OPINION PIECE: THOUGHT LEADERSHIP ABOUT CHALLENGING ISSUES FACING MANAGEMENT TEAMS AND BOARDS OF DIRECTORS
The Passive Candidate Recruitment Syndrome – Is Your Company Afflicted by it?
Let me share with you a modern-day talent acquisition dilemma.
In today’s economy, companies clearly need to fight the tides that challenge their revenues and profits. To do so, management teams too often focus all too eagerly on simply cutting costs across the organization – even when hiring new and critical executives. But when it comes to executive hiring, cutting tomorrow’s bottom line costs is actually the least profitable decision – ask the Chair of your Board Audit Committee!
Here is where we come to the concept I call “Passive Candidate Recruitment Syndrome” – the process where a company focuses more on obtaining – through an open “cattle call” – a volume of candidates (most of which are not qualified at all for the position) rather than actively pursuing an invited select group of vetted and already qualified candidates.
The costs associated with the “cattle call” approach leads to an increased amount of time and expense for internal hiring teams to wade through too many unqualified resumes and ultimately have to spend the time and resources to vet and interview too many unqualified applicants. The Passive Candidate Recruitment Syndrome or “cattle call” approach to executive hiring slows down and makes more expensive the overall process of finding the best. AND, it significantly delays C-Suite executives being able to recruit into key roles which can thwart advancing a business effectively, quickly and successfully on a nearer-term timeline.
To make matters worse, I would predict that if the market sticks with the Passive Candidate Recruitment approach, that in the next 12 months we will all see the increase in executive terminations due to the wrong person too often having been hired into key leadership roles. And there is no question that the results of the Passive Candidate Recruitment Syndrome will be not only increased costs and time before the hire, but an even more expensive “hit” to the company after the hire.
THE SOLUTION? It is the short term costs associated with abandoning the “cattle call” and embracing the benefits of leveraging an executive search process that has a time-proven, laser sharp, performance-oriented, strategy and outcome.
It is a specialized talent acquisition expert who knows the industry and a specific functional area who is able to recruit professionals from the top 20% of their fields and find the right executives whose wisdom and experience will help management teams and corporations to flourish ahead of the competition and survive well in a schizophrenic market.
When it comes to human capital cost – effective doesn’t always mean choosing the short-term perceived least expensive solution. Investors are looking for and demanding the economics of a long-term effective solution.
Reach out to me if you would like to have a thought partner to solve the biggest dilemma companies are facing today!
