Adjusting to Changing Markets

How have you and your organization positioned yourselves to capitalize on changes in the employment market? Here are some tools:

Keeping your finger on the pulse of the market:  Through the effective use of industry contacts, employment resources (firms you may partner with) and articles related to staffing, you can gauge what the current market is like and what you can expect to find on upcoming recruiting assignments. By having an idea of the current market for a given position, you can alleviate surprises that cause delays in hiring and unexpected internal equity issues if salaries are on the rise. 

Planning recruiting activities:  By giving advance notice to HR and recruiting firms, line managers can greatly increase the effectiveness of their recruiting process. By planning for needs, you allow HR and/or recruiting firms the time necessary to be able to source the best candidates for a given position. With the candidate pool tightening, advance notice will aid in a thorough search process resulting in the presentation of higher quality candidates. Even for contract needs, advance notice is extremely helpful in producing the best candidates. 

Monitoring the success of your recruiting strategies:  This will help you in determining the best approach for a given position. Companies have shifted their recruiting strategy over the past couple of years and have relied heavily on employment advertising. The market is changing and that strategy may not be yielding the results it was last year. By monitoring the success (timeframes, costs of internal staff time) of your various recruiting programs, you can effectively strategize the best approach for the next project. 

Adjusting the recruiting strategy for changes in the market: By understanding changes in the market and the success rates of current and recent recruiting campaigns, you can effectively make adjustments to your recruiting strategy in order to stay on top of the market. By having a recruiting strategy that allows for flexibility, subtle changes in the resources you employ can dramatically affect the outcome of recruiting campaigns. 

Currently, we are facing some interesting changes in the employment market, which are creating voids in the candidate pool for some technologies, and overall are making things tougher in terms of finding the best candidates. The way you view, construct, monitor and adapt your recruiting process can have significant impacts on the overall duration and cost structure of a recruiting effort.