28 maj
Over the last 50 days we have spoken to 50 hiring managers all over Sweden on the topic: main challenges in recruitment. Since one could argue that we are on a path to turn the recruitment industry upside down, by creating a marketplace in order to set a new standard regarding process and price, it is of course of huge interest to us to speak to those hiring managers and different members of HR-departments that on a daily basis work in this specific field.
We asked them for the biggest challenge in recruitment of today, giving them no alternatives to choose from but their own gathered experience, and followed this up by listing 10 potential challenges. We asked them to rank these challenges with a number between 1 and 10, depending on how much of a challenge it was to them in their daily work. 1 equaled a non-existing challenge, while 10 would be a very common and big problem.
If you missed part 1 we recommend you to go there and have a look – definitely some juicy insight to gain. But now: time for part 2:
Today we’ll dig deeper into three of the challenges where we have the largest variances on the answers. Variance is originally a statistical or financial metric which tells you the volatility of a dataset. Or in other words: how much the answers differ from each other.
For example: a dataset of the numbers 4, 5 & 6 would have a lower variance than a dataset of the numbers 10, 1 & 4 – even though they have the same mean.
Below, you’ll find 3 of the challenges with the highest variances, which is interesting because even though it doesn’t seem like the main challenges, it may definitely be – in some sub-groups.
1. “We find it hard to work with competence- and personality tests. Partly what tests to use, and also how to implement them in our processes”.
While the overall answer is 5.0, which easily could be translated to “an issue, but not that big of a problem”, the variance is above 10 – which tells us that this is a subject where the opinions differ, and that by a lot.
While tests could be used in order to make the processes faster and more objective, it could also be used counter-productively depending on what you as a hiring manager are interested in accomplishing, and how well you have prepared for the process. We wrote a piece of our own on this topic a couple of weeks ago, where I almost got rejected for “looking like a douche according to the tests”.
Although there could be question marks regarding what tests to use and how to use them, we are in the end positive to the phenomenon, and believe that tests will play a big role in the future.
2. “We don’t have time to handle the recruitment processes on our own”
We touched upon this topic in part 1, but there is more in this answer. Most employers want to handle the recruitment process on their own in order to fully control it, but a large part find it hard to make up the time – why is that and how could this be treated?
One way could of course be to help the companies with the most time consuming parts of the recruitment process, for example the sourcing of candidates – while letting the companies keep their own recruitment process. There are several ways to do this, and what way you choose matters both in terms of cost and impact over time. To dig deeper into this strategic question, we created a guide.
3. “It’s a hassle to deal with recruitment agencies”
The average answer is 5.8 and the median is 6. With these numbers in mind, at first sight it looks like the “Test-challenge” in number 1, “an issue, but not that big of a problem”. But when digging a bit deeper into what the 50 hiring managers and members from several HR-departments really said, we realized that this is a question that divides our audience into two different teams in terms of opinion.
On one hand, there are a lot of hiring managers who believe that after they actually have chosen a recruitment partner to go with, they only see pro’s. On the other hand there are several who believe that there is friction in more than one part of the process. First, to go through sales calls or meetings with several different agencies in order to decide who to go with. Later, when needed to pay up front with no guarantee but an “insurance” of a new recruitment if they’ll fail this one – which will take floods of time.
There is no shock in understanding that the opinions regarding challenges in recruitment differs from each other, quite the contrary actually – but it is of great importance to understand in what areas if you – like us, are interested in solving these challenges.
In the next part we’ll dig into the challenges where the 50 hiring managers on average had the same opinion – in other words: the main challenges if you ask the majority. Stick around!
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