As digital technology has made communicating with future talent appear much more simple and cost effective, there has been an obvious increase in the number of HR and resourcing professionals taking a ‘DIY’ approach to recruitment. After all, in-house recruiting experts will be embedded in their relevant industry and that enables them to pull in talent from their networks when needed. But what about those roles that fall outside your specialism?
As an HR professional within the engineering sector, for example, would you know where to find the best internal comms manager? Unlikely. And would you, then, have the time to go about sourcing this talent? If you’re like most HR professionals I know, with rising demands and decreasing resources, the answer is likely to be the negative.
There are, understandably, motivators driving the attempts to keep resourcing close to the business. For example, we found in a recent survey of just over 200 in-house recruiters that, of the 71% who believed they would be still be able to source mainstream entry to mid-level talent directly without using outside help, cost saving (52%) and controlling the employer brand (46%) were key influencers.
However, with the employment market now turning in favour of the job seeker, these professionals will soon face a variety of barriers in engaging with and attracting the best talent in a cost-effective manner. Not only will there be the need to drill down the specific platform relevant to communicate with specialist individuals, but also being able to select the best from the crowded market will certainly be time consuming.
It’s encouraging, then, that a sizeable proportion of the research group (77%) admitted that they were likely to seek outside help in recruiting for more specialist, non-core roles in their organisations. As one in-house resourcer put it: “It’s simply not worth my while to have highly specialist recruiters on the payroll who might only be called on once in a blue moon. Trying to handle absolutely every vacancy that comes up just wouldn’t be viable. At my company, for example, we need to be focusing on the techies that make up the majority of our workforce and give us our competitive advantage.”
The changing business landscape over recent years has, quite simply, led to a more pressurised environment for resourcing managers. With on-going financial constraints and increasing demand to source the best entry to mid-level talent, internal recruiters are facing tough times. As resourcing teams look to attract this talent quickly and effectively, there is an obvious need to bring employers and candidates from specialist markets together on one platform.
While social media channels and job boards go some way in providing access to candidates, the huge volume and variety of job seekers using these mediums will result in significant time and cost implications due to the amount of sifting required. Using specialist networks that connect resourcing managers directly with the right candidates – PR and communications professionals for example – or even just using a specialist recruitment partner to sift the initial response levels – will reduce both time and cost.
