Firms complain that there aren’t enough candidates when a job opening needs to be filled yet many firms aren’t taking the necessary steps to ensure they have candidates in the hopper when a position opens. Do projects just fall out of the sky? Ok, maybe on a rare occasion, but most of the time you must nurture relationships in order to be considered for a project pursuit. Recruiting should be looked at in the same way. A great way to find the best fit for your firm is to identify potential candidates before a position opens and develop these relationships.
Recruiting should involve more than just your HR department and executives. Just like marketing and business development, recruiting should be something all staff members do. Some firms have found that having a referral process can be a great way to encourage employees to share the news, but even more important is letting your employees know to keep their eyes out for anyone that might fit the firm’s corporate culture and have skills needed within the company. The best recruiters leverage their staff within the company to help them do their jobs. Here are places employees can find potential new recruits:
In the Deltek Clarity report, project-based firms stated that their top challenge was finding qualified talent. I would beg to differ since talent is always around you and most likely available if you nurture the relationships. I suspect your challenge is just not identifying the talent when you come across it.
Once you find potential candidates, it’s important to capture their information so you can pull from a talent pool. Using the Deltek Talent Acquisition system, recruiters and managers can quickly add resumes to talent pools allowing you to access your potential candidates by categories when a position opens. These talent pools allow you to keep lists of candidates with specific requirements or needs.
We know great Project Managers or Marketing Coordinators are hard to find so you could tag potential candidates as you come across them. Instead of waiting until the position needs to be filled to start your search, with talent pools you can quickly send a templated email asking candidates you have met in the past, that have been pre-qualified, to submit for an opening. Imagine how much easier and quicker recruiting can be by taking a more proactive versus reactive approach.
For project centric businesses, people are your competitive advantage. Ensuring solid talent management best practices within the business means assuring you can find the talent quicker than your competition. See how Deltek Talent can improve your employee hiring process.