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A few Friday thoughts for those of you recruiting & hiring:
1. Response rates for recruiters (and other high demand skill sets) fell off a cliff.
For context: recruiter salaries skyrocketed by ~30% in the past 18 months. Even if recruiter demand dipped with the recent stock market/recession panic, the supply is still way tighter than a year ago.
Lots of people moved on that 30% bump. After that? Meh. Salaries stabilized, so the next gig has to be a *real* big improvement to make another quick move.
The Hirewell gang are already big fans of super detailed messaging. As many specifics as possible. Give people what they want to know and they’re more likely to chat.
So when that dips?
👉The fix? Be even more personable. Acknowledge that this is probably the 10th message this week. Make it a joke.
Even if your base message worked in the past, flip the script. Write something that’d make you chuckle.
People want to talk to people. It’s not a miracle fix but every little bit helps.
2. The “comparison candidate” debacle is moving up to exec roles.
I.e. traditional long list ➡️ short list ➡️ schedule day long onsites for the finalists method.
I sure hope everyone has already canceled this for individual contributor & manager hires. It’s too damn slow. Your pipeline of A+ candidates falls out of the funnel or ends up with multiple competitive offers. Big ‘ole waste of time.
In more senior level or executives hires, the need to adjust wasn’t always there. But we’re seeing it now. You can’t take your sweet a$$ time anymore..
👉The fix? Communicate the shift to hiring execs: don’t short cut the process, but shortcut the need to see 5 (or whatever arbitrary number) before even getting started.
Yes, you have to get exec hires right. Mess it up and you set yourself back a year. But you can’t ignore simple supply and demand.
See someone good? Get the process started ASAP.
(Note: ‘exec’ hiring is VERY different in the start up, funded SaaS tech and SMB space vs true enterprise Fortune 100. The former has a TON of fast moving options.)
3. Interview processes moving *too* quickly. Candidates are not meeting *enough* people to feel comfortable making a decision.
The opposite of the above. Per a poll of 1,360 people from January 2022:
Different people have different levels of comfort. Not everyone will say yes based on a recruiter + hiring manager convo.
👉The fix? Don’t slow down…but ask, silly.
“We’re interested. But would you like to meet anyone else before you make a decision?”
Simple. The last thing you want is an “I don’t know” at the offer stage when they’ve got other ones coming in.
Hope that helps. Enjoy the weekend.
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