What Are The Key Challenges for Recruiters in the Current Market?

Introduction

The ultimate objective of every recruiter is to fill a vacancy as quickly as possible. Surely with more candidates per job, this should be an easy job! However, there can be nothing further from the truth. There are multiple challenges that recruiters face while trying to recruit for a role. These challenges hinder the efficiency and effectiveness of the recruitment process. It impacts all parties concerned in various degrees, i.e. recruiters, job-seekers/candidates and employers. For at least the latter two the impact is more profound and long term as they are in it for a longer haul. In the following paragraphs we outline some of these challenges. These have been extracted from feedback received from recruiters, job-seekers, employers and human resource professionals.

Challenge # 1: High Volume of Unqualified Applicants

Issue

Most roles that are advertised on job sites attract a high volume of applications. But the bulk of these are usually from unqualified applicants whose skill-set is irrelevant to the role. If we consider that a role is advertised on multiple sites, then we can very easily imagine the multiplier effect. Sifting through these applications and filter out the relevant ones is time-consuming (time is money).

Impact

The sheer volume of unqualified applicants and irrelevant applications results in delays in arriving at an appropriate short-list. Due to pressure on timelines, the short-list may not contain the best selection causing qualified candidates to lose out, thereby impacting the human resource quality of the employer.

Challenge # 2: Poor Candidate Engagement

Issue

Most job sites provide little or no tool for communication with candidates. In the absence of effective tools, recruiters are forced to rely on the conventional modes of communication involving email and phone calls. Furthermore, there are limited or no way in which these sites facilitate email messages. This means that often candidates are not aware of how their application is progressing.

Impact

The lack of effective communication causes candidates to drift away from the role and pursue other roles. It also creates a negative impression in the candidates’ minds.

Challenge # 3: High Competition

Issue

Job listings across different job sites may end up competing for the same candidate, for different roles. This is especially the case where the role requires a specialised or niche skill and/or experience. Employers and recruiters struggle to ensure visibility for their roles in such cases.

Impact

In order to try and make their advertisement stand out, recruiters often opt to pay high charges for premium posts that promise more visibility. This raises hiring costs, but may not be as effective as desired.

Challenge # 4: Lack of Effective Customisation Options

Issue

Job sites either have a rigid structure or a complex range of options while creating a job post. This means that recruiters have limited ways to showcase the role and their principal’s USPs.

Impact

We provide a simple yet easily discernible form and relevant options for creating a job post. The form provides multiple relevant options that are highly sought after by candidates. Candidates can apply filters related to these parameters to arrive at their preferred result. Additionally, the rich text editor provides the ability to highlight other relevant details.

Challenge # 5: Cost of Advertising

Issue

This is probably the biggest concern, especially for small and medium entities. Leading job sites charge significant amounts for normal advertising, let alone premium advertising. Some sites like Indeed and LinkedIn have charging models that use targeted advertising and work similar to Pay Per Click advertising used by search engines. This adds more complexity to the cost dimension.

Impact

Apart from creating serious budget constraints, high and unpredictable costs can limit the ability of recruiters, especially small and medium entities, from reaching out to quality candidates for their roles. This creates an artificial handicap instead of a level playing field.

Challenge # 6: Outdated Candidate Profiles

Issue

It is very common for candidates to not have updated their profiles in a while, resulting in outdated CVs. Additionally, some job sites recycle or do not flag old CVs, resulting in flagging profiles of inactive users as active.

Impact

Recruiters end up wasting valuable time browsing through and reaching out to inactive users. This causes further delays to the hiring process. In case recruiters are paying for searching CVs within the database, this effectively means that they are paying for redundant or irrelevant data and hence, are not receiving value for money.

Conclusion

The above challenges force recruiters to explore new avenues for meet their recruitment objectives, e.g. social media, digital marketing, utilising employer’s brand publicity campaigns, etc. Also, the above-mentioned challenges are not unique to recruiters in UK, but these are symptomatic of the problems faced by recruiters globally.