Prepping for a Rebound

Many Recruiting executives tell us that they are, or have been, in prep mode for a while. After experiencing organizational changes across 2009 within the broader organization and also specifically within Recruiting, many recruiters are taking stock of how to prepare for a hiring comeback, in whatever form it may present itself.

Regardless of whether you suspect a roaring resurgence of hiring, or a timid trickle of opening, below are some tips we have compiled for preparing for a hiring rebound:

1. Assess the Damage to Your Employment Brand—Audit your brand to understand how recent events across 2009 affected your brand reputation, employee perceptions, and the accuracy of your messages to the labor market.
2. Reevaluate Your Workforce Plan—Consult with the business to align (or re-align) sourcing strategies against changing talent needs, and create an action plan to execute against new requirements.
3. Optimize Your Recruiting Team Capabilities—Manage recruiter workloads, make your recruiting structure more flexible, and build next-generation recruiter capabilities (I should note this is our research focus this year as mentioned in an earlier post so stay tuned for our findings across the summer and fall).
4. Shore up Your Talent Pipelines—Use a combination of offensive and defensive strategies to reduce “leakage” in your pipeline due to heightened turnover. Further, in light of tightened budgets, evaluate ways to source more cost-effectively.

Roundtable members, feel free to jump into our Web site to access our resources and a replay of the webinar we hosted on this topic.

Hiring Outlook Positive But Globally Varied

Employers across global markets plan to increase hiring in 2010, but the pace of hiring varies greatly by global region. The latest global Manpower Employment Outlook Survey reports the strongest hiring forecast in the Asia-Pacific region, weakest in the United States, and mixed in Europe and South and Central Americas.

In the United States and other regions hit hardest by the recession, the hiring outlook remains cautious. According to CareerBuilder’s 2010 Job Forecast, 20% of U.S. employers expect to add headcount in 2010, up from 14% in 2009.

The Asia-Pacific region, on the other hand, expects hiring to return to pre-recession levels in 2010. India reports the strongest hiring plans. The Hiring Outlook Survey by Naukri.com, India’s largest jobs Web site, reports that 72% of recruiters are forecasting new jobs to be added in 2010, up from 45% in July 2009.

Whether your hiring forecast for 2010 is cautious or aggressive, a certain amount of infrastructure is necessary to fulfill hiring plans. Consider the following activities:

• Confirm workforce plans


• Increase size or flexibility of your Recruiting team


• Re-engage talent pipelines


• Assess and address employment brand damage

For more information on these tactics, Roundtable members can see the webinar replay, Jumpstarting Your Hiring Engine. For more trends related to talent attraction and other HR areas, see the HR Quarterly Trends Report published by our sister program, the Corporate Leadership Council, available in March.

Curbing the Crowd

High application volume and low applicant quality is a perennial concern, and it isn't getting better.

Application volume has increased more than 130% worldwide since 2007 to average a staggering 162 applications per open position. Unfortunately, more applications does not equal higher quality applicants. More than half of the applicant pool meets basic qualifications only 15% of the time.

An overload of unqualified applicants causes two familiar concerns. First, the Recruiting team spends more time on candidate screening and less time on more valuable activities such as sourcing and conversion. Second, candidates become dissatisfied with the Recruiting process when they do not receive proper treatment from a rushed Recruiting team. This situation damages the employment brand and causes top talent to depart from the selection process.

While you may think that making it more difficult for unqualified individuals to apply to open positions will help reduce resume volume, this approach could also dissuade top talent from applying. As such, tactics to curb this trend need to be creative:

• Improve Job Posting Clarity—A certain percentage of unqualified applicants simply do not understand the qualifications of the position well enough to know whether they would be a good candidate. Make sure job postings clearly state which qualifications are required for the job (i.e., candidates without these qualifications will be screened out) and which qualities characterize an ideal candidate (i.e., desired but not required). RR members, see the Job Posting Clarity Checklist.


• Rationalize Sourcing Channels—Some channels bring in too many unqualified applicants to justify their ROI. If it is impossible to let go of a channel completely, make tweaks to improve its performance, such as targeting employee referral communications to employees who are most likely to know qualified individuals. RR members, see the Sourcing Channel Evaluation Tool.


• Insert a One-to-Many Candidate Screening Activity—Some organizations require all applicants to attend a teleconference or watch a video that explains the basic qualifications of the position and provides a realistic preview of the job. This method is particularly cost-effective for high-volume positions and provides candidates a chance to self-select out of the application process. RR members, see how Wachovia did this.