Top view of two business people sitting at a table, engaged in interview.

Six Common Recruiting Challenges (And Their Solutions)

January 23, 2023

Whether filling a role or creating a new position, recruiting is essential to ensuring you hire the right person for the job. But this isn’t always a straightforward process. In many cases, small and medium-sized businesses, especially, face challenges in recruitment.

In this post, we’ll explore some challenges and actionable solutions to make this process easier.

Attracting The Right Talent

Wording job descriptions accurately while maintaining your brand throughout is incredibly important. Otherwise, you may receive applications that lack experience, culture fit, or skills crucial to the role. 

Solution

Invest time in developing your job descriptions and placing your job listings in the right places. The right talent is out there, but if they can’t find you or don’t feel they’d be a good fit based on your job description, they won’t apply.

Hiring Quickly

Some industries may take months to find someone ideal for their open positions. In either case, a vacancy can have an impact on a company both financially and operationally. It’s a recruitment challenge that plagues hiring managers, especially if there is a talent shortage. 

Solution

Consider your hiring process. Have you been looking and posting in the right places to fill your vacant position? What about your response time to candidates or the method used to vet them? Bear in mind that it is better to hire carefully than it is to hire quickly.

Growing Your Employer Brand

It’s a continuous process to curate your brand’s image, which can be demanding for recruiters who already have a lot on their plates. As a result, ensuring everyone who applies to the role has a positive experience can be a significant challenge.

Solution

Allow current employees to share stories about their jobs and what they like about them. Connect with those who leave online reviews, even if they are negative. Showcase your ability to be personable and reliable on multiple platforms where potential candidates can see what your business is like.

Measuring Recruitment Success

While hiring is the goal of recruitment, you can’t measure this process’s success simply by filling a position. Managing all the moving pieces of recruiting might not leave much room to see what success is or looks like. 

Solution

Develop Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) associated with your recruitment process. KPIs might include application completion rate, qualified applicants per opening, or offer acceptance rate. Adjust as necessary over time to ensure your recruitment success is where you want it to be.

Create an Efficient Recruiting Process

The hiring process is one of the main challenges that recruiters and hiring managers face. Communication, scheduling, and reviewing are involved and, depending on how things are done, can be difficult to coordinate.

Solution

There are a few ways you go about streamlining your recruiting process. You might consider implementing technology or working with a consulting firm experienced with recruiting best practices to complement your efforts. 

Standing Out from Other Businesses

If your company exists in a saturated market or industry, it might be a real challenge to set yourself apart from your competitors when recruiting. This situation can be frustrating and defeating if you constantly learn that your preferred candidates have accepted other offers. 

Solution

No matter who you hire, we recommend investing time in making every candidate’s experience pleasant. Communicate effectively, and don’t be afraid to showcase your company’s culture and the benefits of working there. You’ll attract more qualified candidates while improving your company’s reputation. 

Are you constantly facing challenges in recruitment? At True North, we connect employers with the talent they’re looking for. To learn more about our recruiting process or other services we offer, reach out to us