22% of companies claim to not be able to fill crucial roles- why?

Good points Lori. Recruiters meet with a line manager and/or an HR Manager and are seldom ever able to get a good feel for the department as a whole. Recruiters are forced to take the job duties on a piece of paper and do the best they can with that. Often times a manager's personality can give clues towards the type of person to search for, but not always. I think the smarter companies out there are striving to hire people that have a worldview that matches up with their own. When you have a team that sees their company and the world through the same lens, you find something very powerful and often times overlooked in business.

Ty,

You bring up a very good point about HR and the Recruiters not knowing the true scope of a position. I remember speaking with a Hiring Manager once about a position and he said the hardest thing when hiring people with certain skills is trying to explain them to the person who is doing the Recruiting...REALLY???? I know that we struggle with that everyday. He went so far as to say HR does not see the open desk everyday or does not see how much more work the other employees have to do because of the void. Now please, the knock is not against HR or the Recruiter, I think it's the Hiring Manager that needs to convey what he/she is looking for but also giving feedback regarding the candidates that are being presented. The individuals are out there, everybody uses the word "fit" now almost to a fault.

I agree with the first respondent and feel strongly that this dilemma exists in many companies regardless of our economic conditions. Corporations fail to view their workforces as "Talent Portfolios". Hiring needs are typically pulled out of the context of the team dynamics and recruitment is tasked with sourcing and interviewing candidates against the "defined" needs of the role versus incorporating the needs of the role and the team. The "team” needs tend to become apparent through the interviewing process with the leaders and members of the hiring team; however, even then it can be difficult for recruitment to garner that information as they are seldom sitting in the room for the interviews as this is very time consuming.

Gathering the team needs, which are often reflected as intangible, intrinsic characteristics, can be tremendously challenging. Utilizing “team role” assessments can be highly beneficial in ascertaining this information and getting to the needed information early on in the recruitment process versus gaining it after months of search efforts and frustrations on all involved parties.

Both DISC and Belbin offer rich team role assessments that allow the needed depth of information to be attained. Additionally, the benefits of the resulting reports reach far beyond identifying hiring gaps and can be used as team building, performance management as well as resource management tools.

I hope you find this information helpful.

Lori Blackman
214-789-5906 mobile

I think the key words here are "crucial roles" - I take this to mean the higher skilled/upper level positions. The vast majority of those unemployed are not from this level therefore, finding these people (on their own without the help from a recruiter) is extremely difficult because - these people ARE working.

Opportunity for all Recruiters out there! In fact, the "role" of the recruiter is one that is expected to grow in the coming years for this very reason.

Crystal (Richardson) Tolmie • In general, in this decade, we will have the greatest amount of folks retiring from the tech arena, add in a drop in the % of folks entering the CS world after the dot bomb, poor job descriptions, biases that make no sense (degree vs experience for instance), and inconsistent interviewing techniques...yep, it can be challenging to get around the many obstacles to achieve great hires and it's not going to get better anytime soon. It is an interesting conundrum considering the high level of unemployment/applicants and the burn rate for not making a hire. Educating and setting expectations for everyone involved in the process is very helpful as well as interviewing candidates after the formal company interview process, gathering strategic information. Even hiring managers don't know what they don't know, and you might be surprised at some of the post interview information you discover. That's the great thing about team efforts that are based on accountability and transparency, you simply get better quality hires/employees.

I have personally asked members of HR, recruiting, hiring managers, group managers and individual contributors what "burn rate" is, out of each of these groups there people who did not know..EACH group. This tells me something. We need to start to act as a hiring team, the company takes responsibility for making or not making hires, not any particular department, we have got to get beyond this tired, unproductive model to achieve higher levels of success. Individually we can't know everything and often don't know things we really should know. Pretending to know something gets in the way of learning and often leads to blaming others. When finger pointing is a more lively topic than the overall lost equity, I have used the approach to offer the recruiting/HR process be informally and in measurable ways audited. I am happy to find ways to improve the process within my department, as any motivated performer would be. After HR/recruiting has made improvements to their contributing side, having led by example, with integrity and collaboration, the next sequential department also needs to be audited measurably and contribute improvements as well, and so on up or down the line this should go. Great candidates look to work with other top performers and deeply desire collaborative environments. Great companies should offer this environment in EVERY department. And EVERYONE should know what "burn rate"is.

I'm reading a great deal about hiring here, what about building depth into the organizations talent pool? Does the organizations culture have any focus on continuous development of talent so they have capable and ready people to take new positions. Is personal continuous improvement part of the culture? Is full accountability at any level part of the culture? Is initiative, creativity and innovation a prime core value of the organization?

These are not just aspects for supervisors or HR, this comes right from the top CEO and executive group and the choices and actions they make. Every organization has talent on the floor today, the question is if the company is capable of developing that talent?

I have to agree with Ty's first response. Most of the most qualified workers are already employed, no doubt biding their time if they are unhappy in their current jobs. We find that our clients sometimes must be reminded that there are good people out there, but you cannot expect them to do things *exactly* the way your company expects when they first walk in the door. Some training is always a requirement, even for the most qualified.

grass is always greener syndrom if you ask me

If you always think there is something/someone better, you will never appreciate what you have in front of you. What is the 'more' or 'better' companies want, when they find someone who is fully qualified and meets all requirements?

Anything that person lacks, you can always train them in and you as a company are also responsible for upping the skills and professional attributes of anyone you hire. So maybe these companies that are passing the great talent up are just lazy, or don't really understand how recruiting and hiring works.

If they evaluate it from a customer/business perspective, they might be a little less picky:
ex: I am sure many customers feel your business can be better in many ways, but they still shop with you or choose you, because they know what you are today as a company won't be the same as next year , b/c you as a company will grow and come to better serve their needs (if you are any good company, that is) What service or product you provide for those customers works great now, so they will just re-evaluate you at the end of the next year (just like it would with a new hire) to determine if they will still shop with you or use you. But remember, each time you get a new customer, it's cause they are giving you a chance based on what you presented to them in marketing/advertising, etc. This is the same as a company giving a chance to someone because of what they had on their resume or how the interview went or the company obviously liked enough to consider hiring - but are just wanting 'the better'

I understand recruiting is expensive, the turnover aspect, but the golden rule is - there is no such thing as perfect and if you are looking for the 'better', that is pretty much the equivalent as it relates to hiring. If you are hiring the right person, they will be willing to learn, grow or accomodate to your business style, so you can create the better on your own!

Each day you don't have a position filled, it costs your company a lot of money. It pulls from other people's time (to cover the work that needs to be done) and it's an energy and time sucker to constantly have to interview and vet and decide, etc.

So just make a decision. If you only want the better, then don't waste anyone's time and determine that 'better criteria' upfront and make a rule with yourself that you won't interview a single person who doesn't have everything listed on that criteria sheet. I mean everything. Believe me, you are saving everyone a lot of time. Don't write a job description to get a pool of candidates when it's not really describing the candidate you want to the T - if you are that picky.

*You gave this statistic to start the thread, but you didn't provide the source. When using statistics, it's helpful to know where you got it from and how current the stat is (the date). So, can we please have that source? Curious is this from a poll of all businesses, small businesses, medium size businesses, does it include start ups? Etc.