Engineering the recruitment process

Paul O’Loughlin

The global jobs market continues to rebound as the world economy emerges from the covid crisis and we are seeing accelerating demand for talent across all our international markets. Significantly, the “skills shortage” is continuing to be an issue as increasing demand is creating aggressive competition for available talent. This is particularly evident within the telecommunications, infrastructure, mining, healthcare, petro-chemical, aviation, and IT sectors. The services environment including banking and Insurance is also experiencing an upsurge in demand.

As we move through what will be a prolonged period of “skills shortage” hiring managers are having to employ innovative recruitment solutions to source people. Technology is becoming an ever-increasing means for targeting and securing talent, and “passive” candidates are at the forefront of most hiring manager’s hiring intentions. Whilst we are not seeing a remarkable lift in salaries being offered, “benefits” are key in securing people. Candidates are becoming very interested in work/life balance, and flexible working arrangements are being promoted by many organisations as a sweetener to secure the acceptance of job offers.

To be “competitive” in acquiring talent, the speed with which hiring organisations issue offers is key. Being able to offer candidates swiftly is placing companies ahead of their competition in order to secure the right people. As a result, we have seen many organisations refine and recalibrate their recruitment protocols to do precisely this. The Global Talent Director of a “Big-4” accounting firm recently commented on this, saying that her firm had given a global edict to turn the interview process into a formal offer within 48 hours to secure the individual! Companies that have elongated and protracted hiring processes are being left behind in this market.

There is one certainty in all of this and that is “good people are hard to find”, and if hiring decisions are delayed for any reason, the chances of securing that talent are gravely diminished!

Ubidy | Global Talent on Demand