How Often Has Your Business Ignored Solutions to Talent Attraction Problems?
How Often Has Your Business Ignored Solutions to Talent Attraction Problems?
And yet, you continue down the same path, hoping for a positive change. What do they call that practice? Oh yes, insanity.
Let’s face facts: the “Post Online and Hope” approach to attracting the BEST candidates only works about 8% of the time (per Career Transition industry metrics). To put that into perspective, those odds are barely better than a $5 slot machine in Las Vegas, which offers a measly 5.86% return. Not exactly a winning strategy, is it?
Now, you might ask, “Why do so few of the most talented candidates respond to our creative job postings?” My response is simple: they’re either happy where they are or too apprehensive to risk a career change in today’s uncertain landscape.
The Disconnect Between HR and Recruiting
Human Resources plays a critical role in your company: managing benefits, compensation, culture, employee development, training, and HR technology. But let’s be honest—those responsibilities require administrative and compliance skills.
Recruiting, on the other hand, is an entirely different beast. The recruiting process mirrors the sales process almost perfectly. So here’s the million-dollar question:
Does your HR department hire experienced sales professionals to recruit for your company?
Chances are, the answer is no. Why? Because there’s no growth path for a salesperson in a department dominated by administrative and compliance functions.
The Role of Leadership in Recruiting
Here’s another critical question: Are your recruiters managed by a Sales Manager or a Bureaucrat?
When a bureaucrat oversees recruiting, they often focus on the wrong metrics. For instance:
- Do they measure how many impact players your recruiters place, or just how many resumes they shove into the ATS?
- Do they track how long positions remain open, without considering the factors contributing to those delays?
What about the Hiring Manager’s responsiveness? On one of my recruiting contracts, I forwarded several strong resumes to a manager. After two weeks of radio silence, I confronted him at his desk. His response? “I don’t intend to fill this position for five or six months. It’s too hard to get approval for a new role, so I’ll keep it open until then.”
Meanwhile, guess who he blamed for the lack of progress? That’s right—the recruiter.
A Recruitment Sales Manager would’ve addressed this issue immediately, aligning the recruiter and hiring manager on expectations and response times. This kind of leadership is critical for turning recruiting into a success-oriented process rather than a compliance-driven one.
Transforming into a Talent Attraction Company
How can your company become a Talent Attraction magnet, where candidates are lining up at your door for interviews? The answer is simple but bold:
- Reorganize recruiting into your sales organization or
- Create a new Talent Attraction team outside of HR, focused on sales-driven metrics.
Recruiting firms charge hefty fees because they’ve mastered this process. They use sales strategies and metrics to attract and place top talent efficiently. Why not bring that expertise in-house?
By shifting your mindset and structure, you can build a Talent Attraction machine — one that doesn’t rely on chance but thrives on strategy and execution.
It’s time to stop ignoring solutions to your Talent Attraction challenges and start implementing strategies that deliver results.
Are you ready to take the first step toward change? Contact me for a conversation www.recruiterguy.com/contact/
Permission to reprint articles by Bill Humbert is hereby given to all print, broadcast, and electronic media provided that the contact information at the end of each article is included in your publication. For organizations publishing articles electronically, a live, clickable link to https://www.RecruiterGuy.com must also be included with the body of the article. Additionally, please mail one copy of your publication to:
Provocative Thinking Consulting, Inc. 2590 Norwich Street, Fitchburg, WI 53711
- Permission to reprint articles by Bill Humbert, at no charge is granted with the agreement that:
- a. The article bio is included following each article used.b. One copy of the publication in which the article is published is provided to RecruiterGuy.com.
- c. A fee per article will be expected for articles published without the closing bio and contact information; $300.
- Permission is also granted for reasonable:
- Editing content and industry specific example exchange.
- Length.
- Article title change.
- Electronic publishing of articles must include a live, clickable link to https://www.RecruiterGuy.com.
Any questions, please email Bill@RecruiterGuy.com. Thank you.
Bill’s BIO
With 40+ years of Expert Professional Talent Attraction Consultant experience mingled with 26+ years of Expert Career Coaching Experience, Bill is uniquely qualified to Speak, Author, and Consult on Talent Attraction, Career Search, and Proper Goal Setting. He has spoken on The Power of Proper Goal Setting on 3 Continents (Europe, Africa, North America)
Bill began recruiting in 1981 in Washington, D.C. as a fee-based recruiter. He started his own business in 1990 and then focused on consulting and recruiting for one company at a time and charging a flat monthly fee. He has been highly successful with this model and worked with companies in multiple industries (Telecom, Construction, Financial Services, Manufacturing – Food and Consumer Products, Management Consulting, Renewable Energy, etc). He recruited the Chief Operating Officer (COO) for a Restaurant Chain. She started on March 1, 2023.
During the Pandemic, from May 2020 to May 2022, he wrote 104 consecutive weeks of #TalentAttraction #Tuesday blogs and 104 consecutive weeks of #JobSearch #Friday blogs on his RecruiterGuy.com website. For over 26 years, he has coached hundreds of Professionals in successful Career Searches.
He has written 3 Career Search books. The latest, EXPECT SUCCESS! The Science Of The Over 50 Career Search, received a 5 Star Review – https://readersfavorite.com/book-review/expect-success.