Finding the right hires can be challenging enough under normal market conditions, and current uncertainties make it even more difficult. Analyzing your current hiring and recruiting strategies can help you identify specific areas that are causing the most problems for your company, and find solutions that make them work better for you. Here are some helpful tips on how to improve your hiring process to make it less vulnerable to market uncertainties and boost your recruiting KPIs.
Determining Whether Hiring and Recruiting Plans Are Vulnerable to Economic Uncertainties
Determining how economic uncertainties are the most likely to affect your company’s hiring and recruiting plans is an important step in identifying what changes need to be made in order to decrease the negative impact of the economy on your business.
Although current economic uncertainties have impacted most companies in some way, the specific effects it may be causing vary from company to company, and some businesses may find that their hiring and recruiting plans are taking a bigger hit than others. If your company was already struggling prior to the current economic downturn, is unable to provide the salary or benefits your potential new hires expect, or is in an industry that has been hit especially hard by inflation, you may need to work a bit harder than the average business to address market challenges and find creative ways to move forward.
Creating Agile Hiring and Recruiting Plans
Thinking outside the box is a must when it comes to managing hiring and recruiting plans in the midst of market uncertainties. Strategies that worked well for your company a year ago may no longer be the best fit, and pivoting to something a bit different may work better for many companies during challenging hiring periods.
Start With What You Already Have
Not every change you are considering making to your business will require new hires. Many tasks that you may initially think you need to hire one or more people for may be able to be covered by someone that is already part of your company, and ensuring sure you are not investing limited resources into starting a recruiting process that is not actually necessary is an important step in avoiding wasted time and money.
On a similar note, times of economic uncertainty are among the most important when it comes to making sure working conditions for your current employees are ideal. While many will be grateful to have a position during uncertain times, others may feel forced to search for a different opportunity if they find that they are not making enough to make ends meet or they feel that your company may be in danger of downsizing.
Taking steps to improve employee retention by ensuring that every team member feels valued is always a helpful step in building company culture, but it is even more important during uncertain times because it helps your company avoid increasing the number of openings that need to be filled. Investing in workshops, certifications, and other opportunities for your current employees to build their skills can prepare them to cover more roles within your company and increase their personal satisfaction, and you may be able to do so at a lower cost than if you would need to hire new employees instead.
Being able to highlight strong employee retention statistics and point prospective employees to positive reviews your company consistently receives on Glassdoor and other hiring websites can also help you make sure your company keeps the interest of the best potential recruits. This approach can be particularly important when those who are considering working for your company are also feeling uncertain about the longevity of new positions they are weighing during periods of economic uncertainty.
Choose the Most Cost-Effective Recruiting Sources
Once you have taken an in-depth look at which of the ideas you have for improving your company can be handled internally, you will have a better idea of which positions you actually need to recruit for. You can then start a scaled back recruiting process that allows you to put more effort into finding a smaller number of people, which may lower your odds of having to reduce the size of your staff over time or even let go of someone you just hired in an effort to find ways for your company to save money.
Although you may have the resources to invest into running a nationwide search for the perfect candidate when market conditions are more stable, keeping your recruiting efforts closer to home can help you find someone that meets your needs at a lower cost than external recruiting. Reaching out to former employees, candidates that came close to being offered a position or turned one down in the past, and friends and family members of current team members can help you find someone to fill an essential position without the extra cost of a typical hiring process and potentially moving someone to the area.
Adjusting Hiring Plans to Keep Up With a Changing Market
Change is inevitable, and creating future hiring plans that are easier to adapt to meet a wider range of needs can be more helpful than sticking with a rigid strategy.
Plan Ahead to Minimize the Impact of Future Challenges
Things can change quickly for nearly any modern business, and trying to stay one step ahead of common market uncertainties can make your business better prepared to handle the next curveball. Paying close attention to which areas of your current hiring plans are the most impacted can help you identify which areas to target when considering temporary or permanent changes that may help to decrease the vulnerability of your company in the future.
Stay Flexible
Although sticking to what has always worked well for your company can be an effective strategy under the majority of circumstances, insisting on doing so when the market is uncertain can be a poor use of resources that leads to lost time and wasted money. If the past two years have taught us anything, it’s that flexibility is a must when it comes to finding a way to make circumstances work for you. Also, staying open to the possibility of a different hiring strategy can make the difference between doing the best you can with what you have and stalling the growth of your business by waiting for the ideal market circumstances that you may not see for quite some time.
At Comeet, we are here to make the full cycle recruiting and hiring process easier for your business easier than ever, even in a market that’s constantly changing. Choosing us as one of your strategic recruiting partners is a simple and cost effective option for handling all the ins and outs of your hiring strategy in one place, including making adjustments as frequently as you need to keep up with the changing needs of an uncertain market. Schedule a call with a member of our Comeet team today to learn more about how partnering with us can help you improve your company’s hiring strategy.
