10 Big Recruitment Challenges and Solutions You Need to Be Aware of in 2023

Hiring the top available talent is a challenge to this day. It doesn’t matter whether you are an HR professional or an HR manager or a recruiter, it is pretty normal to find yourself swamped with challenges involved in the recruitment process. These days recruitment is more than only posting a job vacancy and hoping that the ideal candidate will apply. It is all about optimizing and streamlining the whole process right from job requisition to the actual job offer. Here are some common recruitment challenges and their solutions.

Attracting and engaging the best talent: More than 70% of the HR team members spend valuable time trying to figure out the best available candidate for their roles. They spend an endless amount of time going through the CVs only to find that none of them is a perfect match. To avoid this problem, you need to go back to the beginning to create job descriptions that are engaging to try and convert the top available talent. You need to avoid overused jargon, gender bias, and outdated job requirements.
Raise and extend the candidate reach: One of the common problems involved in recruitment is reaching the right candidates. You need to broaden the talent pool and improve job visibility. However, due to scarce resources and tools, this can be difficult for the hiring teams. You need to have a remote recruitment strategy in place for this. There are hiring platforms available with a wide range of free and paid job boards. It is easy to cross-post on several channels and it is hassle-free.
Management of candidate influx: This challenge is present for all the recruiters struggling to find a proper balance between decreasing the time for recruitment and managing hundreds of resumes. After the impact of COVID19 subsides, the recruiters will be faced with a flood of inbound candidates. It can be overwhelming especially when there are no right resources available for managing and optimizing the incoming applicants. You can use an applicant tracking system to optimize the hiring process.
Maintaining a top employer brand: Employer branding these days is an essential component of the recruitment process. However, several companies out there are not leveraging this. Many companies are struggling to maintain a positive employer brand. They use lackluster candidate communication, outdated processes, inefficient interviews, and lengthy application forms for their HR practices. You need to grab the attention of your candidates and show them why they should select you as an employer.
Providing an enjoyable candidate experience: If a candidate is faced with a negative experience, they will not only reject an offer but will also have many bad things to say about a company online. There are these kinds of challenges involved in the recruitment process and the hiring teams need to concentrate on them. The recruitment process is the first real contact made by the candidate with your organization. Ensure that you live up to their expectations. A dreary and slow process is where the top talent will be lost.
Ensure a human touch: Technology has a crucial role to play in the hiring process. Most recruiters are relying on it after the advent of remote work. Technology allows them to optimize all the recruitment functions at the back end. However, on the front end, a human touch is necessary. You do not want the candidates to feel that they are interacting with machines and robots. You need to add a human touch to the entire process. You can use video assessment for helping you out.

Hiring quickly: Most hiring teams are looking to hire new talent as quickly as possible. This is because these vacant situations can cost you a lot of money and they also result in a delay in operations. Still, depending on your area of operations, sometimes recruitment can take many months. This puts additional pressure on the frustrated hiring teams and recruiters. Taking a long time to recruit someone might be a by-product of talent shortage as qualified candidates are not available many times. Sometimes, the recruitment process goes on for a long time or many times the hiring teams struggle to agree. This can cause the best candidate to find a good job elsewhere.

For avoiding these delays, you need to consider your recruitment process and ask yourself, are these hiring stages really necessary? Are we looking for candidates in the right areas? Are we working towards filling the vacancy with candidate pipelines? Are we communicating fast enough with each other and the candidates? All these queries can be replied to by using the recruitment metrics from the ATS or Applicant Tracking System you own. Many times, it is pretty natural to take a long time to hire. This is true especially when you are hiring difficult-to-fill roles. Explain this situation to the recruiting team and set your expectations early on. Make them aware of what a realistic timeline is. Highlight the significance of recruiting carefully for roles when a bad hire may cost a lot of money.

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Use of data-driven hiring: Businesses may use recruitment data and metrics for continuous improvement in their recruitment process and for making informed decisions. However, the collection and processing of data can turn out to be a big hassle. Maintaining spreadsheets is one of the ways of tracking all recruitment data. However, these methods are subject to human errors and they can be non-compliant. This makes it difficult to track the data and trends properly. The hiring teams have to find ways of compiling and efficiently organizing the data and streamlining the operations. You may store data and use systems such as ATS for exporting helpful reports. You can also utilize recruitment marketing software or Google Analytics for this purpose. There is no need to track all the available recruitment metrics. You can conduct a conversation with the senior management for settling for some key metrics that will make sense to you and your organization.
Develop a strong employer brand: Having a good employer brand helps attract and engage better talent. Companies that can invest in employer branding have a better chance of making a high-quality hire. Still, this is a complicated process that includes many things such as making sure that, the candidates are receiving a positive experience with your organization. This promotes the culture of your organization over social media. This is a collective and continuous effort that needs you to come out of your normal duties and then secure buy-in from co-workers. Keep in mind to reply courteously to online reviews which can either be good or bad. Provide the means to the co-workers allowing them to tell your story about their work and what they enjoy doing. For instance, they may enjoy the experience if you use videos and blogs. Above all, you need to be projecting yourself as a good employer and it shows.
Fair recruitment: There are several organizations out there that struggle to hire and attract a diverse set of candidates. The main reason for this problem is an unconscious bias for the candidates. It is mandatory to provide equal opportunity to all the candidates but not only that it is necessary to recruit objectively. It helps hire the most suitable candidates for a job without having to face the interference of stereotypes. It will result in having an all-inclusive workplace that displays to the prospective candidates that you have a meritocracy in your organization. It also allows you to benefit from the positive aspects of having diversity. You need to use objective hiring techniques such as remote recruitment strategies for this such as structured interviews or working with an international PEO firm.

Conclusion

You might feel a bit daunted by all these things. However, some of these recruitment challenges are common in many workplaces and at some point, in time you will face them. All recruitment teams have a fair share of challenges therefore, you should not feel discouraged if you are faced with them as well. By using these solutions, you can overcome the recruitment mountains and stay ahead of the curve as they say. If you are facing more problems than just some of these recruitment challenges, you can get help from hiring platforms to automate the hiring process.

Author Bio:

This article is written by a marketing team member at HR Cloud. HR Cloud is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications & engagement, and rewards & recognition. Our user-friendly software increases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk.