be in contact with more talent. Unclear job descriptions are also a reason contributing to this phenomena. Ambiguous positions easily misguide job seekers to believe “I am also suitable for this position”, leading to an avalanche of useless resumes flying in.
2. HR channels are inaccurate or too broad. For example, many enterprises choose traditional online recruitment platforms with massive amounts of information to undergo recruitment in the hope to bring in extensive talents. However, at the same time, vast amounts of web information bring heavy workload for recruiters. If recruiters were to filter out suitable candidates from the tens and thousands pieces of job seeker information, it would require a substantial amount of time.
3. Partial loss of potential talents in the recruitment process due to the enterprise itself or its HR department. Behind the success of one’s recruitment process lies onerous interview work. Recruitment is a 2-way choice, HR is not only a “gate-keeping” job but it is also necessary to get people that the enterprise needs to select the firm; an important role, which HR departments play in the overall process. The cause of the problem seems to be complicated, but in actual fact, only a few small minor changes are required to save a lot of time. At the same time, avoiding time-wasting and the embarrassment due to a loss of “face” when HR arranges a meeting for the candidate with head of departments and no one attends.
Lay out recruitment needs clearly with accurate job descriptions.
To achieve this, two aspects should be included. Internally, HR is required to properly manage the communication between departments, making employment needs of departments clear, explicit and complete; this is the cornerstone of all recruitment. Another aspect is to write genuinely precise external job descriptions. This is the first stage in which the candidate comes into contact with the company. For instance, be sure to include aspects such as work experience, working life qualifications and so on, require the use of detailed figures to describe; write less vague abilities, such as: strong leadership abilities, strong communication skills, strong organisational skills, good English skills etc. But remember that these attributes cannot be measured, so therefore anyone can consider themselves to satisfy these requirements. Instead, questions such as “How many individuals worked within the team you led?”, “what types of projects have you led?”
Recruitment channel segments.
Recruiting enterprises must first select the correct recruitment website. If the characteristics of the enterprise’s industry are clear, and the professionalism of the intended position is high, then professional recruitment websites must be considered first. Resume submissions received by these websites are not necessarily as high as comprehensive recruitment websites. However, talents and positions available are on a vertical plane, accurate and efficient, which not only eliminates the troubles of filtering the vast amounts of CVs, but also allows appropriate professionals to be recruited immediately.
Selection of third party co-operation.
In many cases, despite HR departments using various suppliers, there are no significant improvements in the speed of recruitment. Only through the correct selection of headhunting company, and its team of consultants, will the expected outcome come to fruitation. An outstanding headhunting partner is not only a good helper during your talent search, but also provides effective assistance and enterprise development in employer branding, formulation of talent strategy, market analysis, as well as many aspects of future development strategies. Consultants can establish good relationships with candidates within a given industry, be familiar with the characteristics of the particular industry, and have confidence whilst interviewing candidates.
To attract and retain talents in the recruitment process.
Candidates are likely to become companies’ potential clients; this is because they only applied for positions if they want someting from the company. So in the recruitment process, HR should place themselves more in the candidates’ shoes. No one is perfect, and therefore the basic principle is to not let the candidates face embarrassment and lose their self-esteem during the interview.
The fine culture of the company and its professional qualities should be reflected during the first call to the candidate. In the exchange process, besides fully understanding the necessary qualities of the interviewer, showcasing the positive energy of the company, such as honour, employee activities, management style, further enhances the talents’ interest in the company. Those who go in to be interviewed are all individuals possessing interest in the enterprise, thus deserve the respect and gratitude from the firm. After the results of the interviews are determined, the candidates should be responded to politely, especially to those of which unsuccessful. At the same time, a corporate talent pool should be established, whereby the information of these unsuccessful applicants should also be inputted into a database. This is because enterprises need different talent at different stages of development; requirements of talent also differ on different levels. Therefore, entering their information into an enterprises’ talent pool reserves, is preparation for the long-run.
Establish a distinctive employer brand.
The distinctive establishment of an employer brand refers to recognition and understanding of the corporate culture, the products and services provided by the company and the talents the firm needs and so on in the first instance whereby the job seeker sees the employer’s name. If you are a company which encourages high returns, then do not let the market feel that your work here is relaxed, because some people really like tense rhythm and these are the people you need. As for those who hope for more freedom in their lives, they will also have their suitable employers. Applications from these people will not result in too many positive outcomes for your company. Of course, this is a long-term process. The popular microblogs are good publicity channels. Since March last year, RMG Selection publicised its company via Sina Weibo and Renren, committed to creating a “fair, pleasant, hardworking, harmonious” employer image. In the recent 10 months of hard work, there are already more than 30 candidates (including official and internships) who have actively sought employment through this route. Further publicity through some promotional videos, print ads, media coverage, can strengthen the employer brand to become the most advantageous and most effective recruiting tool.
Simply speaking, as long as work is a little more meticulous, and a little more is done every day, then HR can save vast amounts of time from the indiscriminating applicants. Recruitment in hi-tech systems engineering, and recruiters are more than just CV filterers, you can also become “technical experts”.
By Robert Parkinson
Link to the article: http://businesstianjin.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6017%3Ahr-recruitment-sorted-easily&catid=183%3A2013-march&Itemid=100
