Sonru.com

The Wall Street Journal published an article earlier in the week entitled 'Jobs Open, but Filling Them Slows Down' about recruiters' problems finding candidates for skilled positions and/or the prolonged hiring process. Then today I read with interest in Business & Leadership another article along the same lines entitled 'Recruitment difficulties facing Irish companies'. What's going on? Surely there's an abundance of ready talent waiting in the wings to apply to relevant jobs.

The perception that the grass is always greener i.e. there may be better candidiates out there for my job seems to be the key issue State side. Positions that typically took two months to fill before the recession are sometimes taking four times longer, recruiters say, as hiring managers are holding out for better candidates. Managers invited between five and six candidates on average for second-round interviews last year, twice as many as in 2007, according to a survey of 1,500 recruiters at large companies by the Corporate Executive Board.

You would sort of expect a heavier  workload in recruitment/screening these days with the inundation of applications but just because times are hard, jobs are scarce and applicants abound, we must still carry out our business in a structured, fair and timely manner. If you have the correct screening and assessment processes (irrespective of the economic climate) that identify the best people based on the competencies you require, well trust your recruitment process and extend that offer because even in a recession, an ideal employee can be just one competitor away.

While the cost of recruitment seems to be the issue in Ireland according to new research conducted by Symbio HR. Having identified significant job vacancies across a number of sectors in the Irish economy, they found  that business owners are becoming increasingly frustrated with the challenges and costs involved in recruitment. “The time and effort now required to fill positions for some of these high-value export oriented companies is now becoming a limiting factor in their growth plans.  These companies are looking for very specific skill sets and its becoming increasingly time consuming and risky trying to do that,” said Niall Saul, chairman of Symbio.

Saul was speaking at the launch of a new technology led recruitment service which will facilitate SME companies in their recruitment programmes. The new service uses different applications from a number of companies including Symbio HR, Cut-e, Amris, and our good selves in Sonru.com to provide online applications, testing and interviewing for companies.

So if you're worried about the cost of recruitment or even more worried that the person you're about to hire might not be the perfect person for the job, then take a look at some of the tools we're offering to close the loop on the recruitment process from Applicant Tracking and Screening through to Hiring and Post-Hire Analysis.