If you were a recruiter at the start of 2022, you may have noticed a significant change in recruitment challenges, and you may be wondering why the recruiting job is more challenging today. While recruiting can always be complex, recent changes in the economy and culture of job candidates have increased the difficulty of hiring at the end of the year. Early 2022 provided a sharp contrast to the current recruiting climate.
This blog will review the recruiting challenges of early 2022 and compare and contrast them to current recruiting challenges. We will also explain ways to overcome this difficult market to help you navigate the challenges you may currently face.
Recruitment Challenges in Early 2022
The primary factors that made recruiting challenges in early 2022 were difficulty securing picky talent and recovering the workforce for many companies that had been understaffed. If you were a recruiter early this year, you probably experienced the challenges of hiring talent during the Great Resignation and encountered candidates with more demands than usual. Your company may have increased salaries and benefits to persuade quality talent to join your team and even switched to remote or hybrid work to satisfy current and new hires. While the labor market was hard to please, most companies were optimistic about the economy and recovery from the pandemic.
The Great Resignation
In early 2022, many organizations were taking their first steps toward tackling the challenge of the Great Resignation from 2021. In February 2022, the US Department of Labor recorded nearly 4.4 million worker separations. The Great Resignation slowed many businesses’ recovery efforts, already grappling with understaffing from the pandemic.
Resignees had various reasons to leave. Some cited better pay and benefits with other organizations, a change of pace, the option to work remotely, more family time, and a wide range of personal and occupational reasons. Companies had to expand their offerings to attract talent, causing candidates to have a wealth of choices.
Demand for Talent vs. Picky Applicants
The Great Resignation created the job-seekers market forcing many organizations to increase pay, benefits, and flexibility to attract candidates. Applicants had many choices and the opportunity to find the perfect position and organization. The economy was robust in early 2022, and the stock market recovered from the pandemic losses and was still bullish. Companies were desperate to recruit to fill roles to respond to the market. According to estimates from the Federal Reserve in December 2021, unemployment and inflation were expected to slow.
There was still some worry about the effects of interest rate hikes and a resurgence of COVID-19 with spikes in the Omicron variant, but overall, employers were optimistic about the economy and recovery from the pandemic. For small businesses and startups, the market was still quite challenging due to more established brands and larger companies having an advantage in securing talent.
How Recruitment Challenges Have Changed
Inflation worries have sapped optimism in the current recruiting market, and markets are down significantly from their highs earlier in the year. While large corporations have mostly recovered their workforce with higher wages and benefits, small businesses still struggle to hire. The recruitment landscape is conflicted, with some companies looking to recruit more and prepare for an economic rebound and others holding back on recruiting. With the consumer price index (CPI) reaching its highest in 40 years, businesses are more cautious about the economy than they were early in the year.
Problems Recruiters Face Today
Now that you have seen how the recruitment labor market and economy have changed, understanding the current challenges and how to improve your recruiting process to assess and navigate them will help you overcome these changes.
Economic Uncertainty
The uncertain economy will see many organizations reduce revenue expectations and their recruiting and hiring budgets. Several companies will likely freeze hiring temporarily or indefinitely if there is prolonged uncertainty or downturn. Layoffs sometimes follow a freeze, which means losing some of the talent you worked hard to attract earlier in the year.
Following a layoff, current employees may seek other opportunities if the company does not provide a sense of confidence and security. Uncertainty can cause your business to lose quality employees that are difficult to replace.
Attracting Talent
While layoffs at other companies can cause an influx in candidates, finding good talent will likely be a challenge in the near future. Since early 2022, companies have struggled to attract talent with bonuses, higher wages, remote work opportunities, and other benefits. Large organizations that still see consistent demand for employees will continue to spend to prepare for a rebound, leaving small businesses with fewer candidate options.
In addition to spending more to attract talent with higher salaries, benefits, and external recruiting expenses, vacant positions cost your company revenue every day. As your company’s full cycle recruiting specialist, you’ll need to find a way to source and hire excellent candidates quickly without spending a significant amount.
How to Address Current Recruiting Challenges?
It can be intimidating to hire in an uncertain economy. Just as you adapted to the challenges of recruiting in early 2022, you can change your recruiting and hiring process to find and hire quality candidates. Understanding some of the best practices of full cycle recruiting will help you meet your recruiting KPIs (key performance indicators) and streamline the hiring process for better results.
Build Your Brand
During times of uncertainty, job-seekers are looking for a company that gives them a compelling reason to work for them. Employees want to know the goals of their company or brand and be a part of that goal. As a full cycle recruiter, you can ensure that candidates can see your brand’s mission by incorporating it into job postings, social media, and the offer letter.
If you are recruiting for a startup with a passionate founder, put the founder’s passion on display as part of your recruitment content creation strategy. Showing their passion has helped startups scoop up some of the best talents during the Great Resignation. While many resignees wanted to improve their wages and benefits, some wanted a change of pace. A company that employees believe in can provide a challenge and motivation they are lacking at other organizations.
Even if your company is not a startup, displaying your mission and core values in your content can create a positive impression. As the recruiter, you should embody your company’s core values in your communications to help you find quality candidates looking for a company that fits their ideals. When communicating with candidates and passive hires, you can create a value proposition to show candidates how they will provide value to clients as an incentive to work with your company. If your team loves working for your company and your business appreciates their hard work, it can also be an excellent idea to display it on your social media and company site.
Provide a Personalized End-to-End Experience
Candidates and new hires enjoy a personalized experience. As a full cycle recruiter, you can make an excellent first impression and make the candidate’s experience more positive by handling all or most of their interactions during the full cycle recruiting process. Be the first person from the company to reach out to them, screen them personally or at least email them the chatbot form, schedule their interview, send their offer letter, and be their point of contact during the hiring process and their first day on the job.
Candidates can get stressed trying to find the right person to field their questions and feel intimidated if there are too many recruiters they have to speak with. If you are their sole point of contact up to their first day, they know they have someone to speak with in the company and voice their concerns and questions. If a hiring manager or HR person will be meeting the new hire on their first day, even a simple handoff to the next contact can make their experience better.
Invest in Passive Candidates and Referrals
You can find qualified candidates through less conventional recruiting sources when you are not finding quality candidates in your sourcing pools. Passive candidates or individuals not actively seeking job opportunities are a great way to find quality hires. You can try to reach out to these candidates to persuade them to consider an opportunity with your organization, especially if you have already built a company brand with a compelling presence. Sometimes speaking with a recruiter or visiting the office can convince a passive candidate to fill out an application form.
If you don’t already have an excellent referral program, now may be the best time to consider launching one. A referral program incentivizes employees to refer friends and acquaintances for openings at your company. Ensure that all referrals and sourced candidates have a fair chance and undergo the same screening and interview process. Keep the program open to all company employees to avoid unfair treatment.
Referral programs have shown to improve hiring quality, time to hire, and new hire retention. They also provide candidates at a lower recruitment cost and typically a more suitable culture fit. Companies can provide various incentives, including extra vacation days, gift cards, prizes, and cash bonuses. Ensure that you are making all employees aware of the referral program through internal announcements and advertisements and track the success of your program through recruiting KPIs for continuous improvement.
Change the Scope of Your Recruiting and Work on Internal Issues
Economic uncertainty can cause employees to become anxious. As a full cycle recruiter, you can reassure employees of their job security and benefits by leveraging your unique relationship with most or all of them. Layoffs can lower company-wide morale, and impact people’s daily lives. Try to have one-on-one meetings to assess their worries and needs. Surveys can also be beneficial in determining the sentiment of your organization’s employees.
If morale is low, try offering benefits and perks to encourage engagement and company pride. Your bonuses and benefits can go hand in hand with your initiative to create a compelling workplace. Spotlight exceptional employees, hand out rewards and incentives, and organize company gatherings to encourage a fun and engaging atmosphere. When employees see that their company cares about their needs, they are more likely to stay productive, engaged, and satisfied with their job.
Automate Sourcing and Screening With a Recruiting Platform
During an economic downturn, finding quality hires can be more difficult without investing significantly in per-hire recruitment. Optimizing your sourcing and screening with strategic recruiting partners can help you lower your hiring costs and find quality candidates. An ideal recruiting platform provides automatic sourcing without additional fees from job posting boards and career platforms. It sources only the best candidates and pre-screens them, displaying a simple profile tailored to your hiring needs.
An excellent recruiting platform helps you optimize every aspect of the full cycle recruiting process, including the interview, onboarding, offer letter, and hiring process. It can automate time-consuming tasks like emailing the offer letter and requesting documents from the new hire. Recruiting software saves your company time and money. It can help you improve the return on investment on your new hires during economic uncertainty when the cost per hire can be higher than average.
Overcome Recruiting Challenges With a Platform Made for Recruiters
When investing in recruiting software that will provide a better return on investment and help you reduce your time to hire, look for software that meets the needs of a full cycle recruiter. The ideal recruiting platform can help you reduce the time to hire and find high-quality applicants.
Comeet is a recruiting platform that lowers hiring costs and improves recruiting productivity. It sources candidates according to your hiring needs and builds a profile that allows you to review candidates and track their applications from start to finish. Comeet can also automate communications with candidates, sending the offer letter and requesting the onboarding paperwork. Schedule a demo with Comeet today.
