Executives in the US expecting some respite from a softening labor market—after all, it will be easier to hire—may be in for a nasty surprise. In a survey by The Conference Board, 57% of CEOs said they are having trouble attracting qualified employees. While this number has decreased since the last quarter of 2022, it still means that more than half of companies are finding it difficult to hire.
For years, business leaders have complained about their struggle to fill jobs. Usually, they blame the economy or the workforce, or even the American education system. And of course, there are some jobs that are really hard to fill, because there are few who can do it, few are willing to accept less pay for it, or few who want to do it.
But there’s a more obvious reason that hiring is hard: Many recruiters don’t do it well. Too often, they turn away potential employees by subjecting them to a tedious vetting process. They reject promising candidates who don’t meet their impossibly long list of requirements. And they overlook qualified internal candidates for outside talent.
The prevailing attitude towards applicants seems to be, ‘You’ll be lucky to work for us at Heaven Send Corp.’ But with executives having difficulty filling jobs – and the US now having 3 million more open roles than in 2019 – it should consider what the application process looks like from a candidate’s perspective.
That’s exactly what Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi did when he posed as an Uber driver. When the ride-hailing company had trouble attracting new drivers, Khosrowshahi and other executives got behind the wheel—and quickly realized they needed to improve things to compete for workers.
In full-time desk jobs that come with pay and benefits, applicants can expect to face a marathon of interviews, assessments and screenings. According to Glassdoor data, between 2009 and 2019, employers nearly doubled the time they spent interviewing candidates.
In recent weeks, I have seen screenshots of multipage questionnaires that applicants are asked to complete. I’ve heard of hiring processes that last for months and involve meetings with more than two dozen interviewers. It is not uncommon for candidates to be asked to take a personality assessment or complete sample assignments. May take a few hours.
Summing it all up, says Peter Capelli, a professor of management at the Wharton School: Companies today fill about 80% of open roles with outsiders, compared with maybe 5% or 10% a few decades ago. This means that as painful as the hiring process is for a single candidate, it is even more difficult for managers to evaluate multiple applicants.
Companies also want new employees to arrive with skills ready to do the job without any training. But those unicorn candidates often don’t exist, says recruiter Laura Mazzullo, founder of East Side Staffing, especially not at the salaries most employers are willing to pay. It’s a message that many senior executives are reluctant to hear from their human resource departments.
Companies need to bring more discipline in the recruitment process from start to finish. Sure, the first draft of a job description might include a wish-list of 42 different skills and attributes that candidates should possess. But the final version should focus on what’s really needed to get the job done.
The interview process should start in weeks, not months. A handful of structured interviews are more revealing than a dozen free-flowing conversations.
And although judging candidates by sample tasks can bring some objectivity to a process that is often distorted by personal biases, the tasks must be short enough that candidates can complete them in an hour—something that can be expected from evaluating dozens of them. Will also help with hiring managers who do.
One way to combat bad hiring practices is with data. Mazzullo says companies should keep track of how long their roles are, as well as how many candidates they’ve considered and how many offers they’ve made. Following up with those who dropped out of consideration can diagnose problems with the process.
Cappelli also recommends tracking how new hires are performing so managers can answer the most important question: Did that tough recruiting effort really pay off?
An advocate of lengthy recruitment processes might argue that they not only weed out less serious candidates, but also allow potential employees to tire on the organization. But more often than not, a succession of interviews is a red flag, a sign of corporate flab.
When an employer spends six months or a year trying to fill an open role, it has to ask: is this really the labor market? Unless there’s data science or diapers involved, probably not.
Sarah Greene Carmichael is Bloomberg Opinion Editor. ©Bloomberg
catch all business News, market news, today’s fresh news events and Breaking News Update on Live Mint. download mint news app To get daily market updates.