“ When opposing expectations collide, opportunity is often the innocent victim.
Nobody escapes uninjured “
Whether the job hunter or the employer, when stepping into the murky and turbulent waters of employment, everyone has expectations - but they are often misaligned and this can cause opportunities to be missed on both sides of the sea.
From a recruiters perspective, we hear it all;
“I send my CV out to heaps of jobs, but I don’t hear anything back”
“There’s no strong candidates applying for the job”
“They made me interview 3 times, then rejected me”
“We offered a fair salary, but they took another offer”
“The hiring process took too long, so I went a different direction”
“There’s a skill shortage, so we can’t fill our roles”
Just as each of these are true, also none of them are a total truth. Each jobseeker when they enter the market has a different expectation and different behaviours in how they approach the job market; as does each employer. Success is often down to how both parties navigate the alignment of their ideas and expectations.
When moving into the recruitment process, both parties can benefit from having a good internal HR or external Recruiter to navigate between the introduction, the offer and the expectation, because it’s not a one-sided negotiation and there’s many ways to catch that big fish - or find the right people.
There’s also many ways to attract the right people to the job - and they can all be time consuming. The first step is often identifying the right people from job boards, social media networks, recruitment databases and good old ‘word of mouth’. Not everyone who would be good for the role is actively on the market watching the advertising spaces for their next role, but most are willing to consider an opportunity when it is presented to them. This is a time commitment that a Manager often doesn’t have and is much better suited to the tenacity of a Recruiter if the goal is to find the best people for the role. This stage of the process isn’t going to happen without active engagement in the process and directly with the candidates.
Once you have identified the potential candidates and introduced them to the role, whether they were currently seeking a new role or still employed, they are now going to be ‘activated’ to the possibility of employment, so now the clock is ticking. They may be keen to talk with you regarding your company/role, but now they are also considering what else is available and there is nothing stopping them looking at other roles. Now, the tide of change is pulling as they wade into the muddy waters - and the tide is rising. This period is often the first critical stage of ‘misalignment’ between the employer and the employee.
Now that you have identified your candidate, you arrange an interview. If that is successful, you may bring them back for a second interview, or even a third. Then once this stage is satisfied, you may want to do some reference checks, or internal due diligence if you have a network in the industry. Then there’s the medical, drug and criminal checks….and the tide keeps rising, the currents of change keep pulling as your candidate wades further into the waters.
During these processes, there are many situations that can create significant delays. What if the hiring Manager or Dept Head are not available? The interview is delayed another week. What if all decision makers weren’t involved in the initial interview? A second interview is required, delaying the process another week. What if the candidate can’t get time off work to meet? Another delay. What if the referees aren’t available to discuss the candidate? More delay. Then there is the medical, drug and MOJ due diligence to complete. Delay. These delays can amount to weeks, even months in some cases - and these days, weeks and months are all pushing the waters of change higher and higher as the candidate moves deeper through the murky waters. But wait - what if you’re not the only shark in the water?
During all these delays and indeed from the moment the candidate became ‘active’ there is great risk of other job opportunities to arise, especially when the candidate has highly sought after skills. What the recruiter cannot influence through this process is the time elapse from introduction to employment - more specifically, the time it takes to reach decision - and this is often the point in the swim when expectations drown.
As recruiters, we get to see this from both sides of the swim - not just the ‘failure to connect’ in the process, but also the inevitable disappointment from both candidates and clients when an opportunity is missed. We see many career opportunities missed for many different reasons, but probably the most frustrating of these is when the solution is to speed up the process.
Sometimes, when you are confident that you have found the right person for the job, it just makes more sense to move things along faster rather than risk losing the candidate and having to start the whole swim again.
Looking for the right staff to join your team is a lot like fishing as the struggles not over until the catch is in the boat. Don’t lose the trophy after all the work to hook the big one through not moving fast enough.