Did you know that 67% of large firms encounter challenges while hiring? With a growing labor shortage and massive disruption affecting almost every industry, this statistic is likely to increase in the coming months, causing recruiters to continue scrambling to attract talent to their organizations.
In the face of these challenges, if companies hope to come out on top in the marketplace, it’s essential that they take a proactive approach to hiring rather than a reactive one. Although this approach does require a bit more work in the short term, in the long run, it often pays for itself.
The Pitfalls of Reactive Hiring
For most recruiters within a company, reactive hiring is the norm. In this framework, after a company realizes that they need to fill a key executive position, they will publicize a job opening, wait for candidates to apply, and then make decisions regarding who to hire.
Although this approach can work in some cases, it most often opens organizations to one dreadful possibility: leaving a crucial executive position unfilled for months as they wait for the perfect candidate to turn up. In these scenarios, companies are often strained as their executive team and direct reports struggle to pick up the slack created by the open position.
Beyond that, as organizations face the challenges created by the ever-increasing cost to solicit a candidate’s interest, reactive recruiting can lead to an ineffective, or worse, unsuccessful hiring process.
In some cases, companies transfer their time pressure onto the candidates, encouraging them to commit quickly, often before either party provides enough transparent due diligence. Such a haphazard approach can result in a relationship that doesn’t ultimately work out and having to redo the entire search process.
Thankfully, all of this hiring hassle can be avoided if companies embrace a proactive approach.
Start Hiring Proactively
Proactive hiring is all about anticipating your organization’s succession plan, before your hiring needs become an issue. You may not have an open position at the moment, but you will in the future so it’s important to take steps to create a plan for succession.
Rather than taking a transactional approach to hiring as the reactive method does, proactive hiring is relationship-driven. In fact, proactive succession planning is more about education, transparency, and nurturing relationships to ensure that the organization hires the most qualified executive and the best cultural match.
Everyone’s time is valuable and you will end up spending more money (and time) if you do not practice a proactive approach to executive recruitment. That is why it’s best to engage an executive search firm whose sole job is to find qualified candidates that meet your company’s objectives with a strategic, thoughtful and accountable search process.
Getting Help in the Process
By working with Executives Unlimited, we’ll help you with both succession planning and filling new positions. As we do, you’ll have access to our network of top-tier executive candidates, allowing you to streamline the hiring process even further.